With brands and retailers excited about the NRF and the hottest topic still being the metaverse, we have prepared a guide for those who want to take that step towards innovations and just don’t know where to start!
For those of you going to the NRF – don’t forget to book a meeting with the leading metaverse ecommerce platform https://meetings.hubspot.com/marc367/nrf-2023
According to research, 39% see the metaverse as a tool for overcoming real-life obstacles in socialization, work, and business.
Financially, the metaverse is poised to usher in a new era for retail. One study projects that the metaverse market will be valued at $1.53 trillion by 2029, up from $100.27 billion in 2022. That’s an impressive CAGR of 47.6%.
Some steps you can take to move your physical business to the metaverse include identifying the right metaverse, fostering trust among consumers, familiarizing your organization with the metaverse, and focusing on the user experience.
Here’s how you can take these steps.
What is the Metaverse?
The metaverse is not a highly complex concept. It’s a persistent, immersive, virtual, three-dimensional (3D) digital experience on the internet that runs parallel to the physical world.
With the metaverse experience, you can work, play, connect with friends and other metaverse users, and buy things in the virtual world.
This virtual world is not monolithic. Instead, any entity can create its own implementation of the metaverse, with individual membership, access, formats of creative expression, and monetization rights. Therefore, the business and technical specifications can vary greatly.
Big companies are already investing heavily in their unique implementations of the metaverse. Fortnite from Epic Games is an excellent example of an existing metaverse implementation where players across the globe can interact with each other and play in a virtual setting with a host of unique socialization features.
Why Does the Metaverse Matter for Businesses?
The metaverse is essential to modern businesses because it offers a new way to communicate and collaborate with customers from around the globe. The virtual worlds also support a virtual economy where users can interact with and build real businesses.
For instance, in the metaverse Decentraland, users can create virtual structures such as galleries and recreational parks and charge other users to visit them. For existing businesses, you can build a VR clothing store where users in the metaverse can shop and buy your products.
Top global brands are already embracing the transition to the metaverse. For instance, we’ve worked with leading brands such as Calvin Klein, P&G, and Mitsubishi to create virtual stores and showrooms for users to shop and buy their products.
But the benefits for businesses in the metaverse extend beyond simply facilitating trade with their customers. In the era of remote working, the metaverse is making it easier to hold virtual meetings and training sessions that are more engaging and value-packed than conventional alternatives.
You can use a VR headset to meet with your colleagues in any setting and discuss essential work matters, making collaboration much easier.
The metaverse can also boost creativity and imagination, thus, innovation within the business. Employees can quickly build new products, systems, and processes virtually, test them, and potentially transfer them to the real world.
JPMorgan is very excited about the prospects of the metaverse that it’s made a massive bet that it will be a $1 trillion yearly opportunity. With that, it made history as the first bank to open in the virtual world.
How Can Businesses Enter the Metaverse?
The metaverse should be the next home for your business. Here’s how to enter the metaverse as a business from the physical world.
Familiarize Your Organization with the Metaverse
The metaverse concept is still relatively new among many companies, including tech ones. As the concept quickly evolves, businesses seeking to transition into the metaverse must familiarize themselves with the general idea early enough.
Organizations should train their personnel also to understand and trust digital investments and transactions in the metaverse. Concepts such as cryptocurrencies and NFT should be familiar.
Identify the Right Metaverse
There are several platforms currently providing different implementations of the metaverse. These virtual worlds focus on various areas, such as gaming, NFTs, or real estate.
One of the most popular platforms is Roblox, which boasts up to 47 million daily active users. Roblox focuses on a younger audience who engage in various games and entertainment offerings such as music concerts.
Roblox’s model has been used in successful games such as Fortnite, which has hosted music concerts from real-life celebrities such as Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, and Marshmello.
Focus on Your Target Audience
Knowing and focusing on your target audience is crucial to market your business to the right metaverse audience. Target audiences vary from company to company, making market research essential in ensuring you’re moving into the right metaverse with the proper marketing and sales approach.
You should focus keenly on aspects such as age, the top metaverse experiences your demographic prefers, and their most popular platform.
Develop an Entry Strategy
Before entering the metaverse, you should identify gaps and long-term opportunities in the virtual world and work on foundational measures to close these gaps and leverage the available opportunities.
For instance, instead of recruiting new in-office staff, your business may benefit from hiring remote digital natives who better understand key metaverse concepts to steer the transition.
These employees may also help with technical work such as implementing robust identity and security, publishing application programming interfaces (APIs), and making services extensible.
Foster Trust Among Consumers
The metaverse introduces new challenges in security, regulatory compliance, data privacy, anti-fraud efforts, and brand reputation.
Your business should start fostering trust about the metaverse among consumers, regulators, and other stakeholders by telling them the security, privacy, and compliance measures you’re taking and what they should expect from them.
Focus on the User Experience
With the metaverse, users will want to experience your products and services first-hand in an immersive virtual environment. Therefore, an excellent customer experience will be crucial in making your metaverse store attractive to buyers.
Virtual stores and showrooms are one great way of providing an immersive and exciting user experience in the metaverse. There are third-party providers, like us, who your brand can work with to offer cutting-edge virtual shopping experiences for your customers.
Have the Right Partner Guide Your Entry into the Metaverse
Moving into the metaverse is a crucial decision your business should make to ready itself for the next wave of immersive online virtual shopping. Get in touch today and strengthen your online and metaverse presence.
