The UK retailer John Lewis has been teaming up with Disney’s ILMxLab to demonstrate that Virtual Reality can be a new vital tool in boosting retail trade by bringing it into stores in innovative ways. It has already seem some success according to the latest industry reporting:
Star Wars is set to save the high street. No, Luke Skywalker isn’t going to be wielding The Force to mind control consumers to start shopping in stores, rather Disney’s ILMxLab and John Lewis – along with FoxNext and Zero Latency – are demonstrating that experiential location-based virtual reality (LBVR) is a viable business investment, which can be leveraged to spark consumers’ mundane brick-and-mortar store experience.
According to the latest Worldwide Virtual Reality Tracker Report conducted by Futuresource Consulting, LBVRT is gaining momentum, with consumer spending expected to reach £579 million by 2020.
John Lewis is the UK’s first retailer to satisfy its customer appetite for virtual reality experience by running a series of HD visual interactive sessions in its flagship Oxford Street store in London. Gatwick Airport, on the other hand, has put virtual reality to work to enable travellers to navigate the airport easier, conduct seamless mobile payments and overall provide travel-makers with the facilities never offered before.
Overall, the VRcade sector has 4,000 worldwide locations of which those in China account for 75-80%, offering a low-cost and consequently limited-quality experiences, reveals the same body of research.
