“VR [virtual reality] and AR [augmented reality] are exciting — Google Glass coming and going, Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus, Google’s $542 million into Magic Leap, not to mention Microsoft’s delightful HoloLens...there are amazing early stage platforms and apps, but VR/AR in 2015 feels a bit like the smartphone market before the iPhone. We’re waiting for someone to say ‘One more thing …’ in a way that has everyone thinking ‘so that’s where the market’s going.”

"You will soon be able to slip on a Rift and be instantly transported to a mall with a couple of girlfriends to do some clothes shopping. Everything you see is your size, and you can try outfits on an avatar that has your identical proportions. You can match items with an online inventory containing a copy of every item of clothing in your real-world closet. See how the skirt goes with the shoes you picked up last week with a click."

"Beyond gaming, VR will be an important platform for streaming content and even shopping. Oculus has already experimented with Story Studio, a platform for VR movie creation. In addition, many consumers claim the VR experience will drive them to shop more online rather than in stores."

"Online consumers will grow to 1.623 billion in 2018 from 1.079 billion in 2013, [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development]...But eCommerce accounted for just 5.9% of total retail market worldwide in 2014, or $1.316 trillion".

A key barrier to "further consumer adoption of online shopping is reported to be “the lack of rich sensory information in the online environment”.

"despite two decades of development, retail websites are still mostly stuck with a click-and-order model, on the equivalent level of a 2D catalogue with "very limited interaction and visualisation capability".