Amazon shows off virtual shopping experience for the holiday season

Amazon is ringing in the holidays by offering customers a new immersive shopping experience, which features virtual showrooms.

The ecommerce giant is rolling out The Virtual Holiday Shop, leveraging 3D technology powered by Amazon Beyond to entice holiday shoppers. The online portal features a curated selection of top holiday gifts, interactive content, cheerful music and animations, and compelling visuals.

Part of the Virtual Holiday Shop is also a Virtual Toy Shop, which spotlights popular toys from brands like LEGO, Play-Doh and Disney.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000 Database. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers in North America by annual web sales. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database. It ranks the 100 largest global marketplaces by 2023 third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).

Amazon’s virtual shopping experiences

Amazon executives are bullish about the new feature’s impact on the shopping experience.

“We’re always innovating to enhance the shopping experience and empower customers to discover products in easy and fun ways,” said Carmen Nestares Pleguezuelo, Amazon’s vice president of North America Marketing & Prime Tech. “With the Virtual Holiday Shop, we are excited to transport shoppers into a new immersive experience where they can browse over 300 of the most coveted gifts and toys of the season.”

Amazon’s move comes on the heels of Walmart’s launch of Realm earlier this year. Walmart has been moving aggressively to challenge Amazon’s virtual shopping space.

Why Amazon is testing virtual shopping

Not all experts, though, are sold on Amazon’s latest foray into virtual.

Greg Zakowicz, senior ecommerce expert at the marketing automation platform Omnisend, said Amazon is playing the long game with the virtual shop.

“Amazon isn’t the first to launch a store with this type of format, and I suspect they are using it as a tool to collect data on on-site behavior and methods of introducing product discovery versus a feature that’s expected to increase sales,” Zakowicz said, adding that he thinks the shopping experience isn’t smooth enough to aid in product discovery.

Instead, Zakowicz said the virtual shop is a chance for Amazon to sample what works and what doesn’t and that they’ll learn from it, tweak it, and make future offerings better.

“Storefronts like this may be popular with consumers in the coming years, but this version will not be the one,” he said. “It needs to be smoother, integrated search, and include categories,” citing examples such as “gifts for dad” or “gifts for grandparents.”

Amazon’s long-term interests

“Amazon is playing the long game, and part of that is to understand the on-site navigation preferences of shoppers and ways to make product discovery a part of the everyday experience,” Zakowicz explained.

There will also be, he added, a learning curve and mindset change that will have to happen among Amazon customers.

“Amazon is more of an intent-based site — someone needs something and goes to Amazon to find it,” he said. “There is little product discovery happening.”

Still, he believes the virtual shop is a step toward creating such a platform, especially during holidays.

“They’re doing it on one front with their toy catalog each year, which we got a week or two ago,” he said. “It makes sense to keep optimizing things on the digital side.”

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