19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

Business 

Virtual Shopping

Founder

Shannon Tamburi, 24 

General Business – Online

University of Florida

Miami

Talents/Experience/Skills/Aspirations

I am a young full-time student working as an Assistant Controller for an art wholesale company . I have an entrepreneur spirit, inherited from my father and grandfather. I worked as an apprentice with my dad, where he taught me sales and basic accounting. I speak multiple languages, including Armenian, Spanish, and Italian. I am multicultural, extroverted, organized, and goal-oriented. I aspire to be a successful, independent businesswoman who runs her own business. I feel that Virtual Shopping could be the starting opportunity for me to own my own business. It will give me good experience with formulating a business from the start. 

Business Ideals

Virtual Shopping will be a subscription-based app for smart devices that uses virtual reality to aid online shopping. The solution is to fix the issue with garment fit when buying online. 49% of online shoppers are currently disappointed with the online shopping experience, with fit and quality being the majority of complaints. With Virtual Shopping, customers will create virtual avatars - exact replicas of themselves with their exact measurements. These measurements will be throughout and will includewaist, bust, hips, inseam, arm length, torso, and neck measurements. Users will be able to utilize virtual reality headsets to see their avatar-self try the clothing on. If the measurements are exactly correct in scale, the clothing that fits the avatar will fit the individual in the physical world. 

By pairing with brands that offer online shopping, Virtual Shopping will create a virtual shopping mall experience, all without ever leaving the comfort of your home. The brand advertising would pay for the app services. To help shoppers narrow down the best brands for their sizes, Virtual Shopping will use the inventory of brand product measurements to give the shoppers options that will best fit them. The app will allow for any shopper, regardless of shape or size, to feel comfortable and sure of their online purchases. The goal is to make the online shopping experience the most convenient and enjoyable method to shop.

Demographics of customers

Ø       Millennials

Ø Students (18-28)

Ø       Busy parents (26-40)

Ø       Shoppers who are plus-size, petite, or not considered average sized

Ø       Men (18-34)

While I originally targeted plus-size women in this business opportunity, I have since done throughout research that suggests that the majority of men aged 18-34 make up the majority of online buyers. Their biggest issue is also fit and sizing when buying online, the common factor in all my customers. Therefore, I have expanded the demographics of Virtual Shopping to include both genders. Virtual Shopping would ideally include all ages and genders, however realistically it will be limited to those who already use e-commerce as a primary form of shopping. Millennials make up the majority of online shoppers currently, and as per my customer avatar my targeted buyer would be a young and busy female businesswoman.

Why do they care?

Customers would use this service because it is the only service to allow online shoppers an opportunity to virtually try on clothing and ensure the fit before purchasing. It would be a fun, new way to shop that bridges the gap between online and in-store shopping. For a small monthly fee, shoppers will have unlimited access to a virtual shopping experience like nothing else they have access to. 

Core competencies

As stated above, Virtual Shopping will be the only online app to offer these services. We will pair with brands to create a virtual shopping world. The end goal would be to create a virtual shopping mall of all the brands working with the app where shoppers could virtually walk through and compare clothing from the comfort of their mobile devices. This shopping experience will create a certainty with online shopping in terms of size and fit, through the use of the shopper avatars. Accurate measurements will ensure that what fits in the virtual world, will also fit in the physical world.

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After many interviews with different potential customers, I have narrowed down the service to keep Virtual Shoppings ideals collective. Probably the weakest part of my opportunity would be considering how to get this service to the masses. The average consumer would have to have a virtual reality headset in order to view the virtual world. Another possible way to view your avatar would be to create a mirror sized tablet that could scan the shoppers’ body and show their reflection as their avatar. The limitation to this mirror product would be that it would be too large to carry with the shopper and therefore would not be as convenient for online shopping. My next hurdle will be to figure out the design of the app and how to finance the creation of it. 

I didn't receive any feedback on my peers on this particular assignment. However, to summarize two points from peers from other posts about Virtual Shopping would be to focus on customer service and the cost of the service. I must focus on the customer service aspect of an online virtual product, which can be difficult with no face-to-face customer interaction. Cost of the service will be determined by the amount of brands who work with Virtual Shopping. These two aspects will be the center of my further evaluations.