Virtual Reality Simulations of Stores can provide a peek into the mind of consumers while being easy on Retailers pockets. Brandweek has a story on how consumer research firms are offering programs which allow Virtual Reality simulations of Stores, Virtual Shopping, Real Results

“We instruct respondents to shop as they normally would and ask them which displays capture the most attention,” said Covkin. “Because it’s virtual, you can change things on the fly.”
Testing new products in a real store environment would be too expensive and time-consuming, Covkin said. “In the perfect world, we’d be testing everything in a real store environment. However, due to the time it takes to implement an effective test and get compliance with retailers, the cost is enormous.”