Immersive commerce

What forms does immersive commerce take?

The label covers several different experiences. What they share is that the product or the shop has space, not just a photo and a description.

Form	What it is	What the shopper needs
3D product model	a product you can rotate on the product page	a browser
AR (augmented reality)	a product placed over the camera view, e.g. a sofa in your living room	a phone with a camera
Virtual showroom	one brand’s space to explore	a browser or an app
Virtual mall	many shops in one 3D building, walked as an avatar with others	a browser
VR store	a space all around you in a headset	a VR headset and an app

What technology is behind it?

In the browser, 3D graphics are drawn through the WebGL standard, which uses the device’s graphics chip. VR and AR in the browser rely on the WebXR family of standards — but MDN still describes WebXR as experimental and not available in some of the most widely used browsers. The most realistic scenes can also be rendered on a server and sent to the browser as video, for example over WebRTC, which streams audio and video in real time without plug-ins.

That is why the most widely available forms of immersive commerce today are the ones that work in an ordinary browser: 3D product models and 3D malls. A VR headset is an extra for a few, not a requirement.

How is it different from ordinary ecommerce?

What changes is how people look and choose, not how they pay or receive their order. Done well, immersive commerce still gives the shopper a product card with a price, a basket, normal payment methods and the same consumer rights as an online shop. The weak spot is speed: when someone knows exactly what they want, a search box beats a stroll.

Example

In Aderlo City immersive commerce takes the form of browser-based galleries: the Aderlo Galleries in London and Warsaw, which you walk through as an avatar with other visitors, and a premium showroom streamed in photorealistic quality from a server. More in our guide What Is a 3D Virtual Mall?.