SHOPPING 1. Immersive retail

We start in this issue a review on “types” of shopping in SL and how it affects RL, too.

Shopping, in its modern meaning, has deeply changed our habits and some of our behaviours and both Western and Eastern society recognize themselves in it: we have clear in mind a Tokyo or New York street, so similar. City is the scene in which commercial business has developed in different ways, from nineteenth century store palaces to nowadays air conditioned shopping mall, more suitable for movement and transition. E-commerce and Web 2.0 advent are now enhancing shopping possibilities: Second Life, in this sense, represents an experimental platform ready to be used.We’ll look through some examples of these differ-ent ways of selling goods, discovering new typolo-gies and categories. We are interested in under-standing which of these commercial spaces can represent this changing mood: vendors freebees, retail, store, disco-club, shopping mall, but also real companies’ brands, link, websites and note-cards.

One of the greatest and more effective sales system, really able to open a channel between RL and SL, is that of highly specialized websites linked to the in world shops, like shop.onrez.com and slexchange.com-SL Exchange Headquarters, Exchange (38, 121, 28). Real databases where you can find everything: organized like stores and archives, indexed and rated. It’s a system linked to substantial results more then other.

Another macro-typology are parts of sim, entire blocks, urban corners or real district, completely dedicated to sales activities. The Dacham crossing (94, 146, 45), for example, is the perfect spot to find the latest fashion trend. 3xd boutiques are open to welcome all of those strolling in the front square, full of flying pigeons. Inside the boutique, modern windows and spatial varia-tions offer characteristic fashion products, defining new lines and trends in this case only for SL residents.

Single buildings, usually big boxes, represent the most common retail places for all goods typologies and are the best way to commercialize big brands. Typical of this system are suspended goods form top or walls, like in GuRLyWood - GuRLyWood (126, 49, 70), for Hair that we are showing you.

We also entered the Reebook store - Reebok (151, 139, 99)- a simple building, with wide and generous spaces, minimal furniture, clearly showed products that can be chosen directly by clients, through a window-menu which permits, for example, to choose shoe colours. The land is composed by a urban nature with uniform buildings, as if the store was plunged in a popular con-text. A good solution, even better then an anonymous building used as a shop.

The last group of retail points we’ve reviewed for you in this issue, is the most variable one. Is that of interi-ors: spots and corner corresponding to real exhibits, where the author’s creativity has the freedom to ex-press itself. We’ve chosen a futurist-metaphysical store actualized by EX.IT - Experience Italy C (14, 28, 25): a prototype with a fresh look and a perfect, in our opin-ion, language that aims to be in strict relationship with RL aesthetic standards. Different and original is the effort made in Envy, by our Bianca F. Envy (110, 35, 23) where a more international research suits a sharp space with her clothes as protagonists: they are actu-ally staged as a real artistic set. Notable also the scroll dynamic windows.

If you want see the another pictures.
This article is published in ESSENSUAL N.01 review by arco Rosca