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Shopper marketing · Belgian grocery business reviews · In use since September 2026
The 2027 shelf plan.
With the buyer standing in it.
The Perfect Store is a virtual supermarket built for Mondelēz Belgium, in which a retail buyer starts at home with the retailer's promotional folder, pushes a trolley down a biscuit aisle to find the products on a shopping list, and then watches the shelf reset into the new layout.
Mondelēz Belgium's shopper marketing and category team are taking their 2027 plan to the big Belgian grocery retailers in a round of business reviews. On a slide, the buyer has to hold today's shelf in their head and picture the new one, and even a willing buyer usually lands somewhere slightly off. So we built the path to purchase, from the folder on the kitchen counter to the shelf itself. The buyer puts on a headset, shops the aisle as it stands today and then watches it change around them.
The Challenge: How Do You Get a Buyer to See the Shelf the Way a Shopper Does?
Mondelēz Belgium takes its category plan for the coming year to the big Belgian grocery retailers in business reviews, including a new layout for the biscuit shelf. Those meetings usually run on slides and planograms, and that leaves the buyer to do the hardest part alone. They've got to build the new shelf in their head from a drawing. Then they have to imagine a shopper in front of it, looking for one product in a crowded aisle. The team wanted the message understood fast, with everyone in the room looking at the same shelf.
The constraints:
- Sit inside a business review without taking it over
- Work for senior buyers who may never have worn a headset
- Travel into the retailer's own building, with no cables and no fixed room
- Dress the store as the retailer's own: its planogram, its folders, its logos
- Fill a whole shelf with recognisable packs in time for the review dates
- Show findability on today's shelf, how easy each product is to find, without putting the retailer on trial
What Does the Buyer Actually Do in the Headset?
Start at home
The run opens at a kitchen counter. The retailer's folder is lying there, and the first thing the buyer is asked to do is pick it up and look at the latest promotions. Then it's time to grab the car keys and head to the store.
Into the store
There's no drive. The keys take them straight to the entrance, past fresh produce and a wall of chillers, with a trolley ready. They get around by gripping the trolley and pushing it where they want to go, the way anyone moves through a supermarket.
Explore the aisle and pick products
In the biscuit aisle a shopping list sits in the trolley, and the task is simple: find every product on it and drop each one in. They take packs off the shelf with their own hands, and each find comes off the list. When the list is done, their time to find the whole list goes up on a sign over the shelf.
Watch the aisle come alive
Then the shelf resets around them while they stay where they are: the shelves empty and the packs fly back into the new layout. They're asked to do the same search again. Having just shopped the old shelf, they've got something to hold the new one up against.
The Technical Build: What RealityMatters Delivered
Need more clarity?
Six pieces of work in one experience, built on the pipeline we've used for close to twenty years to turn product artwork into something people can pick up and explore.
Store environments
Just two places: a kitchen at home and a supermarket. Every place in a headset has to be built, so the drive between them was left out. That also spares first-time users the motion that tends to cause discomfort.
Deliverables:
- Kitchen with the retailer's folder and the car keys
- Supermarket interior: produce, chillers, bakery
- Biscuit aisle at real scale, to the retailer's planogram
- Retailer folders and logos throughout
Brand asset preparation
Most of the shelf is generated. Each pack is produced from its own image and placed facing by facing where the planogram puts it, which is how a full aisle came together in the weeks before the first review. Full detail went where hands go: three Mondelēz products and a named set of competitors that people pick up. Where packs were missing from the material, we bought them.
Deliverables:
- Shelf generated from the planogram and pack images
- Full-detail packs for the products people handle
- Missing packs sourced by us
- Retailer folder and leaflet artwork
Aisle, shelf and packs
The aisle holds two planograms, today's and the proposed one, and switches between them in front of the buyer: the shelves clear and the packs fly to their new places. Signs over the aisle mark the two as Before and After. Mondelēz brands such as LU, Pim's, Milka, Oreo and Prince sit alongside competitor and store-brand packs, as they would on a real shelf.
Deliverables:
- Shelving built to the retailer's planogram
- Current and new shelf layouts
- The live change from one to the other
- Before and After signage
VR interaction
Everything is done with the hands: picking up the folder, taking the keys, lifting packs off the shelf. The buyer moves by gripping the trolley and pushing or pulling it, which feels natural in a supermarket and keeps the controls down to one idea.
Deliverables:
- Hand interaction with folder, keys, packs and trolley
- Movement by pushing the trolley
- A shopping list that tracks every find
- The game: find every product, then try again on the new shelf
- Voice-over and short on-screen instructions
Hardware and room set-up
Standalone Meta Quest 3 headsets, with no cables and no computer, so the experience goes wherever the meeting is. We configured them, loaded the build and were on site for the first retailer session.
