Beijing (PingWest)- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Friday that it will widely use virtual reality technology to create an online three-dimensional, immersive and interactive shopping experience for upcoming 618 Shopping Festival in China.

According to Alibaba, the 3D shopping features will replicate elements of in-store shopping. With just smartphones, consumers are able to browses items through 3D showrooms of more than 100 brands. Well-known brands such as Swedish furniture giant Ikea, will take part in the project and leverage the virtual reality technology for the festival, Ikea will have a 3,000-square-meter store in Shanghai digitally replicated on Alibaba’s Tmall platform.

IKEA stores allows shoppers to virtually test different product combinations, allowing them to visualize how pieces might look in their own homes using just their mobile phones.

The Tmall iHome team in charge of the project said it sped up development of the new technology since the Covid-19 outbreak and will completed its application by June. Brick-and-mortar stores and supermarkets have largely involved during the trial period, with the 100 brands have already accessed the 3D shopping features.

The Covid-19 outbreak has forced an increasing number of physical stores in China to try doing business online through livestreaming and 3D ‘real scene’ shopping, driving the development of related industrial chains. The country’s VR/augmented reality market was worth CNY39.8 billion last year, with a year-over-year growth of 40 percent expected in 2020, according to data released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute.

Chinese e-commerce platforms including Alibaba’s Tmall and JD.com have predicted a growing trend of revenge consumption for the upcoming 618 shopping festival as Chinese consumer will go on a spending spree to make up for time lost in lockdown.

In order to capture business opportunities, retailers and merchants in China have all been expanding their product offerings and services to fulfil the surging need of online consumers,

According to Tmall, more than 100,000 brands have signed up for this year’s Tmall 618, which is more than double than last year.

“Because of the pandemic, brands, merchants and retailers will be highly active in participating in this years’ 618 shopping event, and it will be the most popular one for industry and supplier in 17 years since the shopping event initiated,” Xu Lei, CEO of JD Retail said.