Online shopping isn't like shopping in the "real world". It might have taken retailers a little while, but most have realized that trying to duplicate the experience of shopping on the high street within their website is a mistake. That's because the way we look for products online is vastly different to the way we browse the local department store. A quick case study:
On the High Street
I need some new trainers. I have seen my mate Greeny wearing a pretty cool pair of Nike but I don't know what they are. So I have a picture of Greeny's Nike in my head and hit the high street. It's Saturday and I have some time on my hands. In my local high street there are 4 shoe shops selling trainers so I visit them all. None of them have the trainers I want, but I see some others I like so I try them on. I weigh up a couple of options, taking price into consideration. Finally I walk back to the shop with the trainers I want and buy them. Then I treat myself to a mocha in Starbucks with my old mate Greeny who I bumped into earlier, he's glad I didn't buy the same trainers as him.
On the Web
I have the same trainers in mind. I go on the Nike website and find out what they are called. Then I go onto Google and search for shops that sell them. I go to 2 or three sites and compare prices. After ten minutes I choose the cheapest price on the website that looks most trustworthy and buy them. Then I go to Youtube and waste an hour of my life watching stupid videos. Three days later they arrive in the post and I try them for size. They fit. I'm happy (Greeny isn't as we now look like twins).
When we buy online we know what we want. We search for it, choose the best price and buy. Browsing and window shopping is rare. The nearest we get to this is the Amazon style recommendation (people who bought Spy's Like Us Region 2 Platinum also bought Uncle Buck). However, over the past two years a number of vCommerce offerings have emerged that seek to disprove this theory and more tangibly recreate the browsing experience online.
The first movers in this space were MMORG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) like Everquest and World of Warcraft. Here gamers could generate an Avatar – an online 3d character – and buy outfits and weapons from shops in the game. These items rapidly became tradable outside of the game world selling through eBay and other niche sites for real cash. In 2006 the first professional gamers emerged, individuals that would trade virtual goods for profit, generating their "stock" by playing the game.
Another extension of this trend was the emergence of Second Life, a virtual world built entirely as a sandbox for "players" to create environments and items for others to browse and enjoy. Items change hands in an online currency called Linden Dollars which can be exchanged back into real dollars later. In 2006 Second Life made it's first millionaire (Anshe Chung made her money by renting virtual property and land). Of course real goods still aren't changing hands, although many real brands have tried (with little success) setting up store in SL as a marketing channel.
This is set to change with a number of virtual malls like Kinset, themall.tv and Themallplus setting up. These virtual malls allow shoppers to wander the halls of a virtual 3d shopping environment and browse products, importantly though the final purchase is a real tangible item. So far the malls we have looked at pass you from the 3d mall and into a normal "flat" site when you choose to enter a shop frontage. However, it can't be long before retailers start to experiment with 3d in the same way inside their own stores. This might all prove to be a flash in the pan, but a lot of marketing dollars are being thrown at 3d malls, so who knows?
It's worth remembering a simple lesson. People seek products with search engines online. If a store looks smart, the product is easy to find and the price is right the sale will convert. Complex user interfaces can be a distraction from buying and can delay the final click of "buy" long enough for a customer to change their mind. Simplicity still wins in the ecommerce world, but maybe that will change in the future?
