Enhancing online commerce with virtual reality
Ever since the early days of the internet, companies have been trying to get consumers to part with their money online. Ecommerce, online banking, data streaming and internet based customer support are now so commonplace that it is difficult to imagine life without them. This digital world is a ubiquitous and powerful force in modern society and is ripe for disruption. . . Step up vcommerce.
Vcommerce, or virtual commerce, takes the concept of buying and selling goods and services online to the next level. By integrating Virtual Reality into the transaction process, vcommerce retailers seek to provide a richer shopping experience.
Earlier this year, Walmart’s technology incubator Store N°8 held a competition for innovators in the vcommerce sector. From the recreation of a physical store online, to enabling customers to virtually test products before purchase, these vcommerce initiatives aim to win the hearts and minds of consumers. They seek to make the shopping experience personal, immersive, and – perhaps most crucially – fun.
Going further down the rabbit hole, vcommerce developments are also being made in frameworks which develop and sell virtual elements. Objects such as avatars, assets and environments are routinely exchanged in the domains of AR and VR, particularly in the gaming industry. But this can be a risky business.
Aiming to address this issue, VERSES, a virtual economy protocol, will launch on the Japanese COMSA ICO platform in 2018. This protocol will act as a platform for a managed blockchain economy. Delivering regulated public and private blockchain solutions will enable secure peer-to-peer transactions within virtual and augmented reality. Unifying blockchain technology with VR and AR in a secure and scalable way could therefore provide the future of vcommerce.
