Designing a Business-to-Business Virtual Fashion Showroom in the Metaverse: A Padded Jacket Case Study

Abstract

One key aspect of the fashion industry is the presence of small manufacturing companies and their need to present a sample collection to the reseller and find wholesalers. This Business-to-Business (B2B) activity is characterized by complex storytelling and communication methods to convey the value of the products: materials, finishes, sizes, and fit options. Usually, the showroom is used to present the garment collection, a representative of the manufacturer, and one or more resellers. Setting up a physical showroom is expensive and requires the transportation of the entire collection. During the pandemic, when physical interactions were severely limited, companies had to adopt alternative solutions by using the Internet to communicate with other companies. By the end of this period, the use of such solutions proved to be extremely convenient and practical. We present a Metaverse-based showroom, that differently from the literature focuses on B2B fashion showrooms instead of direct sales or retail. We based on the VRChat and used Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) to recreate a real-life showroom. The users are remotely seated at a shared desk in front of the catwalk. The reseller can interact with the following functions: collection presentation, fashion show participation, and material/color configuration. We conducted a user study with 10 expert subjects, simulating two remote-selling scenarios of a jacket collection from a partner company with real experienced sellers and distributors user and assessing the user experience measurement. The user test is measured with the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ). The results showed positive evaluations in terms of attractivity, apprendibility, stimulation, originality, and positive outcomes regarding sustainability.