Lankan startup Vizu to take the online shopping experience to the next level

Tuesday, 6 September 2011 00:35 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The nascent Sri Lankan start-up, Vizu Information Technologies is aiming to revolutionise the online shopping experience with a new patented technology, that allows online visualisation to be made available to the mass market.

“Vizu completely transforms the user experience of an online shopper through their cutting-edge, Visualisation Shopping Portal VizuSHOP, allowing users to visualise the products they want to buy in a unique way,” said Vizu founder and CEO Prasad Peiris. “It allows the user to change features in the product to suit their tastes, combine different products and to simulate the environment in which the product will be used,” he added.

For example, if you are shopping for trendy furniture for your living room, VizuSHOP allows you to mix and match furniture from different vendors, swap between available colours, textures and models etc, in a simulation of your own living room.

“Existing technologies for online, real-time visualisation were limited for serving a niche high-end market, because it was too expensive to make such services available to the mass market,” Peiris added.

But the creators of VizuSHOP say that their technology, that has already been patented in Sri Lanka and is awaiting its international patent, has successfully broken this technology barrier. “Our technology would make it more affordable and faster for vendors to allow customers to really see their products in more than two dimensions,” Peiris said.

Another unique feature is that, Vizu aims to stimulate the creative design skills in the user, by giving them a range of options to modify the product to suit their tastes.

“Many existing virtual reality simulations assume that the client is not intelligent. The purpose of vizu is to give the client the relevant tools to be the designer,” Peiris said.

Vizu Information Technologies will launch its new products in end September. As the first stage, they would launch their own online store called Vizucraft.com, selling works of traditional master artists from around the island. They would also create a physical gallery, called “The Gallery Vizu”, where uncommon creations would be on display. Vizu instigated its operation within the university of Moratuwa with wining ICTA innovation grant from ICT Agency of Sri Lanka and has won many awards on her journey to date.

In summarising his attempt, “We want to create a new buzz word to the world and make people say lets “Vizu it”, whenever they want a visualisation experience of a product available online,” Peiris said.