After generating a nearly $15 billion gross merchandise value on its Singles Day (November 11th) promotion last year, Alibaba‘s is all set to pilot its virtual reality shopping experience Buy+ on Single’s Day this year. Buy+, which debuted in the Taobao Maker festival (an offline shopping event targeting millennials) in August this year, allows users to wear a virtual reality headset to view products in a 360 degree view. This provides a closer and “real” look of the products compared to a regular PC.
Given Alibaba’s dominance in China, the pilot of Buy+ will be the largest virtual reality shopping launch and should attract more shoppers to the Single’s Day promotion. To use Buy+, consumers can purchase a cardboard VR headset which can be used with their smartphones to experience the virtual shopping experience. Buy+ is integrated with Alibaba’s payment tool Alipay and users can pay with a nod without removing the headset.
While Alibaba is promoting this shopping experience more for foreign stores such as Macy’s which do not have a physical presence in China, it can help other retailers as well.
See the full story here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/11/10/virtual-reality-is-likely-to-boost-alibabas-revenues-on-singles-day/#b72a5553751d