What is a Virtualized Retail Store?

Virtualized retail stores are fully shoppable, 3D digital twins of brick-and-mortars, enabling brands to recreate IRL locations in dynamic, virtual environments and amplify the reach. These online replicas combine the intuitive in-person shopping experience with the convenience of virtual, enabling shoppers to explore, browse and shop at exact locations from all around the world. Shoppers can navigate the store just as they would in real life and interact with products from their fingertips.

These virtual experiences extend the ROI of physical locations, expanding a brand’s reach with 24/7 accessibility, increasing engagement and conversion rates by bringing real-world aesthetics to a highly engaged online audience across verticals. But how do brands virtualize their retail storefronts? And what does the process look like? 

We sat with Obsess’ Director of Content, Melissa Molina, to discuss the top three asked questions about virtualizing a retail store and the role our team plays in the creation of these digital twins.

How Can Brands Create a Digital Twin of a Physical Store? 

Molina: To virtualize a retail store location, we recreate the physical store with photography. First: we gather reference images of the store, floor plan and square footage to get an idea of how big the store is. Based on that, we provide recommendations and a timeline for how long the process will take before coordinating a time with the brand’s on-site store team and our network of specialized photographers to begin the shoot. 

A member of the Obsess team is always onsite to direct the photoshoot, working with our photographers to mark viewpoints, ensure the store is perfect from every angle and prioritize any focus areas or hero collections. Our photographers will shoot multiple shots in each direction to capture the smallest details, and then stitch them together for a seamless 360-degree effect. We work with the onsite team to update everything for an ideal, mobile-friendly user journey. This ensures the journey feels natural and the end user is able to move around, explore and discover products freely. That’s the joy of shopping in person that we try to translate over to the photographed digital twin.

Once shoots are complete, our team builds out the digital twin in our proprietary CMS, AVA, and works with the brand to ensure all products are shoppable. Prior to launch, we also dedicate resources to ensure that all content within the store is of the utmost quality and functioning smoothly—including embedded media and campaign assets, plus e-commerce and other third-party integrations. 

How Long Does it Take to Virtualize a Retail Store?

Molina: We’ve turned around virtual retail stores in as little as just a couple of weeks! The launch timeline is dependent on a lot of different factors, including the size of the store. With larger stores that have more complex layouts, for example: it can take us a little longer. Typically, we deliver a photographed, shoppable store from end-to-end within 8-12 weeks from a brand signing with us. 

Is There a Limit on the Space that Brands Can Digitize?

Molina: There are no limitations–we can really shoot everything! We’ve shot large, multi-level stores with intricate layouts, and have digitized it all. Over the years, we’ve perfected this process, launching more than 100 digital twins, ranging from flagship locations and showrooms, to pop-up activations for leading brands in fashion, beauty, CPG, media and more.

Ready to scale your physical presence and engage a new audience of digitally-native shoppers with virtualized retail stores? Find out more by booking a demo or emailing us at [email protected].