To counteract the isolation, Apple is reportly considering showing customers where other shoppers are in the virtual stores, and maybe even letting customers interact while shopping, via chat or other interfaces. This system would also allow for storewide announcements of special events or sales going down.
It's quite a concept -- online store as virtual space -- but the fact for me as a consumer is that I shop online mostly to avoid exactly those things (chatting with less knowledgeable customers and annoying store loudspeaker systems). Even if this idea makes it through the gauntlet and we see this type of thing in Apple's online shopping environments, I doubt the old methods of clicking and browsing by yourself are going away anytime soon.
[via MacRumors]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-21-2008 @ 3:48PM
paul said...
Here's one way to make online shopping better: Actually let people bookmark pages in the Apple Store.
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4-21-2008 @ 4:14PM
Fernando said...
Apple store at Second life!
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4-21-2008 @ 4:29PM
conigs said...
Agreed. This looks like a Second Life version of the AppleStore, but then, what "virtual world" paradigm doesn't?
What I really, truly can't understand is why we're continually pushing for real-world analogs on-line. Explain to me why I want to walk around in a virtual store perusing items and avoiding other shoppers instead of just clicking and checking out? (Same goes for Sony's "Home." Yay! I get to walk around a friend's "house!" Hey, he has an arcade cabinet to play games. Let me "walk" over there to play on the "arcade cabinet!") What the hell is wrong with clicking and using an interface that isn't hindered by physical paradigms?
4-21-2008 @ 5:17PM
mentalsticks said...
how does this look like second life? the iTMS doesn't sell golden penises, does it?
4-21-2008 @ 4:15PM
Designr said...
Don't they call this SecondLife(tm)?
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4-21-2008 @ 5:29PM
Otsego_Undead said...
I too value my "customerless" and "employeeless" shopping experiences online. Sometimes even those "chat now!" buttons piss me off.
I love best buy, but they are a main offender of not leaving me alone. I also love the Apple store, but at least the ones in Seattle Metro area are easily crowded.
So I value my online bubble.
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4-21-2008 @ 6:27PM
Andrew said...
OK, how about lowering your rediculous prices first to "improve online shopping"?
===
Church in the Texas Medical Center
http://ChurchInTheCenter.com
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4-21-2008 @ 10:21PM
Ed said...
How about lowering that "rediculous" attitude and turning on Safari's spell checker. Oh, wait. IE 7. That's right. You can't.
4-21-2008 @ 7:10PM
Rowan said...
It's the eWorld shop!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EWorld
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4-21-2008 @ 10:16PM
Ed said...
Sure, it looks cool, but online shopping is something to be kept simple. They need to focus on making it easy to manage your cart and get the shopping you need done, rather than wander around a second life clone.
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4-22-2008 @ 10:43AM
paul merrill said...
That move toward more interactivity is just the pendulum swinging. It's way over the top & after a year or two, things will go back to the way they were, in some respects.
Marketing can be very sheep-like... marketeers just follow the latest happenings & try to push things too far in trend directions. Sometimes it results in great things, but most of the time it flops.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:38PM
Mister Snitch said...
"the fact for me as a consumer is that I shop online mostly to avoid exactly those things (chatting with less knowledgeable customers and annoying store loudspeaker systems)"
Right. But the 'real world' experience might feel different online. The advantages might outweigh the downsides.
You could choose several levels of 'interaction', for example. You could allow "NO interaction" and have exactly the same experience you have right now. Or, you could allow "interaction with friends" when they show up in the iTunes store. (You could even get automated IMs alerting you to their appearance in the store.)
You could also choose to be open to new people whose "level of expertise" (rated by other users, I'd imagine) outranks yours. You could choose to have your music lists open to other shoppers, and theirs to yours, to find similarities and instructive differences in experience, and learn. You could allow IMs from people who share "70% or more" of your playlist, or bar anyone who ever bought a certain artist. (You know the one I mean.)
There are many ways the shopping experience could be expanded by interactions with other users. But if you or I want a quiet, solitary experience, we should have that option as well.
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4-28-2008 @ 8:17PM
yakov chodosh said...
POOL'S CLOSED
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