It’s increasingly difficult to defend packaging and store displays that result in underwhelming sales. Technology and access to consumer data are better than ever, ensuring that as consumer shopping continues to grow, sales should as well. As part of this technological and data evolution, retailers and manufacturers are rethinking their approach to design. Integrating tools like virtual reality (VR) is helping them to make well-informed decisions during the design process that mitigate risk and improve the bottom line.

Conceptualization in its current state is a wasteful element to design. It takes hours to collect inspirational whiteboard ideas that will come to life in the form of expensive physical mock-ups, all of which eventually end up in the garbage. However, using VR, companies can bypass this expensive and time-consuming step by quickly importing art files and sharing them across teams in a collaborative hyper-realistic retail environment. Within this environment, companies can iterate concepts on the fly while also visualizing them in the context of actual retail environments. For example, designers can make sure new concepts stand out from the blue of Walmart or the red of Target.