Mastercard and Swarovski launch shopping experience in VR
Mastercard has teamed up with crystal seller Swarovski to facilitate selling of expensive crystal home-décor pieces. The duo has teamed up to create a VR shopping app to help shoppers immerse in the buying experience. The purchase can be made using Masterpass.
The app has been developed by immersive-tech company Youvisit for the Atelier Swarovski home décor line. Using a VR headset for the phone, users can ‘walk’ through five areas of a virtual home, browsing items. The app highlights the pricing, details about the manufacturing process and provides an option to watch the “story behind the inspiration” in a few cases.
To buy an item – the price of which ranges from $325 to $5500 – users need to add the item to their cart and fix their gaze on the Masterpass button that appears at the bottom of the product description. If the app detects that the VR set has been taken off or if the app is closed, the app will log out of Masterpass to avoid any accidental purchase.
Linda Kirkpatrick, EVP merchants and acceptance, Mastercard, says: “At Mastercard, our goal is to provide consumers with the choice to shop when they want, how they want in a manner that is as seamless and secure as possible. This means that merchants need to be able to engage their customers across multiple, technology platforms – in-store, online, in-app and via virtual and augmented reality.”