Online retailing has been turning over new leaves with its success at a tremendous pace and technology with that- has only been better. The foremost example of this is the arrival of virtual showrooms!
Visualize going to your favorite showroom from any part of the world, at any time, but virtually.
Was it ever realistic in your imagination? Technology is a potent rescuer of our lives today. Virtual showrooms are a new phenomenon, and certainly, the positive results are escalating only higher.
Also known by other names such as an online showroom, or a digital showroom, it is an experimental and innovative technical solution that puts AI, ARQ, and other technologies in use, permitting buyers and brands to engage and sell products in a virtual mode, respectively. It is accessible to all brands working in different arenas, including tiles, kitchen equipment, furniture, automobiles, real estate, lighting, you name it.
Unlike physical showrooms or trade shows, the presence of virtual showrooms drops the need for buyers to go to the store physically and be there from their comfortable location at any time, any day.
The buyers can know the store, try products, seek help if required, and buy products on the same platform. Visitors can also familiarize themselves with the history of your brand and discover your products in 3D through any mobile device.
These stores also have the feature of 3D virtual sampling functionalities, which eliminates the need for physical sampling.
According to McKinsey, “both B2B buyers and sellers prefer the new digital reality. Around 70%–80% of B2B decision-makers prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service.”
The rewards aligned with digital showrooms are not specified for a particular group of participants. They are endless for retail buyers and brands, including easier scheduling, saving money, and safety.
Let us dive into the elaborate version of its benefits:
The introduction of virtual showrooms may already have created a listicle of its benefits in your mind. These could be a reduction in costs, waste minimization, a boost in sales, more space accommodating new products, etc.
A closer look at the benefits below:
Right at the top of the stack of its benefits is the global permission a virtual showroom provides for businesses.
Since lives are busy and people only have a certain amount of time to take out of their busy schedules, visiting physical showrooms is at a blur level of their to-do lists. This creates an opportunity for brands to emphasize virtual showrooms, which could also be visited while the customer is doing nothing, say commuting for work, or even when the person is just lying to take a break.
We would like to introduce this as, “doing the job on a treadmill,” because a virtual showroom is never off its job.
This comes as a fresh initiation for brands where they can be less exhausted humanly, and yet be available to their customers without weekly offs – being available 24/7 for customers round the clock, and all over the world depending on their time zones. This is beneficial for customers in that they can choose the time most preferable to them when they are not occupied, and thoroughly make the most of the immersive experience of the virtual store.
A physical showroom visit is the best shopping experience, however, having that experience visually in a detailed manner makes the virtual showroom the next best option.
Moreover, a digital tour of the showroom displays products in the store or a factory, and it also adds a lot more information utilizing text and visuals – that are usually not in reach during the physical showroom visits.
For example, a physical showroom can have everything best with enough attendants, yet it could be impossible to give undivided attention to customers for long, given the presence of other customers in the store.
Thus, in that case, a virtual showroom provides a one-to-one experience with only comfort and no disturbance.
The other great reward of offering the option of a virtual Showroom is that it never gets crowded, unlike a physical store, which also limits the number of sales made at one time. In virtual space, it offers space to infinite people and allows limitless purchases which could take place simultaneously.
In crux, with a virtual showroom, a brand can open a new path for itself to achieve new milestones with more sales in less time, also saving on other expenses.
Finally, we cannot go off without saying this, it is all about money – the primary purpose of any business.
Unlike a physical store which requires a lot of expenses to even rent a space, employ an efficient staff, pay the utilities, and ensure safety, a virtual store gets the ball running and hits the ground running! It makes lives easier for brands with its great and inexpensive way to launch and make the sales process ready.
The return on investment or ROI is not simply better than before, but also quicker than ever.
In the virtual space, visitors are only offered rewards and no inch of disturbance at all.
With a gallon of things being exciting for eyeballs, keeping the visitor at interest is extremely imperative as anything that does not hold interest is quickly dismissed.
On the other hand, however, with a virtual showroom, you can sustain customers on the website with diverse features like creative designs and activities such as product configurations, promotional offers, and special days, which would not just boost customers’ retention on your website, but also improve the ranking on google.
Having a virtual showroom is not enough, you need to make sure that you are also generating revenue with it.
Ride through the following blooming ways to make that possible:
Teasers come under the category of marvelous ways to tap on the curiosity nerve of the customers.
With teasers, you talk about your new products and add links here and there to take your customers to the virtual showroom, which will also create expectations in the minds of the buyers.
On the official website of your brand, you can introduce customers to the idea of visiting a virtual showroom by adding a little more information through texts and creatives.
Being new and unique in the market, the visitor will witness a wonderful experience, exploring the virtual showroom, discovering information, and learning more about the products that your brand offers.
We assure you that hosting your customers and giving them a virtual tour is high key going to perform impressive results for you.
Moreover, you can also invite your important clients, and provide them with a guided walkthrough of your virtual showroom. During the tour, you can introduce them to specific products and information that you may want your customers to know about.
This can effectively provide a boost to your sales, as well as enhance your brand’s image.
