The Future Of Retail Is Here

Shopping is getting a technological makeover “But seriously, I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl,” says Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) in the classic comedy hit Clueless . “I mean I get up. I brush my teeth. And I pick out my school clothes.” The camera then shows us how the fashion-forward teenager uses her home computer to select her daily outfits using a primitive digital twin of her body. Of course, this film hit theatres in 1995, so the graphics are also wanting. Even so, they hint at today’s stunning AR/VR capabilities. Similar to how Cher used a digital twin to pick out her clothes, picture using similar tech to explore a space you may miss: your favorite bookstore. Imagine the following. You live in an area lacking quality bookstores. There used to be a cozy boutique shop you liked years ago, but Amazon’s low prices and dirt-cheap delivery drove it out of business. You once enjoyed picking a treasure off the shelf, reading the back cover or skimming a few pages to see if it was something you could get into. You really can’t experience the same tactile magic by hopping on Amazon.com or even searching through titles on your Kindle. But what if you could virtually wander a three-dimensional bookstore? Everything you see would still exist digitally as binary code, but you could pick up books and explore their contents much like you would at your friendly neighborhood haunt. This isn’t science fiction. It represents the new reality of retail design, made possible by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR). To understand what’s already here and what’s coming, I spoke with Alex Levin, founding partner of L+R, a Brooklyn-based strategy and design firm using cutting edge tools for clients including Louis Vuitton, GE, Estée Lauder, and Hilton. To better appreciate why immersive retail design is gaining marketplace traction, let’s consider challenges businesses now face. The Problem with Traditional Retail Design Whether you’re selling books or bras, building a store is no walk in the park. Especially now that e-commerce is giving brick-and-mortar retail a run for its money. It can sometimes take months—even years—to plan your offerings. Blueprints are a must, along with a codified vision of what you wish to offer and where everything will go. As sophisticated grocery store layouts reveal, considerable thought goes into such placement, including what goes on shelves and where. For as Grocerystoreguide.com explains, “At the heart of layout strategy, psychological principles are used to determine where essential products such as bread, milk, and eggs are placed—often at the store’s periphery—to ensure you traverse various sections and encounter multiple products.” But what if after all those meetings with you and your team discussing such considerations—after all the time and work has been put in getting the space ready—you walk in and realize: Oh no! That sign doesn’t work. The shelf looks terrible. The whole layout is an irredeemable eyesore! “Fixing those problems late in the game is a nightmare scenario,” says Levin. “It costs businesses time and money, especially if it all requires a back-to-the-drawing board rethink. This is why spatial computing is such a gamechanger.” Enter L+R and Apple Vision Pro French luxury retailer Printemps dates back to the close of the American Civil War. But this legacy brand hasn’t lasted this long selling high-end fashion, beauty, and home goods through dumb luck. Their continual success is a function of forward-thinking and pragmatism. So when they prepared to launch their new U.S. flagship, a 54,000-square-foot location in Manhattan, they put a lot of thought into nailing their rollout. They partnered with L+R on an immersive design using Apple’s Vision Pro headset. But instead of guessing how things might look in meatspace reality, they produced a virtual store representation built upon the primitive tech previewed in Clueless years before. Executives could ‘step into’ into a virtual replica using a headset. They could look around, venture through aisles, and contemplate where signage and displays would go long before any nails hit wood. “The custom app enabled stakeholders to not just live a shopper’s potential experience,” says Levin. “It gave Printemps the ability to make what would ordinarily be expensive alterations on the spot.” No pricey change orders or vexing turnaround times required. Why VR and AR Matter Now Back in 1995, AR wasn’t in the cultural milieu. VR was to some extent. Arcade games featuring the budding technology were somewhat popular. You could play Dactyl Nightmare with hardware like head-mounted displays employing hand tracking. But it tended to be a lackluster experience bogged down by low-resolution graphics and laggy performance. 30 years later, it’s a whole different situation, especially due to the aid of artificial intelligence. “With the computing power and possibilities of AI, virtual reality environments are seeing a boost in realism and capability, expanding the use cases of VR in various industries,” according to VRX. Today, VR and AR are fast becoming essential tools for businesses. In particular, digital twins, a subject I wrote about for the aviation sector, are proving indispensable for expensive and risky industries, including the private space industry. (Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical objects, including machines.) As digitalcommerce.com explains, “The concept of digital twins has also enabled the development of virtual showrooms, where businesses can show off their products in the Metaverse using VR and AR.” Whether we’re talking about AR or VR, the beauty of both technologies is they reduce needless guesswork. The peace of mind L+R gave to Printemps is increasingly becoming a must-have. “You don’t have to wonder if a product will fit or if a design choice will work. You can see it for yourself—before it’s real,” says Levin. And just to confirm, this boon isn’t limited to retail. Healthcare providers, advertisers, car manufacturers, even law enforcement agencies are using VR/AR to play in the digital sandbox before making the jump to reality. AI: The Secret Sauce In 2025, it’s not just the fact that VR headsets give us better gaming experiences with cooler graphics. They’re using AI to deliver quality results. Tomorrow’s augmented/virtual reality machines are “smarter”—listening, responding, and adapting to context and human input. AI acts as the connective tissue underlying these innovations, delivering experiences and insights that are invaluable to tomorrow’s businesses. Most of all, they serve as temperature takers —allowing companies to test what works and what doesn’t in more controlled, cheaper, and easier to manipulate environments. In other words, AI boosts immersive experiences from “nice” to necessary making the iterative process smoother, faster, and more revelatory. By slashing needless resources, reducing friction, and enabling soft market testing, companies embracing AR/VR can test their wares in safer environments, enabling critical feedback to inform their choices. We’ve sure come a long way since 1995. On a personal level, I totally can’t wait to pick out my own clothes like Cher with help from AR and VR. As if. Seriously though, with AR/VR fast becoming business essentials, maybe that precocious teen was way ahead of her time. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelashley/2025/05/09/digital-twins-and-virtual-stores-the-future-of-retail-is-here/