While many retailers are still wrestling with concepts like AJAX and delivering more user-friendly site experiences, a new wave of interest is beginning to capture the attention of some retailers and technology vendors.  The ability to deliver a virtual shopping experience, one that mimics a physical store shopping paradigm, has become a reality in a number of piloted examples.

Let me preface some additional thoughts first by providing some foundational reality. Many of the developments around retail eCommerce that make headlines are just that - headlines.  What becomes interesting to me (and retailers) is when these ideas can be monetized.  Monetization can occur in the form of direct sales impact or indirectly, by having what I call brand impact.  We can see examples of this in technologies like AJAX.  What started out as a way to produce more appealing experiences found its way into IT budgets because retailers determined better site experiences with AJAX had very tangible impacts to revenue through higher conversion rates. 

I believe that 3D shopping experiences have a good potential to become monetized.  Because of this, I think over the next 2-4 years 3D shopping experience could become the next major development in UX design for the Web.  If we start to think about some of the potential uses for this technology, it becomes evident that retailers can start to bridge the gap between the physical experience in the store and the so-called '2 foot' or personal computer experience.  Look for example at what Tweeter is doing with this genre.  In a program they are testing and rolling out, they are allowing customers to upload pictures of their home theater space in order to interact with Tweeter's products a in 3D environment.  Other technology vendors in this space are looking to build out virtual shopping environments where customers can walk through a store, complete with end caps and planograms that mimic a real store.  The opportunity to interact with products, customer service associates and virtual environmental factors will continue to drive a more realistic experience for customers, but one that can be optimized.  The days of chasing down someone to help you in a store, or trying to beat back an overeager sale associate could be done.        

Just a side note.  While the so-called 'virtual world' environments like Second Life garner a lot of media attention, the retail applications of virtual worlds that focus on social aspects of the interaction have yet to produce clear monetization.  One of the challenges that is prevalent in this space is that it is very difficult to map buying patterns for customers who are pretending to be someone/something else.  While that is certainly true, the foray into these types of environments by big retailers like Circuit City and Home Depot indicate an acute interest by retailers to figure out how to deliver a shopping experience to customers that will drive real revenue.

The technology landscape for these 3D shopping experiences is cluttered at the moment.  With no clear standard, many smaller companies (with the help of VC money) are building lightweight engines and marketing their capabilities in either marketplace environments (i.e. a virtual mall) or offering to customize their engine to the store layout and product mix for specific retailers.  Look for more and more of these vendors popping up over the next 12-18 months.  More importantly however, look for some bigger engines emerging that will push some standardization and re-usability.  This will be driven by increased demand in the marketplace that will catch the attention of some big software powerhouses.