J. Crew opens shoppable ‘beach house’ – in the metaverse

J. Crew’s newest storefront sells real products in a virtual space.

The vertical specialty apparel retailer is opening an immersive virtual store, supported by metaverse commerce platform Obsess. The 3D, shoppable environment celebrates the company’s 40th anniversary and takes the form of a virtual beach house that features six unique rooms and a separate boathouse.

The J.Crew Virtual Beach House also offers interactive content highlighting the brand’s history, as well as seamless checkout. Customers can interactively browse and shop J.Crew clothing, shoes and accessories in themed rooms with contextual merchandising that allows them to learn more about the products.

For example, customers can visit the Floral Room and shop for made-in-Spain espadrilles after learning about the 14th-century origin of the shoe’s design. The Virtual Beach House also features images from the company’s print catalogs and gamification elements, including a “Catalog Cover Pop Quiz” and a multiroom, interactive scavenger hunt game.

“We are excited to celebrate J.Crew’s 40th anniversary with the launch of the J.Crew Virtual Beach House in partnership with Obsess,” said Derek Yarbrough, J.Crew and Madewell chief marketing officer. “This immersive experience brings J.Crew’s past and present together, giving our customers a virtual passport to explore the world of J.Crew, while shopping a curated edit of summer styles in an innovative digital format.”

“J.Crew is an iconic American brand and we’re thrilled to partner with the company on the launch of its very first immersive virtual store,” said Neha Singh, founder and CEO of Obsess. “Adoption of virtual stores is now reaching scale, and brands like J.Crew are seeing tremendous value in how these experiences are enabling them to connect with new audiences, foster customer engagement, drive sales and create memorable digital touchpoints.”

Coach’s holiday campaign includes its first virtual shopping destination

A large number of direct-to-consumer beauty and cosmetics brands, most recently Laniege, have opened metaverse stores based on the Obsess platform. But retailers including Coach have also expanded into the metaverse using Obsess technology.

Coach’s 2022 holiday campaign includes a holiday-themed immersive destination. Inspired by a vintage Coach store, the immersive virtual experience allowed shoppersto move through themed rooms, shop the holiday collection and play a game with Rexy, Coach’s dinosaur mascot, to unlock prizes.

In addition, the virtual Coach store featured interactive, shoppable livestream videos and a varied assortment, including special holiday products.