Can the promise of the metaverse support our high streets?

How can high street businesses and communities be empowered and included by the possibilities of the metaverse?

The metaverse is set to expand the traditional idea of retail, creating commerce-enabled spaces which blur the lines across digital and physical worlds, instigating new consumption, production and commercial behaviours. The ‘metaverse promise’ seeks to build on a new set of human-centred values, such as:

Commerce - The need for communities to fairly earn revenue.

Collaboration - The need for interaction and co-creation with others.

Community - The need for tribes, friendship, and identity at scale.

Copresence - The need for feeling in a place and/or with people.

This values-driven commerce model– where brands and consumers can come together to create & sell goods and services – potentially means that retailers of all kinds can reach different customers, build better revenue models and optimize business models.

Now, you may be thinking:

Not another metaverse article!

Isn’t this just more ‘tech wash’?

How is this relevant to small businesses who are struggling with the cost of living crisis?

As Alexandra Forrest, host of the ‘Independent Thinking’ high streets podcast, observes,

“It feels like retailers have to jump through ever higher hoops to ensure their messaging reaches their audience.”

But hang on.

It’s vital that this next iteration of the internet - powered by 3D and multi-sensory environments which digitally augment our physical world – can be understood, accessed and used by everyone, fairly and equally.

If we wrestle the ‘shiny new toy’ view of the metaverse from the hands of the tech bros, there is a real creative and business opportunity for high street communities to forge something useful and meaningful from the fire of all those buzzwords.

So let’s take a moment to consider how we might apply this emerging model to high street retail.

For example, the DAO – Decentralised Autonomous Organisation – collective business model is created by a community of people with a common goal. All participants share the decision-making, management, and ownership of that business and what it produces, with visible decision-making processes.

This could be a radical way for small businesses and communities to create a new layer of value for high streets, to collaborate and build their own ‘homegrown’ products and services.

So why aren’t we hearing more about the metaverse possibilities for the high street?

I asked Jackie Mulligan, founder of ShopAppy, for her view from the streets:

“Much of our high street and community is online already, but small indies need to weigh up the benefits of what they can do and why they might engage. After all, most local high street businesses start because they like real human connection.”

Alexandra Forrest agrees:

“We have to think responsibly and thoughtfully about whether the metaverse will enhance the customer experience and community connection to the physical high street, showcase product to the best effect and demonstrate the expertise of the retailer in the best way possible.”

If you’re thinking that ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Small Business’ aren’t the best of bedfellows, consider that:

• During the pandemic small retailers showed how adaptive they were by rapidly setting up commerce and delivery services to serve their communities faster and better than bigger retailers.

• Local businesses constantly evolve their offerings and services, using that close, genuinely personal relationship with customers and communities as a key differentiator.

• A mixed physical and digital hub of metaverse assets and services could create the means of collaboration, co-creation and participation - not just for stores but for local community services and cultural centres.

This new approach could help people experience something local when they can’t get out to the shops or their high street in the physical world, or provide extended product offerings, information and services within a small physical space that may have limited opening hours.

Alexandra Forrest has a similar optimistic view of the metaverse high street: “I love the idea of combining the in-person experience that you cannot replicate online with a deeper knowledge about product the customer could receive, through being immersed in another world that they can’t access IRL.”

Now let’s widen the lens beyond business. The 2022 ‘Levelling Up’ agenda set by UK government claims to be “a moral, social and economic programme…that sets out how we will spread opportunity more equally across the UK.”

Could metaverse values - such as collaboration, community, commerce - contribute to the aims of the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda and foster greater innovation and opportunity on our high streets?

Maybe.

But those high street businesses – who are already intrepid innovators and tireless pioneers – don’t just need their voice heard, but access and support to create their own spaces in the metaverse, so they are active agents of their own future and not just recipients of someone else’s vision.

Is it just a technology issue?  Jackie Mulligan thinks that more is needed to help high streets: “For retail, new ways to connect are important, but the ability to manage these will be challenging - accessibility, affordability and ease will help.”

So let’s take the long-term view. Those core metaverse values – commerce, collaboration, community and copresence - present a golden opportunity that is radically pragmatic, open all hours, genuinely inclusive and accessible, useful and relevant to the unique flavour of every local community.  Let’s get the high street metaverse-ready.

---

To find out more about IBM and the services they provide to the retail industry, click here.

This article was also published in The Retailer, our quarterly online magazine providing thought-leading insights from BRC experts and Associate Members.

VIEW THE RETAILER