Imagine walking into a luxury beauty store and, at the press of a button, you could be transported to the store section of your choosing. ByondXR, a retail-tech company founded in 2016, is virtually doing just that, as it designs 3D and virtual experiences for Shiseido, L’Oréal, Armani, and—more recently—YSL Beauty. ByondXR told Retail Brew that it currently works with ~40 big retailers.

• The company does not replace a brand’s existing e-commerce site; it acts as a supplementary immersive platform with features like gamification, virtual avatars, live streaming, and more, Noam Levavi, co-founder and CEO at ByondXR, told Retail Brew.
• The idea is to fuse brick-and-mortar experiences with digital elements and includes both AR- and VR-driven interactions.

Levavi called the platform, which has been five to six years in the making, “Shopify for the metaverse.” 

Virtual retail (VR): Its latest work includes collaborating with YSL Beauty for its Australian virtual store. Levavi explained it as “the new concept of physical pop-up stores that they created, not only in Australia, but also in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and other places.”

• The store includes a loyalty rewards club, an interactive feature that lets users design their own lip shades, virtual avatars, and mini games. All features are supported across iOS and Android, on both mobile and desktop.
• Levavi said YSL, which first introduced the experience in Thailand before debuting in Australia, also plans to bring it to countries like China and, eventually, countries in Europe. The US is on the list, but for now, the timing is TBD.

Levavi said that with luxury beauty brands, users stayed on their product pages for 20–30 seconds, and 98% left the page after. As for ByondXR’s virtual stores, users tended to stay for about four or five minutes on average, improving conversion rates between 50% and 100% and drawing in younger audiences.

Keep reading here.—JS

Walmart’s had an eventful 2022, but the retail behemoth is in a better place than some of its competitors, like Target, because of its grocery business.

Consumers have eased spending on discretionary items and general merchandise, shifting their dollars to groceries and essentials, and leaving Walmart backed up with excess inventory, Ken Fenyo, president of research and advisory at Coresight Research, told Retail Brew. But mid- to high-income earners spending more on groceries gives Walmart a leg up.

“Inflation is both real but also psychological,” Fenyo said. “Even for wealthier households who might not necessarily be struggling paycheck to paycheck, I do think inflation causes real psychological pain as you see the prices for what you buy every week going up.”

While the world’s largest retailer beat Wall Street’s expectations—bringing in $152.86 billion in revenue and boosting sales more than 8% on a YoY basis—Walmart anticipates spending patterns to continue. CEO Doug McMillon put on an optimistic face as he said the demand for general merchandise will tick up with the help of back-to-school shopping.

• “Our fall and holiday products look great,” McMillon told analysts. “There’s a lot of newnesses, and we’ve got a strong position in opening price points across categories. From Halloween to Christmas to Flipkart’s Big Billion Days, we’ll be ready.”

Keep reading here.—KM

It’s been a good long while since we’ve witnessed any grocery-isle spats over toilet paper, but for retailers, supply-chain woes are still top of mind. Fixing the issues highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic might require going back to the basics…of geometry that is.

• Organizations should be implementing “customer-centric” supply-chain management, Steven A. Melnyk, supply-chain management professor at Michigan State University, told CFO Brew’s Drew Adamek.
• That requires moving from straight lines to triangles when it comes to customer communication.
• To get to a triangle, customers need to be talking not just to marketing, but also to the supply-chain management side, Melnyk explained.

And while technology will help, it’s not the only answer.

“The technology is an enabler,” Melnyk said. “What we’re also finding out is: relying on the technology without other elements is dangerous.”

Tech and consumer data are one part of a supply-chain solution, but companies also need to focus on relationships and visibility.—MA

Today’s top retail reads.

Checking in: Halfway through the year, retail executives are dishing on their approaches to issues like inventory, inflation, and preparation for the holiday shopping season. (Retail Dive)

Mission-driven: Coterie New York, a womenswear fashion event, returns next month with a renewed focus on sustainability, technology, and experiential retail. “We are making sure that consumer demand is reflected in the evolution of Coterie—it’s not just what brands or buyers are asking for, but what the end consumer wants, and addressing it backwards,” Kelly Helfman, president of Informa Markets Fashion, said. (Business of Fashion)

Big gaps: Ahead of Gap’s Q2 earning call, the company faces a bevy of issues, including needing to find a permanent CEO, getting Old Navy back on track, and proving the Yeezy Gap partnership to be worthwhile. (CNBC)

The numbers you need to know.

The social commerce revolution…might be hitting some snags. Although apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter have made upgrades to integrate shopping experiences into their platforms, some consumers aren’t walking away satisfied.

Two-thirds (66%) of shoppers say they’re “cautious” after returning products purchased through social media networks, according to a research study of 1,002 US social shoppers conducted by software-development firm SimplicityDX.

• Social commerce is still getting its sea legs: 8% of online shoppers and 36% of seasoned social shoppers have returned an item from a social network.
• Only 17% who have made a return are happy to make another purchase through social media.

The issues, as SimplicityDX noted, are the friction points throughout the return process, including ambiguity regarding refunds, misalignment of brand and social-network communication, and poorly integrated tech systems.

"At this moment, product returns are already a huge problem, eating into profits for many brands. But the experience for shoppers must be good; otherwise, brands risk losing even more through lost future purchases," Charles Nicholls, chief strategy officer at SimplicityDX, said in a statement. Nicholls added that e-commerce profits come solely from repeat purchases.

Shoppers were asked to compare their social-commerce return experience to Amazon’s; 60% said Amazon was “much easier” to navigate. The research says putting return slips in delivery packages and more clearly outlining the process should help.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Grocery smart carts aim to be the saving grace for self-checkout hate
• How American Giant got buy-in from its supply chain before its customers
• Meta is opening its first IRL store