One idea you might want to follow for your marketing purpose could be adding QR codes of your virtual showrooms on the packaging of the products. This will turn rewarding because of its new and uniqueness in the market.
Your customers can buy products directly from the virtual showroom by scanning the QR code using their smartphones.
As done before, this mode is known worldwide, because the world is on social media. If you want your brand to reach people, you must initiate by reaching those people first, and that is feasible through social media.
Run a campaign on social media that is as new and unique as a virtual showroom. Captivate the customers; then step on the ladder.
LinkedIn is an effective platform, and this is also used to market a brand effectively, and in your case, you can do that with a virtual showroom. Create various events and share them with people. Ask your connections and followers to take part in it!
It is also recommended to add the virtual showroom link to your profile, so that the audience visiting your profile does not go off it.
Unlike a physical showroom, a virtual showroom sanctions you to reach people all over the world without being tied to a specific location. Visitors can also familiarize themselves with the history of your brand and discover the products in 3D through any mobile device.
Read on to find out what makes a virtual showroom unique:
A virtual showroom uses 3D photorealistic renderings that highlight the qualities of the product. Every item in a virtual reality environment is likely to be examined by the user and must look perfect from every angle!
The virtual showrooms use immersive virtual showroom technology to let the buyers interact with objects on screen, vanishing the boundaries between the real and virtual world. They also have interactive elements, that include experimenting with products and actual sound techniques that are helpful to immerse yourself into the surroundings and make the experience magnificent.
It is a chance to leave impossibilities behind and go beyond the limits of time and space. Due to the unlimited virtual space that a virtual showroom offers, a brand can highlight the infinite number of products and extend it as and when they want without giving a second thought to the space.
Virtual but an authentic experience, promised!
A virtual showroom is made up of an integration feature with the live chat function that assures you are always there for your customers as and when they have any queries.
Utilizing digital models/avatars to display your products can help create a more interactive experience for customers. For example, if you are running a clothing brand; it is suggested that you dress your avatar/digital model in digital garments to better show the fit and qualities of the products.
Tommy Hilfiger came up with its first digital showroom in 2015 in Amsterdam with the help of HATCH. Its mission included improving sustainability and minimizing carbon footprint meant, which was possible by reducing the need for physical sample making.
Getting into the digital world of virtual showrooms, Tommy Hilfiger entirely transformed the buying journey and retail value chain.
Diesel, this Italian clothing brand launched its digital showroom, HYPEROOM on a 360-degree digital platform to engage with fashion buyers digitally and take the purchase process ahead.
Its buyers could get themselves into remote buying sessions rather than physical showroom appointments.
It is a New York-based multi-brand organization, that manages itself and its wholesale sales operation completely on a digital platform now.
Turning their physical showroom into a virtual one helped their business significantly to attract their potential customers at the right time.
Setting up a virtual showroom is not an intricate process. It is a simple and painless process.
Contact technology-based companies associated with it.
On your part, you need to share your design requirements, product photographs, videos, product/service information, company brochures, product catalogues, etc. Rest, the agency/company chosen by you for its work will look after the design and programming part, and your virtual showroom will be there to take you on an exciting escalator ride!
Virtual Showrooms are designed and developed for customers, and thus, they are dedicated to them only. They can do a lot more than ever imagined. They can browse or go through the products which are shown through their 3D replica models, can have access to multimedia information at a single click, and catch up live with the sales team in case of any queries.
We do mean it when we say virtual showrooms are here to escalate lives higher.
Replicate the real-life experience. Navigate the customers to the store with easy-to-use features and interact with a multitude of objects kept within the virtual space.
Concretely speaking, a customer can take the virtual tour for hours, try products, discover product descriptions, view other information related to in marketing and its advertising arenas, ne engaging, and thus- buy products!
Keeping human psychology in mind, a virtual showroom provides customers with a sense of control over the process of purchase and helps in vanishing their stress level from buyer’s remorse. It calls for them to understand that they are not in the air and buying something for real, which is tangible and gives them the real Try Before You Buy feeling.
Since you are aware of the uniqueness of the virtual showroom, we would also like to add that this idea has gained a lot of popularity recently. Hence, rest assured, investing in virtual showrooms is reliable, effective, and promising!
You must continue to display your brand wherever you can- the social media platforms, through email campaigns, or by adding its link to the official website of the brand.
It is promising that by going the virtual way, your business is bound to reach a larger audience.
People are in full swing of adopting new ways, and thus virtual showrooms are highly likely to influence the customers’ ideas about your brand or say, their perception, which might work in your favor to provide you the needed support and upper hand over your competition.
With business travel swiftly sloping downwards, virtual showrooms can innovatively help you highlight your products, with the right mix of creativity and captivity added to it.
They are an amalgamation of the best of both brick & mortar stores and virtual setups to provide higher ROI.
Everything that a virtual showroom has is higher. The visualization, wow factor, tangible approach, and of course, the personalized feel associated with it.
Are you stuck at a stoppage wondering about all the technicalities it may have to get created or not certain where you should be heading to get one for your brand?
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