Central Retail Corporation (CRC), the country's biggest retailer, has launched the world's first immersive retail platform to let more customers access its products.
Natira Boonsri, CRC's chief commercial officer, said the CRC Immersive Retail Platform, with its inaugural project known as C-Verse, stems from the company's commitment to understanding evolving consumer needs and trends.
C-Verse is a shopping channel that harnesses cutting-edge technology and utilises generative AI. The Immersive Retail Platform seamlessly integrates offline and online retail, social media, live streaming and the virtual world, providing customers with a comprehensive and immersive shopping journey.
According to Mrs Natira, the company plans to allocate several billion baht during 2022-2026 to develop and upgrade this platform, elevate the shopping experience, and move beyond the concept of omnichannel.
CRC has teamed up with two partners including Huawei Technologies (Thailand) Co to help support cloud infrastructure for the C-Verse application, making the connection between the platform's real and virtual worlds smooth and seamless, while also ensuring the system and app is easy to use so it can lead to endless innovations in the future.
According to Mrs Natira, CRC chose to launch the C-Verse application with Tops CLUB as its first offering, as Tops CLUB offers bulky items and its physical accessibility for customers is limited because it has only one branch so far.
Following the successful implementation of C-Verse, CRC plans to extend the immersive shopping platform to other businesses within CRC, including beauty and home products, as well as department stores in Europe, such as Italy's La Rinascente.
"These advancements will empower Central Retail to become the ultimate lifestyle destination, transcending traditional boundaries of offline and online commerce, social media, live streaming, and virtual stores to become the best next-gen omnichannel,'' Mrs Natira said.
According to Mrs Natira, CRC continuously strives to enhance its business and modernise its services, going beyond customers' expectations to provide an exceptional experience. At the same time, business partners can also benefit from its limitless channels to offer products and services.
"The introduction of the C-Verse application represents an unprecedented milestone in Thailand's retail landscape, as it pioneers a complete virtual retail store experience," Mrs Natira said.
With C-Verse, customers can immerse themselves in the virtual world using customisable avatars, seamlessly navigating through an extensive range of products, adding items to their carts, and securely completing transactions. Prompt delivery ensures customers receive their purchases within 1-2 days, enhancing convenience and satisfaction.
Furthermore, customers can interact with AI avatars for real-time advice. To further enrich their shopping experience, customers can also use AR Mode to connect the experience between the online and offline realms, offering them the opportunity not only to shop, but also take photos and play games.
"CRC is confident that the C-Verse project, one of CRC's Immersive Retail Platforms, will be well-received by consumers and the app will have more than 30,000 downloads by the end of the year," Mrs Natira said, adding that the platform is also expected to play a vital role in growing CRC sales by 12-15% by the end of this year.
