We’ve had Sears and Circuit City as examples of what can be done with real world retail in virtual worlds for a while now. Essentially these stores attempt to replicate some of the real-life shopping environment, but with hyperlinks off to product pages on their website when a customer wants to know specifics about individual products. They have some other nice touches, too – check them out on IBM 10.
Yesterday, Jazzydee Raymaker showed me around the IWOOT sim in Second Life. This is the SL presence of I Want One Of Those, which is an online store for gadgets and goodies. I passed the recommendation on to epredator, who posted about it on eightbar.
The IWOOT store takes the virtual world <-> real world retail connection one step further. You pick up a cart, and can then walk around looking at the billboards. Click on an item, and a package appears in the cart, labelled with an image of the item you just added to it. This is synced up with the I Want One Of Those website, so it’s actually adding items to your shopping cart there too.
Oh, and if you go away from the virtual store and come back tomorrow, the cart is persistent and remembers what you’d already added, so when it rezzes a second time, the same items will still be there.
What’s the benefit? Surely all we did there was to go another step towards replicating a real world experience. Why bother?
Well, it’s a step up from a 2D web page for online shopping, and here’s why:
- It’s a social experience, more like really walking into a store. Jazzy was on the other side of the planet, but I was able to hop on the side of the virtual cart and look around the store at the same time.
- I was able to comment on the items in the trolley. You can’t do that on a website, as you don’t know who is already looking at the page, or what they have in their cart. You can do that in the real world. Apparently this is how supermarket singles nights are supposed to work, but obviously I wouldn’t know about that…
- IWOOT doesn’t currently have one, but they could mix in a live adviser. Although some websites have a “chat to a customer service representative online now” option, most do not.
- It would also be possible to mix in some of the special touches that Circuit City or Sears do have, like the couch that gets repositioned according to the size of the TV.
Is it better than a real world store? Well, maybe not. Could I have been in a real store with someone and also on the other side of the planet from them? Definitely not. But here, all the usual arguments for online shopping apply – you can stay at home, have stuff delivered, but also get the social aspect of being with friends and visual feedback. There are a range of other ways to get value from a virtual world – Jasmin Tragas describes some of them in a great recent post.
I found IWOOT to be an interesting new way of looking at online retail. It’s a well-executed store. Check it out.
(sorry about the screencaps. I forgot I had SL set to capture with the UI included… by the way, lighting effects by RenderGlow…)
Love IWOOT but not bought anything. I signed up at Panraven– well designed site and seems easy to use. I’ll start looking more in a bit. Thanks for that!
missy
I will definitely check it out. I love the insightful analysis that you did showing how the virtual shopping cart clearly adds a new dimension to virtual shopping. I sometimes find it hard to articulate the value that shared virtual worlds offer that is maybe not so much over an above other ways of using the internet for commerce and socializing, but it surely is different than any other way in that it brings people together in real time in a mutually shared virtual space.
I just ‘got back’ from attending the Yearly Kos Convention in SL, and it was incredible. I actually felt like I had attended the convention and actively participated. I met new RL and SL friends and bloggers. I saw the best US Democratic presidential debate that has been held to date, and no one outside of the Chicago convention hall saw it but those of us who paid to attend the convention in SL.
Thanks for the great post. I think we are only beginning to see the value that is to come as virtual worlds become more intuitive, more full featured (can’t wait to get my new headset & try the voice feature in SL), and less hardware hungry.
Hello to the real Andy P! Sorry about that! That explains why the Andy from Panraven can’t html his links! I thought that’s not like you to include an unclickable link!! Damn. Now I shall have to edit my post!!
@Carol the increased sense of participation is something that Roo, Ian and I (and others!) talk about a lot when we are out speaking about virtual worlds. You do indeed get a greater sense of presence, who was standing where, who talked to who, etc.. I can see you’ve blogged about the Kos convention in some detail and I need to take time out to read your posts (soon).
@missy no worries. I just don’t want you being hoodwinked (or, accimidentally, hoodwinking your loyal readers)
There I was thinking, I really want to support YOU on all your entrepreneurial sidelines 😉
So, SecondLife is now able to faithfully recreate something I find incredibly tedious – wandering through a store with a cart trying to find something.
I expect that, soon, there will be the ability to have a “virtual” cube-farm, in which worldwide employees will be forced to log in, and share a large, grey, poorly lite work environment – all from the comfort of their own home.
@Jeff probably, but every cube will have a sea view!
I can’t imagine that workplace customization would be tolerated. Just think of the virtual expense!