Elizbeth Arden has launched a virtual store that enables browsing, gameplaying and shopping.
The Revlon-owned beauty brand created the metaverse shopping experience in partnership with experiential eCommerce platform Obsess and launched it Tuesday (May 16), Elizabeth Arden said in a Wednesday press release.
“We are truly operating as an omnichannel business to evolve our customer experience and engage a whole new generation of shoppers about our products and legacy through digital storytelling,” Revlon Global Chief Marketing Officer Martine Williamson said in the release.
PYMNTS research found that beauty products could be a tough sale online, as customers are used to experiencing the products in person. However, digital technology can bring the experience to consumers’ screens, according to the “Beauty and Wellness Digital Payments Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and American Express collaboration.
Elizabeth Arden’s new virtual store’s interactive features allow visitors to immerse themselves in historical photos that tell the story of the brand and its founder, play games and take quizzes to learn about skin care products and regimens, and collect tokens as they browse through the site to win a prize, according to the press release.
Visitors from the United States can also make purchases in the virtual store, the release said.
“We are honored to work with Elizabeth Arden to bring the brand’s cult products and inspiring heritage to life through an immersive virtual shopping experience for the first time,” Obsess founder and CEO Neha Singh said in the release. “This virtual store experience will delight the brand’s customers with one-of-a-kind interactive content and provide new ways for shoppers to discover, learn about and shop for Elizabeth Arden’s industry-leading skincare, makeup and fragrances.”
As both retailers and consumers seek out seamless experiences between online and stores, the traditional web page with a grid of photos and descriptions may no longer cut it, especially with younger consumers accustomed to interactive and visual experiences with social media and video games, Singh told PYMNTS in an interview posted in August 2021.
The solution is an augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) experience that allows shoppers to feel like they’re browsing in a store, Singh said at the time.
“A lot more people can experience this, even if they can’t be there in person,” Singh said. “It just basically increases the audience for your retail stores.”
For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.
Corporate delinquencies are reportedly at the highest rate they’ve reached in eight years.
The delinquency rate for loans from U.S. banks to both U.S. and foreign companies rose to 1.3% at the end of 2024, a figure that was the highest since the first quarter of 2017 but well below the 5% seen during the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Times (FT) reported Monday (Feb. 17), citing data from BankRegData.
The total amount of bank debt on which U.S. business borrowers were at least one month late reached $28 billion, up $2.2 billion from three months earlier and up $5.4 billion from a year earlier, according to the report.
The report attributed the rise to interest rates that remain high, surprising some observers who expected them to fall this year. A pickup in inflation in January and concerns about the impact of President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs have delayed further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the report said.
Corporate bank loans tend to be variable rate, so the expected decline in interest rates would have given some relief to borrowers, the report said.
The data from BankRegData does not include loans from direct lenders and private credit funds, per the report.
It was reported in January that the growth in commercial bank loans was at the slowest it’s been since the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Commercial bank loans grew by around 2.7% in 2024, which was only somewhat faster than the 2.3% rise seen in 2023.
A number of bankers said they hoped to see loan growth later this year, citing optimism among clients and other indicators.
Bank of America said during a January earnings call that commercial loans were up 5% year over year in the fourth quarter and that loan and deposit growth in the current year should outpace last year’s.
J.P. Morgan Chase said during a January earnings call that there has been improvement in business sentiment and that balance sheets at small businesses are healthy.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser said during a January earnings call that in the United States, “growth is not only being driven by the higher-end consumer but also by a strong and innovative corporate sector.”