Almost 90% of Gen Z are engaged in video games on a weekly basis; they expect anything described as “virtual” to have the same lived-in feel as their video-game avatars who they can style to look like anyone, dress in any outfit, and explore virtual worlds through countless camera angles and levels of interaction. Current virtual stores fall well short of this experience, however, but the metaverse is trending this way thanks to a combination of technologies with extended reality (XR) at the forefront.