Virtual Malls Give Merchants Low-Cost Way to Reach Consumers

The metaverse is expected to open up a world of opportunities for businesses and is projected to generate up to $2.6 trillion in commerce volume by 2030, according to data from McKinsey.

Sascha Münger, Worldline’s metaverse expert, even calls the immersive virtual world “the sales channel of the future,” one that “could potentially be the next commerce channel alongside point of sale (PoS) and eCommerce.”

That potential is why Worldline decided to open a shopping mall inside Decentraland earlier this month, Münger told PYMNTS in an interview, enabling its merchants to build a Web3 presence and benefit from the opportunities the virtual world has to offer.

The white-label shopping mall solution offers merchants different packages, which include everything from the shop rental to a connection to Worldline’s traditional payment infrastructure like credit cards, mobile payment and crypto payments with bitcoin and ethereum.

The French company has also partnered with three technology innovators — 42Meta in Germany, U.K.’s Threedium and Dutch company Metyis — to offer optional add-on packages, including augmented reality, a mix of physical and digital products and target advertising on different plots of land in the shopping mall.

“That means you can walk through Decentraland, see an ad put up by a Worldline merchant, and then jump directly to the merchant’s shop in our mall,” he explained.

So far, the virtual shopping mall has welcomed nine customers, including German direct bank Consorsbank and Swiss luxury hotel The Chedi Andermatt. And according to Münger, the low-cost opportunity to showcase their products and do business in the metaverse are just a few of the factors that make it an appealing offer.

“Gamification is a big deal among the younger generation, and we believe that this could be an interesting community-building tool that can help merchants reach new consumers,” he noted of another benefit.

But despite its benefits, there may be merchants still on the fence about its potential. And to those, Münger recommended that they give the metaverse a chance.

“Our advice to them is to test it out, see if it makes sense for your business and if you can build a community to reach new customers, and then you can sell your products directly [to them] in the metaverse.”

Web 3.0 Gives Back Control to Users

There are different metaverse and virtual reality (VR) providers fighting for a piece of the growing pie, including Meta’s core Horizon Worlds metaverse, which opened to the public in December 2021.

Unlike Decentraland, however, most of these providers are not based on blockchain technology. According to Münger, there is an interoperability gap in the space, making it challenging for merchants to know “the right way to go.”

But Decentraland is a good starting point for a first presence in the metaverse, he argued, “because the concept we have developed can be easily transported to other metaverse worlds like Spatial or Horizon Worlds in the future.”

Overall, Münger emphasized the importance of blockchain technology in powering Web 3.0, where users control their own data and identities, compared to the Web 2.0 environment, where information is held and controlled by large tech companies.

So, for a user who owns a plot of land in the virtual world via a non-fungible token (NFT), one of the most significant benefits of Web 3.0 is the fact that “you have the keys [to your data] and you can decide if you want to keep it, resell it or do whatever you want to do with it,” he pointed out.

Driving Payments Innovation

For the metaverse to ignite, Münger said technological development would need to pick up the pace, while creating interoperability standards to connect the different virtual worlds will be key.

This is where blockchain technology comes into play: “When you buy a hoodie for your virtual avatar, you want to use it in different worlds and not just in one world. And this is where NFT technology based on blockchain can help because as the owner, you could connect your wallets to all those different worlds.”

Bringing down the cost of VR glasses will also make a huge difference in driving adoption, he further noted, especially because “a lot of people are not willing to spend between $400 and $1,500 for virtual reality glasses at this point of time.”

In the end, as much as it will take time for the metaverse to become the norm, Münger said its potential to drive another wave of payments innovation and enhance customer experience cannot be understated.

“In the real world, you need easy and secure payment means, and the same is applicable in the metaverse. And that is why I see the metaverse as an interesting commercial channel combined with both traditional and new innovative payment means,” he said.