1. A method of generating a virtual reality simulation of a shopping environment, comprising: receiving, by the simulation system comprising one or more computing devices, a set of simulation data describing a shopping environment to represent in the virtual reality simulation; generating, by the simulation system and from the set of simulation data, one or more smart objects, wherein each smart object is a virtual representation of an object in the shopping environment; generating, by the simulation system, a virtual reality simulation that includes the one or more smart objects; presenting, by the simulation system, the virtual reality simulation to a simulation participant on a virtual reality display platform, the virtual reality display platform comprising one or more touch screen display devices; each time the participant touches the one or more touch screen display devices on an area in which one of the smart objects is displayed, generating, by the simulation system, a touching record indicating that the participant touched the respective one of the smart objects; and storing, by the simulation system, each generated touching record in a memory.