12 Days of Virtual Holiday Retail (and what innovators can learn from them)
It is clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has irreversibly altered the way people holiday shop – in the U.S and around the world. This year, Single’s Day, Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday sales all smashed eCommerce records. For the first time, more U.S. customers intended to holiday shop online than in stores, and U.S online holiday sales will grow an incredible 33% – two years’ growth in one season.
Yes, the primary site of holiday shopping has officially shifted from the store to the screen. Amidst this disruption, retail leaders have needed to think (quickly) about how virtual retail can provide the experiential, engaging experiences that typically fuel holiday sales.
While innovation on this front was already underway, the pandemic-driven shift pushed many companies to move digital retail innovation from an experimental line item to a priority for Holiday 2020 survival.
Future holiday seasons might see a larger number of shoppers return to physical stores, but I believe the virtual store will endure as an important site of holiday (and all-the-time) retail.
Read on to discover 12 Holiday Virtual Retail Experiences that have caught my eye this year, and the innovation insights I glean from each. These, and many other bold initiatives, have inspired me to imagine what the next holiday season will look like in a squarely digital-first retail world.
#1:
Taobao Live + Single’s Day
Single’s Day kicked off the global holiday shopping season with record sales, doubling last year’s total. One standout was Livestream eCommerce, which is experiencing explosive growth in China, especially during the pandemic.
The livestream shopping shows hosted in China’s online malls have been aptly described as part infomercial, part variety show. Celebrity influencers demonstrate products, explain features, take questions, and entertain shoppers along the way. More than 17,000 brands started livestreaming during this year’s Double 11 Festival, and over 39% of China’s population viewed a shopping livestream.
The “Lipstick King” Li Jiaqi livestreamed for more than 6 hours, drawing 36.83 million users. Beauty tech unicorn Perfect Diary sold out of cosmetics co-branded with The Discovery Channel in record time. In a session that offered a discount on cars, 55 vehicles were sold in just 1 second.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: With fewer shoppers going to physical stores, livestreaming is emerging as an engaging way to bring the shopping experience to them. I look for more Western brands to experiment with this channel in coming years. (See: Amazon’s Prime Day livestreams.) While Western livestreams are currently focused on gamers and entertainment, China’s diverse breadth of content shows the potential for this retail channel to extend to new categories and consumer groups.
#2:
Charlotte Tilbury’s
Holiday Beauty Wonderland
This holiday-themed interactive VR experience seeks to surprise and delight. An avatar of founder Tilbury guides visitors through a 3D-version of the holiday store, where they can explore lights-bedecked beauty zones, shop customizable beauty kits, join live events, and view recorded tutorials. Virtual customers can even invite friends to shop right along with them.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: Online shopping is historically transaction-based, but it can evolve to be multi-sensory, fun, and even social. A new generation of VR technology facilitates this kind of feature-rich online retail experience via desktop and mobile, without requiring shoppers to be tethered to clunky, expensive glasses.
#3:
Best Buy + Instacart
Electronics retailer Best Buy partnered with Instacart to allow shoppers to order from most U.S stores and receive items via same-day delivery. The “certified delivery” feature allows customers to track orders with high-value items and confirm receipt. Best Buy deftly marketed the service as a sure way to score one of the season’s popular gaming consoles that were only sold online this season.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: During the pandemic, tech-supported logistics advances have intensified consumers’ expectation for near-instant retail delivery. In future holiday seasons, I believe shoppers will continue to show willingness to pay a premium to skip the lines and receive sought-after items from the comfort of their own home.
#4:
Ralph Lauren Virtual Holiday Stores
The Ralph Lauren Virtual Store allows shoppers to navigate a cinematic digital version of 7 of the brand’s flagship locations, from Beverly Hills to Hong Kong. The company sought to reinvent the holidays through a digital lens, right down to the music playing in the background. Virtual shoppers can explore rooms with lavish holiday displays, click any item to purchase, or schedule a virtual appointment with a sales associate.
A range of social media channels create multiple paths to engagement: a Snapchat lens to try items in the virtual dressing room; an online shopping game played via Facebook Messenger; Twitch to watch influencers play the game; a What’sApp gift concierge.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: The strongest virtual retail experiences leverage the unique strengths of various social media platforms to create a true omni-channel experience. For established brands like RL, an engaging virtual storefront paired with social media innovation is a path to engage and convert new, younger shoppers.
#5:
Amazon
Explore
On Black Friday, Amazon shined a light on their paid interactive shopping experience, Amazon Explore. The Beta service provides live virtual shopping experiences at boutiques and markets around the world. One-way video and two-way audio stream lets customers see a host who can find and show items, ask store associates questions, and purchase products to be shipped to the virtual shopper.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: During the pandemic, consumers learned to experience many things virtually from the comfort of home (work events, concerts, travel destinations, even weddings). Why not shopping? I see an opportunity for other companies to use streaming video to deliver customized shopping experiences to a larger global footprint of customers.
