How to make virtual reality your business model

Infinity Reply sees a vast number of possible usage scenarios along the supply chain of booming online trade alone: starting with logistics and extending through to the crucial point, the sale, but also in employee training. One goal of the hugely increased online trade is to manage deliveries as efficiently as possible. Fewer delivery journeys ultimately means fewer costs and a lesser impact on the environment. Some crucial support here can come from augmented reality applications, which are already providing logistics employees with valuable additional information during the packing process. This may be in the form of hints on optimum packing methods, indications of the right place to put something, scanning barcodes, or even correction of errors. One major advantage is that the employee always has both hands free and can focus on the actual packing work. Other promising ideas involve the automated checking of deliveries for completeness or the creation of commercial documents. But that's not all.... 

Alongside AR, VR can also make an important contribution in the logistics sector. Most significantly, these scenarios offer crucial support with employee training in packing logistics. Through the use of VR, the employee sees a representation of their workplace that is very true to detail, in which they can run through the packing process step by step and practise and repeat it as often as they want to.

In the planning of logistics systems, the use of VR technology makes it possible to plan entire logistics centres connected to production in advance, and to adapt these to specific requirements, preferences, and technical and spatial framework conditions, so that a realistic impression can be gained even before the real implementation and planners can see exactly what the warehouse will look like later on. It is even possible to begin virtual operations in order to then run through later picking processes and check these for their feasibility in practice. 

Even in stationary retail, which is having to battle with growing online competition, virtual reality is becoming ever more significant when it comes to acquiring customers. Virtual reality shopping offers consumers the convenience of online shopping and, at the same time, the feeling of being in a shop – transactions, products and services can thus be experienced in an entirely new way. With the help of virtual reality, customers can try out products – either at home or within the shop – in a way that is easier, more personalized, or more playful. Here too, virtual reality technology will gradually play a subordinate role, while augmented reality applications will come to the fore, according to predictions by Stewart Rogers, author and analyst at VentureBeat. In his opinion, “retailers who do not discover mobile AR for themselves within the next six months will lose influence”.

Even where there is limited spatial capacity, VR can be helpful – the full range of products can be browsed, configured and adapted to the customer’s needs and preferences, all in virtual reality. This helps not only to avoid configuration errors, but also to convey a clear image of the products offered. For retailers, therefore, it is no longer necessary to have a physical sample of every product, which saves time, costs and sales space. In the area of B2B too, providers of more complex products can offer their customers a clear preview of the product. This way, functionalities, potential applications, and processes of a machine, for example, can be presented with the help of VR. This might even go so far as a customer exploring the inner workings of a machine and trying out work processes.