How Gold Apple increased consultants’ individual sales by 25% with VR training

Gold Apple is a leading beauty retailer with 47 stores across multiple countries. As the company expanded its store network, introduced new products, and launched more promotional campaigns, it became clear that its existing training approach could no longer keep pace with rapid growth. The company needed to accelerate consultant onboarding while maintaining its high service standards.

Initially, new hires were onboarded through a combination of in-person training sessions and e-learning courses. The quality of training depended largely on the availability, experience, and delivery methods of frontline managers.

As a result, training outcomes varied significantly. Some employees adapted quickly, while others struggled and required additional training. At the same time, store managers had to spend a considerable amount of time training new hires. This increased managerial workload and left little room for other responsibilities.

The manager-led training produced inconsistent learning outcomes, was hard to scale, and made it harder to maintain a high level of service as the company grew.

In August 2021, we partnered with Gold Apple to launch our VR platform for consultant onboarding and skills development.

We started by interviewing the Gold Apple team to identify the company's current business priorities and the processes that needed improvement. Next, we developed a framework for creating VR scenarios, prioritized the rollout of courses, and defined the pilot plan. Together, these decisions created a solid foundation for scaling the project.

The pilot focused on three business objectives:

• shorten the time required to onboard new consultants,
• improve consultants’ sales performance while maintaining Gold Apple’s high service standards,
• reduce the time frontline managers spend training new hires.

The solution is powered by our platform, which combines a web portal with immersive VR training for employees. Through the web portal, the Gold Apple L&D department creates and updates scenarios tailored to specific brands and business needs, assigns training to employee groups, and tracks performance against key metrics.

The underlying principle is to complete short, regular VR training sessions without interrupting the workday. Consultants spend around 5-15 minutes in realistic situations, training without workplace distractions.

The newly acquired skills are applied immediately. After training, consultants return to the shop floor and put the knowledge into practice. This immediate transfer of skills is what sets VR apart from traditional training.

From the pilot launch to the full rollout, we worked in weekly sprints with the Gold Apple team. Together, we reviewed progress, refined VR scenarios based on changing business priorities and consultants’ feedback, and planned new training topics, such as priority brands and newly launched products.

The pilot launched in just five stores. Today, the platform is used in 42 stores across multiple countries.

Over five years of collaboration, 522 VR training scenarios of varying complexity have been created on the platform. During this period, employees have completed 636,576 training sessions, including 100,472 from January to July 2026.

VR Supersonic enabled Gold Apple to create realistic training scenarios, automate onboarding, assess employee competencies using AI, and access detailed analytics for every consultant.

After the platform was rolled out across the store network, the Gold Apple team measured the impact of regular VR training on the company’s commercial performance:

• brands covered by VR training saw an average revenue increase of 19%;
• consultants who completed VR training increased their individual sales by 25%;
• new hires who completed VR training in sales techniques generated 34% higher revenue than those trained using traditional methods.

Beyond commercial results, VR training also delivered operational benefits. It’s integrated into the workday, and at each store, employees collectively spend around three hours a day training in VR. Implementing the platform nearly halved the time managers spent delivering in-person training. The onboarding process for new hires was shortened from several weeks to just a few days.

The shorter onboarding process was accompanied by higher employee engagement. Practicing in realistic, risk-free VR scenarios helped employees build confidence before interacting with customers. The opportunity to train regularly without affecting business operations increased motivation and reduced the stress associated with developing new skills.

The VR Supersonic platform transformed employee training into a standardized, data-driven process that could grow alongside the business. This enabled Gold Apple to expand training efficiently while delivering measurable business results.