Merchandiser operation management

The simulator of merchandiser operations management allows you to live the experience of what it's like to work in the modern supermarket. You have to accomplish given tasks in order to collect all the points. Simulator uses gamification and realistic scenario to stimulate one's creativity and improve spatial thinking.

Project

In this particular simulator, a supermarket employee is trained on how to sort out the goods according to the brands, where and why to place them at specific places on shelves and keep the order on the shelves according to all the merchandiser rules.
Target audience: merchandisers, supermarket staff, retail HR, students.

This project was initiated by our company to show the capabilities of most memorable training using the latest HTC VR technologies. In order to demonstrate how advanced the warehouse, supermarket operations can be, we have developed custom solutions and modern approaches to usual retail work tasks.

Simulator is used for trainings of supermarket staff as well as the marketing personnel of retail companies for deciding various products' placement models on shelves in the actual stores. This is also used for visualizations of retail job position for students.

Development time: 2,5 months
Engine: Unity / Unreal
Platform: PC + HTC Vive
Setting: Nowadays
Visual style: realism
Language: multi (ENG/RU)
Age: 12+
Stage: demo

01- Research

Modern approach to usual tasks

After the research we have done in order to find what new or better can we offer for retail industry with our VR solutions, the information flow between facilities turned out to be one of the most sensitive elements that requires a lot of extra resources. On the other hand, the process of sorting out the goods in the shelves has been mostly the same for workers at all times. Only with changes in the field of marketing and appearing of different marketing plans for different brands, shops and international supermarkets are affected by the decisions. Therefore, the staff that is working at those facilities needs to be constantly updated with the changes on the higher level. We took this as a great example to build a platform that directly connects marketeers and the actual staff working on spot at the markets.

With our product, marketing managers are able to prepare and the guidelines of new product placement rules that are then visible directly by shop manager at the actual location. This eliminates the extra cost of real visits and even provides remote meeting solution in order to visually discuss and train the new employees. Multiplayer solution came out to be a crucial part of the simulator so the head office could easily update all the branches with fast pace and always changing information.

02- Development

90 % of training knowledge absorption

The development process started with accurate recreation of supermarket location. We had to sig into the art of supermarkets and placed all the shelves and stands according to the retail rules. Therefore we have modeled lots of different goods so the users would feel what it is actually like to have a vast amount of unsorted elements that need to be placed according to the marketing teams' plan. After all the assets were implemented and user mechanics were developed, accurate testing was done to get rid of the in-game bugs and technical glitches.

03- Maintenance

Perfect tool for the industry: from marketing to actual product placement

Although any kind of custom solutions according to specific client needs can be implemented in the simulators we develop, we are continuing to polish our own platform for the mentioned marketing-staff interaction process. We have a vision of the platform that would unite the company and remove unnecessary travel costs in order to introduce the employees with some new information. Furthermore, the platform is being created with an idea to have custom values in order of content creation. This means that we are eager to develop a product that when given to the hands of a retail company could revolutionize the process of communication right away. Apart from personnel training scenarios that include good sorting, stock-taking, customer service and various other kinds of needed trainings, we are introducing the modern tools for marketeers to create and monitor the process of their different branches they have to take care of around their potential market areas.

Click to see the video-captured VR experience on Vimeo →