#6:
Bustle
Holiday Bazar
This ski-style chalet features a VR-created holiday pop-up shop with seven digital “booths” from retailers like GAP, Carolina Herrera, and Samsung. It is a great example of how to reinvent previously IRL events for the virtual retail world. The always-on event features DJs, a photo booth, livestream events, curated gift picks from Bustle editors, and use of the “drop” model to debut new products.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: “Drop model” product innovation leverages an algorithm to mine social media trends and quickly create and ship products to match. Fashion and cosmetic brands like those in the Bustle chalet are using the digital foot traffic to aid near-instant innovation. Can brands in other categories (like CPG) also employ this approach?
# 7:
Sam’s Club National Lampoon’s Christmas House
Rather than bring shoppers into a virtual store, Sam’s Club leveraged VR to recreate the Griswold’s storied holiday home. Including music, décor, shoppable scenes, and fun movie send-ups like a squirrel in the Christmas tree, a trip through this holiday home evokes holiday cheer and nostalgia.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: VR is not just for clothes and cosmetics but can also elicit sensory cues to inspire holiday food and beverage purchases. This festive home also provides inspiration about how virtual retail can trigger impulse CPG buys that are less common online but a key part of holiday shopping revenues. Shoppers wandering these inspirational holiday rooms are sure to pick up items they didn’t even know they needed.
#8:
Kohl’s
AR Virtual Closet
The NRF reports that 21% of retailers expect to invest in augmented or virtual realty in the coming year – up from 8% in January. Retailer Kohl’s provides an example of this trend with continued testing of their AR Virtual Closet. Shoppers can use the Snapchat app to virtually try on clothes through the new Selfie Lens feature. Then, buy their selections without ever leaving the app. Holiday Snapchatters who need a break can personalize their own greeting cards with faces of friends and family.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: Historically, AR efforts felt more focused on the tech than the consumer need and often fell flat with shoppers. Amidst the pandemic-driven shift to virtual retail, AR provides a true benefit by marrying the functional ability to test products without setting foot in a store with much-needed doses of holiday shopping escapism. I look for AR-powered retail experiences to grow across categories in future years.
#9:
Fred Segal
Live Shopping Experience
LA-based retailer Fred Segal is hosting an eight-week livestream shopping experience themed around the “Power of Diversity.” Each weekly installment features collaborations with black-, women-, and minority-owned small business owners showcasing a curated product selection. Using the Talkshoplive platform, customers can tune in to explore products and purchase with one click.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: This is a great example of an experiential retailer bringing the serendipity of shopping their physical locations to their virtual storefront. I predict we will see further collaborations of publishers, brands and experience providers to create streaming shopping experiences to engage Western audiences.
#10:
Neiman Marcus Holiday Perks
Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus took extra steps this year to facilitate personal selling in a digital way. Their offer includes a virtual gift concierge service via a network of 5,000 digital-only sales associates. The associates engage via text or video to help clients find the perfect gifts. Then, ask Santa to deliver them curbside. Post-purchase, shoppers receive mail delivery of champagne and signature NM cookies; a great way to remind loyal customers about the joys of the holiday season.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: Not only will 1:1 consultative selling endure in the virtual retail world, text and live streaming platforms will make it more accessible to mainstream and budget shoppers across categories. This should be a site of virtual experience innovation in the lead-up to Holiday 2021.
#11:
London AR
Art Festival/
Virtual-Only Goods
“Virtual-only goods” are predicted to grow in share and influence over the next 3 – 5 years. These are purchases that live only in the digital world, for which there is no physical counterpart. This holiday, Acute Art produced London’s biggest public festival of AR Art, noting that in a year when the pandemic forced widespread closure of cultural sites, we need public art spaces more than ever. Closer to retail, Samsung is marketing digital art subscriptions for their Frame TV, while luxury fashion brands like Louis Vuitton are selling virtual goods for eSports games, which players must purchase with IRL cash.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: Virtual-only goods represent an entirely new category, and now is the time to consider how your brand could participate.
#12:
Macy’s
Santaland
Many have done great job bringing the classic Santa experience to life virtually this year. Macy’s version includes a personalized digital journey, a tour of Macy’s New York flagship village, and a selfie with Santa. Along the way visitors can explore branded experiences, like decorating a Balsam Hill tree or sampling Entenmann’s treats.
INNOVATION INSIGHT: Any experience, no matter how storied or iconic, can be recreated for the virtual world. It just takes a good mix of tech innovation and good, old-fashioned imagination. I daresay one pandemic silver lining is that this and other holiday experiences are more affordable and accessible to consumers across the world than ever before.
Where From Here?
HBR writes that the pandemic has “supercharged all things virtual,” and IBM estimates that digital acceleration has jumped 5 years in the span of a few months. These changes are clear in retail, where the rapid growth of eCommerce has prompted a fundamental rethink of what “online shopping” can really be. Clearly the focus on speed and efficiency will need to remain. But, forward-thinking retail leaders must broaden their definition to the broader category of virtual retail. This includes a shift from:
Purely functional TO emotional experiences
Planned transactions TO surprise and delight
Clunky equipment TO anywhere access via laptop or mobile
An experimental channel TO a hub of brand experience
Next holiday season will surely look different, but will build on this year’s unprecedented tech acceleration. Now is the time to begin test-to-learn efforts for Holiday 2021 and beyond.
Happy holidays and an innovation-filled new year!