On April 4th, 2020, Youtuber ahmad faizar uploaded “Drive Through Supermarket Concept 1” to mixed, if not poor reviews, with many comments commenting on the hazards of such an idea, as well as the cost of building and maintaining an idea like this. Naturally, it flopped, but it was the catalyst for other ideas, such as online grocery shopping, which also became popular around this time, given the pandemic that had started just months earlier. Anyways, in 2017, Walmart released a metaverse shopping demo to mostly negative reception, with most claiming that it took too long, and was simply just creepy, given the Walmart employee always staring at you. There is an idea to better improve the metaverse shopping experience, by both simplifying it, making it more accessible, and managing expectations, those being that people will still want to shop at a physical store.
Anyways, the first objective when creating a user-friendly application should be ease of access and simplification. This is especially important in an environment akin to the metaverse, which is still fairly new to the general public. For example, the current user interface for the shopping demo is clunky, slow, and eerie, given that you have to traverse an entire Walmart to search for goods, then pick up the items with the “hands” given to you, and then place it in the cart, all to have to go to the checkout counter and pay for your items, and only after entering your card information, you may be allowed to exit the store. This is by definition, clunky, even without the drawn-out explanation I’ve just given. My proposed idea to simplify this would be a large catalog-style page for not just Walmart, but all shopping industries that take advantage of the metaverse’s technology. For example, there exists a program titled Virtual Desktop which allows users to view their computer screen, but on a large scale in their virtual reality headset, and given the ease of most retail shopping center’s online pages, It seems incredibly easy to select a store from say, a district within the metaverse enter, select your items from separate lists and indexes, pay, and either have them delivered for a small tip or drive there yourself and pick up your items. Walmart already has dedicated pick-up zones for online shoppers, so they would definitely have it the easiest. Not only that, but it could help put more jobs out there, with people in charge of keeping the program up and running, and given the inevitable income that this will bring in, it can also provide sustainable and high salaries for those now working in the metaverse division. But what about mom and pop shops? Those are a rapidly dying market ever since the internet popped up, and retail chains took them over one by one, which is, admittedly, pretty dystopian, but there's still hope, because many of these shops have their own websites already, so it shouldn’t be that big of a leap to transfer this technology into a digital storefront within the metaverse, and keeping the simplified nature of the original, retail idea, consistent, that should make it all the better for the customer, without bad UI, or creepy visuals.
The next problem facing the metaverse in terms of online shopping is accessibility. For example, the average cost for a virtual reality headset is around $350, and many people just can't scrape together that sort of money. Now, of course, as these headsets become more and more ingrained in our society, the prices will drop, that’s what happened with cars, the model T was around $24,000 in 2022 dollars, and nowadays, you can find a good used one for between $1-$2k, which is amazing, really, and shows the possibilities of advancing technology. The whole thing about cost for a headset and such reminds me of what Bill Gates was talking about when he mentioned that he wanted a computer on every desk, and he saw that not even 50 years later, meaning that widely accessible headsets and metaverse experiences aren’t that far off for the average consumer. Another factor to consider is people who want a shopping experience similar to normal, but can’t leave the house for either mental health reasons, they need to care for someone, or they physically can't leave the house under a medical health condition, like a disease. This will offer a similar program to those in that situation, especially after more and more homes have a virtual reality headset in them.
The final issue surrounding this whole metaverse online shopping experience is the management of expectations. We’ve all seen companies go too big too fast and have nowhere to go. Say that Walmart, Target, or any other large corporation invests too much into something that may not be the future that we had all hoped it would be. For example, a metaverse shopping experience. Who knows? Maybe the public will grow tired of it eventually and want to go back to shopping in real life, so, business will have to be ready to not go under if the idea of metaverses falls through. A good plan for this could be to have a separate division. Perhaps a small offchute from the store, labeled “metaverse department” with its own team of people well-versed in it as well as its various facets. For example, Walmart already employs over 2 million employees, so, odds are, an amount of them are already well-versed in the metaverse, and can even train new employees in it with their previous knowledge. This program and possible expansion can add more people, because of course such a large program will need a large group of people, especially in such a new market.
Of course, it can be left up to CEOs and executives as to how this will play out in the real shopping world, but I can see a bright future here.
In conclusion, the idea of introducing the metaverse into the commercial shopping industry, namely larger brands at first, Walmart, Target, Costco, and such, and if it yields good reception, then more and more businesses can enter for themselves, while also still keeping up to date with the wants and needs of current consumers, those wants and needs being shopping in a physical store especially if metaverses, in general, went under. Of course, in order to optimize the experience to make it more enjoyable for the consumer, we would need simplification, as previously mentioned, because clearly Walmart did a pretty bad job at that already. Overall, it’s fairly straightforward to implement, and wouldn’t be that drastic of a change from normal online shopping, and it would improve people’s shopping experience, and achieve higher ratings from consumers.
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