Obsess CEO Neha Singh Discusses How Virtual Stores are Revolutionizing the Future of Retail
In Brief
In an exclusive interview with Metaverse Post, the CEO of Obsess, Neha Singh, explains how virtual metaverse stores are reshaping retail and e-commerce.
Obsess is a virtual store platform that has created virtual shopping experiences for many big brands, including Tommy Hilfiger, Nars, Fendi, Christian Dior, and Ralph Lauren.
Obsess is a virtual store platform that enables brands and retailers to create immersive and interactive virtual shopping experiences for their customers. The company was founded in 2017 by Neha Singh, a former software engineer at Google and Head of Product at Vogue. Obsess offers a range of features, including virtual reality and augmented reality capabilities, branded avatars, and customizable 3D environments. Its platform has been used by a number of well-known brands in the fashion, beauty, and consumer goods industries to create engaging digital stores.
During an interview with Metaverse Post, CEO Neha Singh shared that Obsess was born out of her observation that brands and retailers were having a hard time translating the interactive experience of physical stores into digital environments.
“I realized that most e-commerce stores looked just like an Amazon product grid with only a few customizations to elements like colors, font, and imagery. Obsess was created to bridge the gap between consumer engagement and digital commerce—all in a highly branded, elevated way,”
Singh told Metaverse Post.
The shift towards virtual stores is gaining traction among global brands
One of the major benefits of 3D-rendered virtual stores is the immersive visual experience they offer customers. Brands can showcase their ethos and creativity in a new format, resulting in higher recall and consumer engagement. The contextual settings provided by these virtual stores offer an element of storytelling, which can help consumers better visualize product usage.
Virtual stores also extend the discovery-driven shopping behavior from physical retail to the online space. This results in higher purchase conversion rates as customers are able to experience the products in an interactive and engaging medium.
Obsess collaborates with brands from various industries, including fashion, beauty, consumer goods, and media, to create virtual stores that offer customers an immersive experience when exploring, learning about products, and making their purchases. The partnerships result from a mix of inbound and outbound efforts as well as referrals from existing clients, Singh stated. The company has several long-term partnerships with major brands, such as Charlotte Tilbury and Ralph Lauren, which have been part of Obsess’s virtual store network for years.
“Over the past six years, we have powered more than 200 virtual stores where tens of millions of shoppers have engaged with and purchased products. We draw on that extensive experience to make each virtual store even more intuitive and engaging than the next,”
Singh said.
With more than 85 million consumer interactions, Obsess has gained significant insights into consumer behavior and interactions in 3D shopping environments. The company collects first-party data through interactive quizzes and games in virtual stores, which is then shared with brand partners anonymously to help them better understand their consumers’ preferences and behaviors.
Obsess has also demonstrated impressive performance metrics, with one luxury brand achieving a 111% higher average order value (AOV) in its virtual store compared to its traditional e-commerce site. Another luxury partner saw a 74% higher dwell time in their virtual store compared to their traditional e-commerce site.
The technology behind Obsess’s virtual stores
Technology advances have already enabled exciting new ways for consumers to interact with brands. Obsess has recently partnered with Alo Yoga to launch an immersive virtual store that visitors can experience via desktop, mobile, or the Meta Quest 2 VR headset. This launch represents the next generation of virtual shopping, allowing consumers to enjoy and navigate the experience in VR in addition to mobile and desktop.
Another recent development is the Branded Avatars feature, a first-of-its-kind industry technology that enables brands to customize the look, feel, and character style of shopper avatars to create branded metaverse experiences on their e-commerce sites. This capability lets shoppers personalize all aspects of their own branded avatar, including skin tone, facial features, body shape, clothing, and makeup. Shoppers can then invite a group of friends to shop together with them as avatars in a virtual store, making the experience more social and interactive—just like it would be in real life.
Like with any new technology, there’s a bit of a learning curve when it comes to virtual environments—mostly in terms of adoption. Younger shoppers who grew up living much of their lives on their mobile phones and interacting with each other through video games, esports, and social media have historically embraced virtual technology at a faster rate. But, Obsess has seen growth in all age groups shopping in our virtual stores over the past few years, which in turn has increased the number of brands that have adopted the platform as part of their core selling strategies, Singh stated.
Obsess believes that virtual stores are the future of retail; they embody the convergence of digital commerce with physical interactivity and emotionality. Virtual stores will be a need-to-have rather than a nice-to-have for brands looking to differentiate themselves in the market and capture and hold consumers’ attention.
“Looking ahead, I think AR- and VR-enabled e-commerce experiences will become much more common, not only for retailers, but also for other more experiential industries like travel and hospitality, or media and entertainment. Brands will continue to embrace the creative freedom that the technology gives them, creating more fantastical spaces with gamification and imaginative features that they couldn’t otherwise create in a physical store,”
Singh shared.
The Future of Shopping for Generations to Come
Obsess targets innovative brands and retailers across a variety of categories—including luxury, beauty, fashion, media and entertainment, and consumer products. Each of these companies has its own target audience, and Obsess works closely with each of them to create fully branded, highly engaging, customized experiences.
That said, Gen Zers and millennials wield significant global spending power that will only grow over time, and these younger consumers are particularly enthusiastic about shopping in virtual environments.
Obsess conducted a proprietary study that found that nearly 75% of Gen Z shoppers have purchased a digital item within a video game and that 60% of them think that brands should sell their products on metaverse platforms. These consumers spend a great deal of time socializing online with each other, and they expect to be able to interact with brands, products, and virtual environments because they grew up with video games and esports. For younger shoppers, virtual environments are like a physical mall—they’re a place to hang out, socialize, and engage in activities like shopping or attending events.
As technology continues to advance, we can expect to see more industries, such as travel and hospitality, embrace AR- and VR-enabled e-commerce experiences. Virtual stores embody the convergence of digital commerce with physical interactivity and emotionality, and they are likely to shape the future of shopping for generations to come.
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About The Author
Agne is a journalist who covers the latest trends and developments in the metaverse, AI, and Web3 industries for the Metaverse Post. Her passion for storytelling has led her to conduct numerous interviews with experts in these fields, always seeking to uncover exciting and engaging stories. Agne holds a Bachelor’s degree in literature and has an extensive background in writing about a wide range of topics including travel, art, and culture. She has also volunteered as an editor for the animal rights organization, where she helped raise awareness about animal welfare issues. Contact her on [email protected].
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Agne is a journalist who covers the latest trends and developments in the metaverse, AI, and Web3 industries for the Metaverse Post. Her passion for storytelling has led her to conduct numerous interviews with experts in these fields, always seeking to uncover exciting and engaging stories. Agne holds a Bachelor’s degree in literature and has an extensive background in writing about a wide range of topics including travel, art, and culture. She has also volunteered as an editor for the animal rights organization, where she helped raise awareness about animal welfare issues. Contact her on [email protected].
