The Future of the Metaverse and eCommerce

The term “Metaverse” has been a buzzword for quite some time among those with a background in online gaming, blockchain technology, or philosophy.

Frankly, it is an interesting concept, and exploring it can bring us to pose really important questions about the future of humanity. However, these are topics that do not have any direct impact on how online stores do business, right?

Wrong.

It seems that, once again, reality is proving to be stranger than fiction, and a lot of big names are now in a race to conquer the Metaverse, an immersive virtual environment where, they hope, most of our social and business interactions will take place in the not-so-distant future.

The Current State Of Metaverse

Right now, there are quite a few metaverses or shared virtual worlds where users get together and interact through virtual avatars. Platforms like Roblox allow users to build their own virtual spaces with unique rules and themes. The aim was to allow creators to develop their own games and let other users contribute by playing or moderating in-game interactions. However, Roblox has increasingly become a fully social experience where developers and designers create and sell in-game items for users to customize their avatars.

Yes, you read that right. There is now a cross-pollination between software development and fashion designers who have a huge captive market valued at $30 billion this year. These virtual clothes and accessories are worn to attend parties, movie screenings, and even concerts on the platform where more than two-thirds of American children now spend their days.

Important brand names in the fashion industry are already trying to tap into this market. This year, the legendary luxury brand hosted a virtual space called Gucci Garden on Roblox. It was a virtual exhibition where players were treated with a randomized texture generator for their avatars so they could “see” how they would look wearing a Gucci piece, garment or accessory.

One of their exclusive bags was sold for $4,115 (18% more than the real, tangible purse). To be clear: the simulated Gucci bag sold for substantially more than the real thing. As might be expected, this generated quite a fuss online and many reached out to the company for comments.

Robert Triefus, Gucci´s CMO, said in an interview that Roblox got done for Gucci in 100 days what would have taken them 100 years elsewhere. In other words, the fashion giant seems to have found an effective sales channel with a captive audience of youths highly interested in their products.

Other brands are taking note. Nike recently created NIKELAND, their own Roblox spin-off, in which users participate in silly but fun sports games, such as “the floor is lava” or massive “tag” games with hundreds of other players. Additionally, they get to wear exclusive Nike accessories and clothes that they earn by playing games and participating in events.

This all sounds like an innocent and fun way to expose kids to the brand, right?

Well, if you pay close attention, it seems this is an innovative two-pronged approach to sales.

The sneakers behemoth is currently working on bringing its virtual items into the real world. Nike´s flagship store in New York will treat its patrons next December to an augmented reality experience that recreates their NIKELAND universe through the use of a Snapchat augmented reality filter.

The goal is to turn the whole marketing model on its head. Instead of kids wanting their avatars to look like their real selves, they will want an offline “replica” of their favorite virtual accessories.

Well played, Nike.

The Future Of Metaverse

Many sources point out that this trend is expanding beyond the limits of Roblox and gaming platforms. It is true that most news outlets put more emphasis on gaming companies creating virtual worlds. We recently saw a buzzstorm when Epic Games, the creators of the immensely popular Fortnite, got into an acquisition spree with a total of six companies in technology and game development feeding their metaverse ambitions.

Tencent, the Chinese internet services provider juggernaut, and owner of the massively popular League Of Legends game, recently announced its plans to enter the Metaverse scene. Nobody is clear on how they plan to achieve their goals, or what those goals are. As customary with Chinese companies, Tencent offered only cryptic answers when asked about their future strategy. However, they let out that they have received an implicit blessing from Beijing, so we safely assume that they’re serious.

But these events went fairly unnoticed for most of us until Facebook entered the fray. It was Mark Zuckerberg who seemed to finally let the Metaverse cat out of the bag. His recent announcements caught many off-guard and left most of us scrambling to find what all of this means for the future of social media marketing services.

The rebranding of Facebook to Meta is more significant than many people may care to believe. Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Oculus are all now under the umbrella of the Meta Platform, currently the world’s most valuable company. It means that now Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook marketing services will all work towards building the Metaverse, a hypothesized immersive digital space that will integrate virtual and physical spaces and encompass most human activity, including recreation, social life, work and, of course, commerce.

