Virtual shopping – the why and the how

Complex environments like stores have elements competing for customers’ attention. Therefore, it is no surprise that many traditional research approaches that rely on stated responses and standalone assessment fall short in their ability to predict the real impact of promotional materials after launch. Over the last couple of years, market research industry has seen a steady rise in online context testing solutions such as virtual stores which offer cost-efficient and fast findings, but also boasts very high validity. Apart from providing stable results even in changed circumstances, Virtual shopping has a very high correlation with real shopping behavior – as much as 0.8-0.9. Check out the full webinar below to learn more.

A more realistic context guarantees more accurate results

Even though it’s been gaining traction in recent years, what makes context testing so imperative now is the inability to conduct in-person research. An accompanied shopping trip is great for qual insights into what the shopping process looks like on a smaller scale. Still, with a bigger, quant sample, in the right (virtual) context and void of variations that might spoil your data, you can be much more confident that your results are reliable.

In an average supermarket that contains around 50k SKUs, consumers spend only 5 seconds per aisle, which is indicative of why it’s so important to test everything in a realistic context – if consumers miss your POS display, SRP, or a new pack in the environment, they won’t be bought.

In-context remote testing options, such as virtual stores, provide a realistic environment for conducting consumer research. Although virtual shopping is not identical to shopping in front of a real shelf, implicit studies produce results that are far less biased and more impartial than verbal self-reported data, which is often saturated with personal inclinations.

Pick the right virtual stores for your KPIs

Depending on the research question, the three testing levels of virtual stores – 2D, 2.5D and 3D environment – can provide highly reliable results.

Check out a demo on the three types of virtual stores here!

Setting up a virtual shopping study for different needs

Virtual shopping is most effective when combined with other methods. Standout and visibility data is the key in shopper research, which is why we use it in combination with eye-tracking in virtual stores to gauge if products are noticed in their environment – a necessary prerequisite to being bought. Additionally, we suggest coupling virtual shopping studies with traditional surveys and Reaction time measurement – an excellent tool for assessing attributes and seeing how strong the connections between the product and some descriptors are.

The added value of virtual shopping as a method is that it collects behavioral shopping-specific KPIs – sales uplift, the share of shoppers, value share, and several others. Since it uses a monadic design on a large sample (from 300 to 1000 respondents per cell), these results can be compared to different benchmarks – that of your brand’s other products, your competitor’s performance, and our benchmark database.

Virtual shopping is a versatile tool that complements many study types. While it is first and foremost a shopper marketing mainstay, it is also useful when running tests of a new flyer, a TVC, or long-form content such as branded videos, as it can measure the impact of tested material on the uplift in sales. Take a look at the table below, showing which solutions use VS as a method.

The question that is on everyone’s minds right now is should you still keep on testing during a period of shaken consumer sentiment. This is why we put Virtual shopping to the test: we compared data collected in April to data from last year to see if our findings hold up – we found that all the results remain stable. If you used VS before the crisis, you can continue to rely on it now!

Main takeaways

There are 3 key reasons why using virtual stores is a good idea for brands right now:

1. Context testing has been growing in relevance for years – but now add to it the COVID-19 crisis, and the inability to conduct in-person research, we will notice a more intense switch to remote testing in virtual environments.
2. Not only is the validation of virtual store results very high – 0.8 compared to that of 0.6 of surveys, but the findings are stable as well, even during the crisis.
3. Pick the right type of virtual store for your specific research objectives!

Interested in learning more about virtual shopping? Reach out to us at info@eyesee-research.com

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