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J. Crew virtual beach house.
Courtesy: J. Crew
In a brown-shingled beach house hidden behind stalks of reed weeds, J. Crew customers experience a new shopping experience.
Tucked away down a flight of wooden steps and a wraparound porch, shoppers can explore a series of white-paneled rooms and a secret cabin and lighthouse that sheds light on the history of the brand and some of its most iconic garments.
Inside the rooms, shoppers can browse through bomber jackets, sweaters, and rugby jerseys. Outside on the balcony, bathing suits are displayed on a clothesline.
While customers can select and purchase items as they would at any J. Crew store, the beach house comes with one major difference: It’s completely virtual.
To celebrate J. Crew’s 40th anniversary, the brand is launching its first immersive shopping experience Friday with e-commerce platform Obsess, which creates 3D virtual stores for retailers that customers can access from their phones or laptops.
Derek Yarbrough, chief marketing officer for J. Crew & Madwell, told CNBC that the company is planning a series of events to celebrate the brand’s anniversary. But they tend to be located in places like New York and Los Angeles, which limits the number of people who can attend, he said.
“With Obsess, we were really looking at an exciting revitalization that we could do for a larger audience and reach more people who love the brand in a bigger way,” Yarbrough said in an interview. “We really wanted this to be a passport to exploring the J. Crew universe… With the team brainstorming, it was a no-brainer for it to take the form of a beach house.”
J. Crew virtual beach house.
Courtesy: J. Crew
Obsess was launched in 2017 by former CEO Neha Singh Google software engineer. It aims to transform traditional online shopping into something more engaging, one that keeps shoppers engaged rather than losing interest as they scroll endlessly for their next purchase.
In Obsess’ virtual storefronts, customers can create their own avatars. The company said that depending on the retailer, they can also play games that can unlock more content, promotions or other rewards that keep them in the virtual stores longer.
“What our platform does is it enables brands to create a richer and more immersive digital experience that borrows the interface from games,” Singh said. “Today, the experience is very generic. Other than font and color, there really isn’t any distinction between brands’ digital presence, but their physical presence in retail is very different. So how can we bring some of those elements online?”
Virtual storefronts are on the rise
While the metaverse may be dead – for now – virtual storefronts are growing. Obsess now powers more than 200 virtual stores where tens of millions of shoppers have visited and purchased products.
The company’s clients include American Girl, Elizabeth Arden, Dior, Ralph Lauren, Corona, Laneige, and Crocstrainer, MattelMaybelline Johnson & Johnson and even NBCUniversal among others.
Virtual storefronts allow retailers to bring a version of the metaverse to their customers, without the need for expensive headgear or other steep barriers to entry.
J. Crew virtual beach house.
Courtesy: J. Crew
“Technology never stops, and it will keep advancing, but it has to be something that’s easy to use, right? And parts of the (metaverse) aren’t that easy to use yet,” Singh said. “We launched the company before the metaverse was even a buzz topic, and it was just about: How can we use the latest technology to create a better customer experience?”
When e-commerce was born in the 1990s, Amazon led the way with its online bookstore, which featured a white background and icons for books with text describing them.
Since then, not much has changed when it comes to the basic interface of online shopping.
“If you think of e-commerce, the usual kind of interface today is a grid of thumbnails on a white background; whether you’re shopping for fashion, beauty or home, it’s really the same,” Singh said. “The interface looks like a database that hasn’t really changed in the 25 years[since]it was first created.”
Shopping games, promoting engagement
Shoppers heading to J. Crew’s virtual store can access a series of interactive games, including a scavenger hunt and a catalog cover quiz, where customers will be asked to guess the year it was published.
Once you’ve crossed all the rooms and completed the tasks, shoppers gain access to the secret beacon.
J. Crew virtual beach house.
Courtesy: J. Crew
“We actually see a 10x higher add-to-cart rate if people engage in and complete the game. So now all our virtual stores usually have some element of motivation, which is kind of naturally built into the flow,” Singh said.
“The more interesting the experience, keeping people engaged, giving them content, giving them games, the more they’ll shop,” she said.
Some companies offer discounts or promotions as a “reward” for completing a game, which can contribute to higher exit rates.
Obsess said that one of its customers, a luxury jewelry brand, said the average order value on its virtual store was 111% higher than on its traditional e-commerce site.
However, J. Crew’s Yarbrough said he’s most excited about how long a virtual store can keep customers engaged.
J. Crew virtual beach house.
Courtesy: J. Crew
For example, in American Girl’s virtual store, shoppers spend an average of six to 10 minutes per session, which is 1,000% more than the average time spent by all shoppers on the company’s website, Obsess said. .
One luxury fashion brand said the amount of time people spent in its virtual store was 74% higher than the time they spent on its traditional e-commerce site, according to Obsess. Overall, providing avatars increases the time customers spend by an average of 73%, and when customers create an avatar, they are on average 184% more likely to proceed to checkout, Obsess said.
“In today’s scene, it’s very difficult to not only get people’s attention but to keep it — you usually only get a few seconds,” Yarbrough said. “So if you can actually get someone to engage with an experiment for several minutes or even longer, oh my gosh, that’s a rich opportunity to impress someone.”
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
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