Jul 02, 2018
Walmart is testing a “3D Virtual Shopping Tour” feature on its website that allows shoppers to see what furniture looks like in a staged home.
Shoppers can navigate through a curated apartment showcasing nearly 70 items from both national brands and Walmart’s private label offerings. Wrote Anthony Soohoo, SVP and group general manager, home, U.S. e-commerce, in a blog post, “As they virtually explore the apartment, customers simply click on different products in each room to get more information.”
Shoppers can use Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR as well to enhance the experience.
Walmart also introduced a “Buy the Room” feature that enables shoppers to easily purchase home items that tend to be purchased together.
The two new features follow upgrades to Walmart’s online home buying experience in February that support discovery, including the addition of curated collections, shop-by-style options and editorial-style imagery and design tips.
In February, Walmart’s technology incubator, Store No 8, acquired virtual reality startup Spatialand to build VR products for the retailer’s stores and websites.
“While we are launching these new features for dorm rooms and small space living,” said Mr. Soohoo of 3D Virtual Shopping Tour and Buy The Room, “we know that they could have applications elsewhere and will continue to listen to customer feedback to determine how to implement them more broadly on the site.”
Ashley Furniture, IKEA, WayFair, Amazon and Target have all tapped either augmented or virtual reality to support the purchase of furniture and décor items for the home over the last year.
In most cases, shoppers view furniture in their actual homes by “placing” them there using their smartphone. Rolled out last October, Target’s augmented reality feature, “See It In Your Space,” promises to let shoppers “place three-dimensional versions of real Target home products within photos of actual rooms at home, and move them around at proper scale to see how they’d look — all before buying the product.”
This summer, select Macy’s stores are introducing a VR tool that enables customers to visualize how a piece of furniture would look inside a room of the same dimensions as one in their home.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What do you think of the appeal of Walmart’s 3D Virtual Shopping Tour? Does it advance other ways retailers are using AR and VR to support furniture purchases? What other categories seem best positioned to benefit from 3D-type technologies?
“I suspect it’s going to end up very niche — though I don’t understand why everyone wouldn’t use it!”
