Market research in VR

In retail, decisions are often made in the twilight of uncertainty and continuous change, where those who don’t fight for their customers never win. Jacobs wanted to find a new space for theorizing, and an alternative to old market research mechanisms. Convinced that modern technologies can bring a cost-efficient and convenient solution, Jacobs turned to VR.

Project’s goals and objectives

1. Minimize expenses and obtain a VR solution capable of frequent and cost-efficient consumer research
   2. Armed with the new research data, revamp the product presentation strategy for secondary placement
   3. Review the approach to training and performance evaluation, obtain a VR training program that is capable of improving sales, communication, and merchandising skills.
   4. Acquire the ability to reconfigure research scenarios, track metrics, implement changes and expand VR projects without the help of the development team.

Results

Jacobs acquired its own virtual environment for communicating with its audience.

1. In October 2020, Jacobs conducted secondary placement research using VR on more than 120 consumers, gathering data that was used for new secondary placement standards.
   2. Using Varwin Retail VR Lab, Jacobs managed to build an immersive environment where store employees can train their skills in the following categories: shop visit assessment, point of sale and product presentation evaluation. As part of the training, employees talked to a bot (avatar of a potential decision-maker) with the help of voice recognition.
   3. Jacobs acquired an easily scalable and reusable VR solution. The company is independent from developers and is capable of updating and re-configuring its own project.