From the You Don’t Have What I Want department:
Kinset Inc. and its founder, John Butler, are trying to implement virtual shopping malls that feel more like online virtual worlds like Second Life. All this is an attempt to increase online sales, which only account for about 7% of retail business. The thought is that people enjoy the movement through various merchandise aisles as a form of leisure. This may be true, but I think the merchandising experts are missing the essence of why people “shop” in the first place.
The interaction of people with one another. The feedback we receive from other people’s faces while they browse in the same store. The relationship of crowds to products. These are all factors of shopping that cannot be replicated online. I don’t care how masterfully written your Amazon.com feedback is, tangibility is huge! Online shopping primarily serves people who know what they want, and those people are already shopping online. Who wants to window shop on the internet when there are so many other fantastic eye-popping things to access in the virtual world?
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:56 am
See, you’re a dude, with no kids. If you’re like most dudes, dudes go and buy stuff, they don’t go shopping. Shopping is for chicks. That said, there are some chicks who like to shop online too, for various reasons, usually they can do it whatever time of day they want, and they don’t have to drag the kids around. Shopping with kids is painful, unless you know exactly what you want, and then it’s just buying, so why not just do it on the computer after the kids are in bed?
I didn’t RTFA but trying to create a virtual shopping mall to compete with the offline shopping experience seems like a waste of time to me. Make it easier to BUY things online, and I’m there.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I agree with Chris about making it easier to buy things online, but I slightly disagree about the sweeping generalization about men buy and women shop What might look like me “shopping” to a guy is me actually comparing prices at many different stores before activating my “buying”. I have mostly guy friends, and they are equally in to going to the mall to look at chicks as they are to “see if they need anything”- which to me is the definition of womanly shopping
I think the whole gender role thing got bent sometime in the 80’s!
Now then Kev, about that eyepopping thing in the mall…sorry, I’ll button my blouse up a few more holes next time..
:p