Author : Naveen Prasad, Founder & MD at Group Agilis       February 10, 2022

Pager isn’t a sign of being technologically advanced today. Text and calls aren’t the obvious ways of proximity with the advent of call over meet and zoom. The world is becoming more and more interconnected. We are walking towards an epoch where super apps like WeChat will give you access to services, maps, social media, gaming all while using a single application.

Since the technology to purchase goods over the internet was first introduced, there has been a divide between the real world and the digital world. Buying goods in traditional brick-and-mortar stores gives shoppers the ability to physically touch or try on products prior to purchasing. E-commerce shopping forgoes the physical aspect of traditional brick-and-mortar shopping, but it offers unprecedented convenience, speed and access.

The Metaverse is where these two previously separate worlds of commerce converge to create an experience that will redefine e-commerce forever. Metaverse is a place where virtuality and reality combine to bring forth a luxurious life never imagined before. If you are a fan of sci-fi Avatar then you must be aware of the possibility of how closely fiction is intertwined with reality.

As Apple showed an interest in investing in metaverse its stocks piled up. With the rebranding of Facebook to Meta, corporates are playing a crucial role in propagating or rather paving a way to metaverse as a reality and as the proverb goes Cash is king. Most likely in the metaverse, cash perhaps will be history in museums.

Metaverse isn't a future, it's a development all set in a roll. Amazon and many home decor companies are already adapting to the advent of the metaverse. You can furnish a virtual apartment according to your likings. Facebook or Meta is planning on bringing in updates like video calls over hologram and much more. It is opening up Horizon Worlds, its virtual reality world of avatars, to anyone 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada. A shift to metaverse will bring up enormous prospects for online hubs, some of which are not even in purview yet. However, there will be some assured benefits to consumers and producers in metaverse:

* Quality of Product

Since the advent of hubs like Amazon and Flipkart has been created between the physical markets or retail shops and the online shopping options. This creates a rivalry and an endless list of pros and cons between the two on the factors of accessing the quality of product, reliability, ease of exchange, reasonable price, and comparison. Metaverse will be giving us a platform where you can get the pros of both. Virtual reality and augmented reality will help the consumer access better services by accessing the quality and fit of products beforehand.

* Personalised Shopping

Another advantage will be the experience of personalization in shopping. You have your personalized Avatar but you will be able to choose not just what sweatshirt you are keeping in your cart but also the color of the cart, the spacing in the mall all from your room.

* Feasible for the Business owners

As mentioned in the last point through the unique personalized experience of each consumer there is no need to create a concrete shopping mall itself. The investments are direct towards the product and product itself.

* Non-fungible tokens

The latest phenomenon in the cryptocurrency world is the NFTs. Their typical function is transforming art and artifacts into a unique asset that is convenient to trade on a blockchain. Non-fungible tokens, a crucial part of the metaverse, further bring astounding facilities to consumers including VIP events, booking products on launch, etc. The die heart fans of the brand can use them as a receipt to unlock an array of special offers too.

* Marketing and advertising

Augmented reality can further use holograms and virtual imagination in advertising and marketing. Of course, the traditional modes of advertisement won't be enough. The size of the market is also expected to swell in the coming years. Competition in such a case will certainly bring improvised products and develop a more direct relationship between the consumer and buyer.

Conclusion

We’ve just scratched the surface of the ways technology will reshape e-commerce. As these technologies evolve, and the lines between the physical and digital world blur, e-commerce as we know it will begin to exist almost entirely in the metaverse.

As Mark Zuckerberg described: Metaverse as “an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it.”Metaverse is, for now, predominant in gaming and entertainment is the “virtual reality of e-commerce” for the coming decades.