The Virtual Shopping Experience: The New Normal

COVID-19 has instilled people with widespread fear and vulnerability that has changed the norms of businesses and consumer behavior worldwide. While people take their time to quarantine and avoid heavily populated areas, the experience of shopping in a brick and mortar store has come to a halt, causing more people to embrace online shopping.

COVID-19 has severely disrupted the retail industry, leaving businesses struggling and wondering how to both showcase and successfully sell their product without putting customers at risk. While online shopping was popular far before the outbreak of the Coronavirus, businesses are doing their part to innovate and remodel the online shopping experience through virtual shopping.

While online shopping has become increasingly popular, there are people who will always prefer to shop in a physical store where they can freely roam the aisles, admire the interior decor of the store, and conveniently try things on for fit. Luckily, with the virtual shopping experience, this can all still be possible.

Some businesses have chosen to utilize the virtual shopping experience as a way to emulate the experience of shopping in their brick and mortar stores. They do this by providing customers with a virtual tour of their storefront which they can navigate as they wish. Other businesses, however, are embracing the virtual shopping experience as a way to grow and shift their business model into something bigger and better. For instance, some businesses are utilizing the virtual shopping experience as a way to better showcase their product, improve communication with clients, and increase convenience. While some people choose to have products delivered to their homes, many are also embracing the ‘pick up in-store’ feature where they can simply pick up the items that they purchased online at the store. Virtual shopping would make this experience more efficient by providing a virtual tour that displays where exactly you should pick up your purchases.