May 09, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] The government’s plan to open the world’s first virtual reality shopping mall during the Korea Sale Festa -- local equivalent of Black Friday -- is in jeopardy due to technical difficulties, the Chosun Biz reported on Aug. 31.

The VR system was unable to overcome technical problems as it keeps shutting down whenever the Active X program, which is responsible for its security and financial functions, was used to make a transaction. 

The government had invested about 450 million won (US$399,000) to develop the VR shopping mall. It currently sells 30 types of products -- 180 items from six distributors including Lotter Department, Hyundai Department Store, E-mart, LG Electronics and Lotte Hi-Mart.

Though browsing of the shopping mall’s exterior and its products are implemented graphically, the VR experience ends there as the customer is transferred to a payment web page when trying to check out.

“The actual purchase cannot be made inside the VR shopping mall as you can only browse and place products in the shopping cart. In order to purchase the actual product, you must go to a separate payment site on your PC or mobile application,” said an official at Skonec Entertainment, the VR shopping mall contents producer.

The primary reason for this is that the Active X program -- security program that executes payments on all domestic online shopping malls -- is not compatible with the VR platform as the screen is automatically switched to the payment security screen.

“At the moment we cannot create a system that runs the Active X program while maintaining the VR screen. There is a limitation because it utilizes the payment network of a distributor rather than the self-payment system,” said an official from the VR manufacturing firm.

Due to the technical difficulties, the development of the VR shopping mall has slowed down. The government had hoped that its portal and app would be completed by early September and was planning on launching it on Sept. 28 in time for the Korea Sale Festa, but have been delayed by a couple of weeks. According to an industry source, a demonstration will be made available in late September. However, concerns are arising as it is expected to be merely a beta version as it usually takes one to two months to optimize and debug the VR program.

According to officials from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, this year’s VR shopping mall will be a test phase, meaning that it will showcase its potential to the public. The ministry has also stated that it plans to collect data from this year’s trial run in order to improve it for people to fully shop in virtual reality by next year.

By Alex Lee (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)