I Went Shopping in the Metaverse and Tried On a Gucci Bag
Culture
Speaker 1: Gucci Nike Lanci. These iconic brands have conquered the real world. Now they're setting their sites on the metaverse. It's the buzzword Silicon valley. Won't shut up bat.
Speaker 2: Metaverse the METARs
Speaker 3: The metaverse
Speaker 1: Facebook, even renamed itself. Meta.
Speaker 3: The next platform in medium will be even more immersive [00:00:30] and embodied internet where you're in the experience, not just looking at it and we call this the metaverse and you're gonna be able to do almost anything you can imagine. Get together with friends and family work, learn, play shop,
Speaker 1: But how exactly will the metaverse change the way we shop? Well, the metaverse isn't here yet. The closest thing we have are these virtual worlds. You enter through your laptop, phone or virtual reality headset.
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time [00:01:00] in these virtual spaces to get a taste of what the future of shopping could look like. There seemed to be an endless amount of stuff to buy. Some of these virtual worlds are on platforms, such as Roblox and rec room where users can create their own gains. In Roblox. I tried on a Gucci bag. I can't even touch in rec room. I went to the virtual wall, trying on everything from costumes, weapons, and space gear. We're here in the weapons store where you can arm yourself [00:01:30] in the virtual world. There's a banana behind me and a bunch of people Just firing away. This is like chaos in VR. I straighten virtual hair with the Dyson product you can actually purchase in real life. The price tag, 500 bucks. These virtual shopping spaces sometimes push the boundaries of what's possible in real life.
Speaker 4: The concept of a virtual store, that's just a replica of a real [00:02:00] world store is not terribly exciting, cuz there's no need to be bound by like four walls or a specific location in the digital world.
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's go inside the furniture store. Well, this is the first time I've been here or reminds me of, I keep. Yeah, but with, uh, and a lot of kids, I mean, there are a lot of kids that kids too, [00:02:30] And it's not only the stores that are being reimagined for the metaverse in the virtual world. You represent yourself through these digital avatars. You can basically wear anything you want. I dress up as a birthday cake and even a stick of butter developer, R Vanguard has created virtual items for Gucci and other big brands in roadblocks, but he is also made his own accessories, his top selling item, a black and white [00:03:00] mask that changes from happy to sad.
Speaker 5: There's entire audiences that value what's trending in the fashion world. There's audiences that value the cellular things on the platform. And there's audiences that value everything in between from color changing to face, changing to your everyday items that you wear to in real life to school.
Speaker 1: Celebrities are already cashing in on selling virtual goods, Swedish pop star Zara Larson told the BBC last year she made a million dollars [00:03:30] from selling virtual items, such as hats and sunglasses and Roblox. A virtual item can even cost more than the real thing. The Gucci dot IES bag costs $3,400 in real life. A virtual version of the same bag reportedly resold last year on Roblox for roughly $4,115 virtual worlds. Like the ones in Roblox have their own currency. People buy items on Roblox with virtual money called [00:04:00] robot. Here's how it works. When a virtual item gets sold on Roblox, 30% of the sale goes to the creator. 40% goes to the seller and 30% goes to Roblox. Developers are able to convert robots into us dollars. If their accounts have a minimum of 50,000 robots along with some other requirements, virtual shopping spaces are another way big brands can attract young customers. Roblox says about 48% [00:04:30] of their users are under 13 Allo yoga and saw horse production created a digital island in Roblox where people earn virtual clothing by meditate launched in February. ALO sanctuary has been visited more than 19 million times.
Speaker 6: If you're spending more of your time in a metaverse than you are in real life, the clothing has the exact same value. So I think that digital fashion is gonna explode, um, in the next, [00:05:00] you know, 10, 20, 20 years and become extremely important.
Speaker 1: And just like in the real world, shopping in the virtual world can feel therapeutic. You might just wanna start saving for it now.
