With virtual reality technology, we can already play games in virtual reality, we can also watch videos and look at photos. In fact there are some VR apps designed to make it feel like you’re inside a virtual cinema, so with that being said if VR can replicate a cinema, why not a shopping experience too, right?
Over in Australia, eBay has teamed up with Australian departmental store Myers to create a shop in virtual reality. This shop can be viewed with devices like the Samsung Gear VR, and as part of its launch, they will also be giving away 20,000 Google Cardboard headsets as well, so presumably Cardboard support is there too.
How this works is simple: Myers’s shop will be in virtual reality where it will basically list the products that the departmental store has to offer. However to help make it more “real”, the top 100 items in each category will have its own 3D model so you can check it out in multiple angles. They even created what eBay is calling “Sight Search”.
This means by staring at an item, eventually it will be selected meaning that there doesn’t need to be any input or gestures on your part. Speaking to Mashable Australia, eBay’s senior director of market and retail innovation Steve Brennen said, “Your eyes can move so quickly… Sight Search in a VR world of retail feels very sensible. How much customers use it, do they love it, is where we’ll get to next.”
Admittedly it doesn’t really feel like you’re shopping at a store, more like you’re staring at a bunch of items in VR, but we suppose we’ve got to start somewhere.
Filed in . Read more about Ebay and Virtual Reality (VR).