According to Zuckerberg, the Metaverse will be the closest thing to a teleportation system today. His team developed a system where, instead of solving problems over the phone or organizing meetings to explain things in context, they can just teleport in and share an infinite space filled with as many monitors and whiteboards as necessary. They call this their “infinite office” and we could be seeing versions of this pretty soon in many workplaces.

Why Is the Metaverse Important To Digital Marketers?

Mark Zuckerberg had more things to say about human nature and the way we currently interact with online stores and social networks. For example, he criticized the current state of the internet and, by extension, digital marketing, calling it unnatural, making it clear that his mission is to completely change the way we interact with content and products.

What this means is that, according to the owner of Meta, we will soon stop viewing content in 2D through a flat, lifeless window. The Metaverse, the way Zuckerberg sees it, will be an actual embodiment of the internet. In the future, we will no longer mediate our lives and interactions through flat screens (or tiny glowing rectangles that we have to carry around).

The Metaverse will offer something that no platform or outlet is capable of providing: the feeling that you are physically engaging with users and places in a shared environment.

This virtual presence is more in tune with what we are used to experiencing in the real world. We think in terms of relative positions and substance when we enter a store, making sense of our surroundings in terms of left and right, or over and under. In other words, we are used to knowing that pants are to the left and socks are next to the underwear section, we browse through things while we walk down the aisle, and we enjoy sharing this experience with others too, even if it is just to complain about how crowded a store gets around Christmas.

Websites and apps have a hard time replicating this, even the best ones. Let’s face it, forcing customers to browse through products and services by using a grid of thumbnails through a crystal window is unnatural, to say the least.

The Metaverse is an effort to break through this window, and allowing users to actually interact with the world we create for them.

However, many would like to prevent advertisers from colonizing the nascent Metaverse. It would be extremely off-putting to find every virtual surface plastered with invasive ads and billboards. The general consensus is that the Metaverse will follow the example set by gaming online worlds. There, buildings and lore are full of pop culture references and brands, making them available for users to interact with, while leaving users alone when they need some “me time,” something that never seems to happen today on platforms like Facebook or YouTube.

Imagine auto companies letting anyone test-drive their models around a virtual city or compete in a faithful recreation of Le Mans. Furniture manufacturers will be able to outfit popular gathering venues so players can “steal” their looks.

There is already a growing market for this and 3D modeling artists and agencies are charging top dollar to recreate restaurants, malls, cars, and avatar accessories. These virtual assets are then introduced to digitized communal spaces and users actively trade them in a new virtual economy some call “metanomics”.

Will People Need VR Headsets To Interact With The Metaverse?

More immersive experiences such as entertainment and gaming will probably benefit from the extended use of virtual reality headsets. The technology provides unparalleled immersive experiences and spatial awareness, making virtual teleportation a reality and interaction more “real” on a sensory level. However, it requires wearing a clunky headset that not many people today are willing to wear. Many commenters have expressed their concern as virtual experiences offered by their VR systems are not really portable and are not made to be worn outdoors, challenging the idea of potential mass adoption.

Others anticipate that future generations will get used to wearing VR sets the same way we can’t imagine ourselves living without a smartphone today. However, if history can serve as a predictor, miniaturization might play a huge role in the universal adoption of the Metaverse.

Smartphones today are more powerful than whatever passed for high-end computers ten years ago. So it is not crazy to think that augmented reality glasses with tiny supercomputers that fit into their thin frames might be ubiquitous in the near future. In fact, a Chinese company called Nreal is currently shipping fairly affordable AR sunglasses, showing other Big Tech businesses what consumer trends might look like 5 years from now if stores adopt the Metaverse philosophy.

Imagine a world where the masses replace “traditional,” smart mobile devices with AR glasses and demand for experiencing products before buying becomes commonplace. Content creation will certainly remain a top priority for businesses in every industry, but what kind of content does your business need to produce in the Metaverse?

More importantly, what will a digital marketing strategy look like?

These are questions that will keep eCommerce agencies and SEO experts awake for the next few years. If you are wondering what your brand should be doing right now to stay on top of new trends as they appear, our team can provide the tools and knowledge you need to navigate the future metaverse marketing landscape.