Matterport, Inc. announced that Retail VR, a virtual reality and augmented reality platform, has enabled dramatic cost and time-savings for a variety of retail clients, from food to fashion brands, through the adoption of Matterport digital twins. Using Matterport Pro2 3D cameras and software development tools available to Matterport platform partners, Retail VR is enabling retailers around the world to collaborate with store employees and connect with visitors and customers using a shared digital version of each physical location. When luxury fashion buyers were unable to visit showrooms in Milan and Paris, Retail VR used Matterport Pro2 3D cameras to create digital twins of these locations for their retail customers, allowing them to provide high-definition 3D visuals and a realistic showroom experience for buyers to continue engaging remotely.

With virtual access to showrooms, seasoned buyers can view a garment from any angle and zoom in for closer inspection of its seams or texture. Retail VR can also integrate a retail customer's product catalog and layer on multimedia functions to enable sales representatives to click on Mattertags within the virtual showroom to see item specifications or show videos highlighting merchandise when clients show interest. Prior to having access to digital twins, buyers were required to travel to Europe from the U.S. or Asia to view new collections and place orders.

In recent years, there has been a greater attention to environmental sustainability and net-zero initiatives. With just one virtual showroom for Kenzo, a fashion company based in Paris, Retail VR helped save 1,200 tons of carbon emissions by eliminating travel. To ensure shelves are stocked and organized correctly, supermarkets rely on accurate diagrams that indicate the placement of retail products on shelves, called planograms, from the brands they stock.

Lactalis International, a multinational food manufacturer and Retail VR client, utilized Matterport digital twins to showcase its food packaging and provide accurate planograms in 3D to stockists, replacing sterile diagrams with an engaging 3D object. Its new, virtual approach to retail tagging helps Lactalis get faster buy-in from supermarkets for its proposed product assortment. Using Retail VR software in tandem with digital twins, product assortment options are generated instantly, reducing the number of meetings required from five to one and saving up to weeks of time.