A virtual mall is coming soon and it’s becoming a reality thanks to metaverse real estate seller Metamall.
In this virtual mall you can not only shop for standard items from various brands, but you can also create a unique piece of virtual property in the form of an NFT (non-fungible token).
The best part about online malls is that there is no need to worry about traffic or long travel times; no need to stress over booking a cab or filling gas in your car.
There are no long lines in shops when you want to pay for or return an item. You don’t even have to worry about getting dressed.
This virtual mall is coming soon courtesy of Metamall, a metaverse real estate developer. Basically, the company Metamall is building a virtual mall called Metamall in the metaverse.
Metamall is essentially a virtual real estate developer helping users manage virtual property in the metaverse.
“It’s between the physical mall and traditional e-commerce. The idea is to combine what you see on an e-commerce shopping site with a better visual experience, where users can enter a mall in virtual reality and interact with real people,” says Serge Gianchandani, co-founder, CEO and CPO of Metamall.
You can also buy or lease a plot in the Metamall if you want to sell something. Metamall will be available in Solana, a user-generated, blockchain-based virtual world.
Initially, Metamall will house a little over 20 brands when it goes live this April. That number will go up to 200-250 in the next six months.
Metamall will be a multi-purpose shopping mall that will include office spaces as well as separate gaming zones.
“It’s essentially like a city where you can be a passive investor, own real estate and earn income from it,” believes Sahan Ray, head of business development at Metamall.
The starting price of a slice of virtual real estate is $225 for 900 square feet and goes up to $27,000 for something bigger.
Metaverse will develop this virtual project and sell virtual land, but they will not manage it.
“If I had built Age of empire, I would have had rights and licenses to Age of Empires. But since this is a distributed app, there can be 20,000 plots of land and if you buy two of them you have that right in the governance,” Ray says.
Sahan Ray explains that each plot of virtual land in Metamall is an NFT with a specific code so if you want to sell it you must go to the marketplace and based on demand, somebody will pay a certain price for it. Whoever owns the NFT will have the so-called key to the plot of virtual land. If you have the key, you are the only one who has the right to do whatever you want with your virtual land.
The benefits of a virtual shop in Metamall is that the shop will not be bound by the laws of physics, brands will be free to experiment with store designs that offer a more immersive experience.
If brands don’t get into it now, they will regret it later when it becomes more expensive to be a part of the next big (and long-lasting) thing.
According to MetaMetric Solutions, Metaverse real estate sales hit $501 million in 2021.
Metaverse real estate sales in January alone topped $85 million and could reach nearly $1 billion by the end of the year.
Decentraland, Sandbox, Cryptovoxels and Somnium are the top players in this market.
Now all of this doesn’t mean physical mall culture will cease to exist. The metaverse won’t replace the traditional retail market, but will simply be an additional layer, just like e-commerce.
(Image Credit : https://www.globenewswire.com/)
