Ulta Beauty continues blending physical and digital experiences

Ulta Beauty’s latest seamless shopping experience features interactive virtual reality (VR).

The nation’s largest beauty retailer is recreating the “in-store” experience online leveraging 360-degree interactive video from VR content platform VirtualAPT. Customers can visit the online Ulta Beauty virtual store tour and control their viewpoint of the store.

Customers have the option of following Ulta’s curated shopping path or moving to a specific section of the store using the navigation feature, in either English or Spanish. The VR-based videos are produced using autonomous robots, hosted using an interactive web player, and can be viewed on nearly any device without any download necessary.

“The Ulta Beauty Virtual Store Tour provides a seamless omnichannel shopping experience that extends the benefits of shopping in our brick-and-mortar stores to an online space for our guests,” said Prama Bhatt, senior VP of digital and e-commerce at Ulta Beauty. “The virtual store tour is another example of Ulta Beauty’s continuous commitment to reinventing digital engagement in the beauty category.”

Ulta is establishing itself as a leader in providing realistic omnichannel shopping features that are based on VR and augmented reality (AR). Other recently launched examples include Sparked@UltaBeauty, a dedicated section of its e-commerce site featuring a 3-D virtual replica of a brick-and-mortar store; as well as a virtual try-on experience on its mobile app.

Click here to see a tour.