Deliverables:
- Meta Quest 3 headsets, standalone
- Configuration and loading
- On-site support at the first retailer session
Project leadership and delivery
One team from the first conversation to the first live session, working from the client's own planograms and pack images. The client saw two working demos before any retailer did, and we debriefed with them the same day the first session ran.
Deliverables:
- Experience design with the client team
- Asset coordination with the client
- Two working demos before going live
- Same-day debrief after the first session
What We Learned Building The Perfect Store
-
Give the new shelf something to beat
A buyer doesn't carry a picture of today's shelf around with them. Let them shop the current planogram first, and the new one has a reference point the moment it appears. -
Put the detail where the hands go
Packs people pick up and read have to be exact. The rest of the shelf can be generated from an image of each pack, because from where a shopper stands that's all it needs to be. -
People want to get going
At the first session, people were too keen to start to sit through an introduction. Instructions belong inside the run, short and in the moment. -
Leave room to just look
Once the game was done, people wanted more time to take in the full planogram in detail. So we decided to let them stay in the aisle until they take the headset off. -
The retailer notices its own world
Building the store around the retailer's own folders and logos took extra care, and it was the detail the retailer's team mentioned.
Your Questions About The Perfect Store
Need more clarity?
Still have questions?
Here are a few common questions about The Perfect Store.
What is a VR shelf experience?
A VR shelf experience is a virtual store aisle, built to a planogram, that a buyer moves through in a headset, at real scale, with real packs they can pick up. The Perfect Store, built by RealityMatters for Mondelēz Belgium, lets a retail buyer shop today's biscuit shelf and then watch it reset into the new layout.
How is this different from showing a planogram or a 3D render?
With a planogram or a render, the buyer looks at a picture and has to imagine the shopping. In the headset they do the shopping: they stand in the aisle and look for the products themselves, the way a shopper would. The design bet is that a shelf you've searched is easier to agree on than one you've only been shown.
What do planogram, facings and shelf reset mean, and how does The Perfect Store use them?
A planogram is the plan that sets where every product sits on a shelf and how many facings it gets, a facing being one pack front turned towards the shopper. A shelf reset is when the shelf is cleared and rebuilt to a new planogram, which in a real store usually happens out of hours. The Perfect Store builds today's biscuit aisle to the retailer's planogram, lets the buyer shop it, and then runs the reset in front of them so they can search the new layout too.
How does a VR shelf experience fit into category management and a range review?
It fits at the point where a category plan needs agreeing, when a brand asks a retailer to back a new shelf it can only show on paper. The Perfect Store was made for the business reviews in which Mondelēz Belgium presents its plan for the coming year, biscuit shelf included, and we'd expect the same aisle to work in a range review or any meeting where a reset is on the table. What it brings is the shopper's side of the argument: the buyer searches the shelf themselves and sees their own time to find on the sign. It doesn't forecast sales or track where anyone looks, so it sits alongside the category data rather than replacing it.
Do buyers need to have worn a headset before?
No. It's built for people who never have. They use their own hands to pick things up and move by pushing a trolley, with a voice-over and short on-screen instructions along the way. We also left out any drive to the store, because being moved through a world while standing still is what tends to make first-time users feel unwell.
What hardware does it run on, and does it need a special room?
Standalone Meta Quest 3 headsets, with no cables and no computer attached. The team brings them into the retailer's building and sets up in the meeting room. It needs a clear patch of floor around the person wearing the headset, and that's about it.
Can it be dressed for a specific retailer?
Yes. The version that ran first follows that retailer's own planogram and carries its folders and logos, from the folder on the kitchen counter to the store itself. The retailer's team noticed that detail.
How long does a build like this take?
Weeks rather than months, when the planograms and pack images arrive early. Generating most of the shelf from pack images, instead of modelling every product by hand, is a big part of what keeps it quick.
Which products are modelled in full detail?
The ones people pick up: on this project, three Mondelēz products and a named set of competitors. The rest of the shelf is generated from an image of each pack and placed where the planogram says it goes, which is all a pack needs when it's seen from where a shopper stands.
Can the same store be reused for the next shelf reset, another category or another retailer?
That's how it was designed. The store, the shelf and the pack set are built once, so whatever comes next can reuse them instead of starting again. Which comes first is the client's call, and it tends to become clear once the first reviews are done.
Who is RealityMatters?
RealityMatters is an experience marketing studio. We make complex products easy to choose, by building interactive experiences people can step into, from virtual showrooms to walk-in stores. The closest earlier work to The Perfect Store is Toyota Material Handling's virtual showroom and Warehouse Builder, where customers of STOW and Movu configure warehouse aisles and walk them at full scale. The same pipeline has served brands including Douwe Egberts and Mitsubishi for close to twenty years.