Introduction of innovative retail systems based on immersive environments

Since the increasing consumers’ interest towards the online channel, the introduction of innovative technologies in the traditional point of sale is becoming a key factor to maintain existing clients and attract new ones. This paper proposes a novel application of 3D virtual reality to retailing for creating an innovative technology-based store. The key idea is to introduce stereoscopic tools for displaying products and providing entertaining and user-friendly interactive interfaces. The benefits of our proposal are demonstrated in the domain of retailing, where the introduction of virtual reality in offline contexts is becoming more widespread. In fact, in this domain the immersive technologies provide new environments capable of enhancing consumers’ shopping mode choice and their subsequent shopping experience.