Virtual Viewing

Viewing products online has stepped up to a whole new level.

In the “old days” when consumers were shopping online, they would get one static image of the potential product they wanted to buy. They might have really gotten lucky and been able to get a side view as well.

But this is 2009, 20 years after the World Wide Web was introduced and several years after online shopping really took off. Companies participating in online shopping are starting to step up their game. Take Nike’s basketball shoe website for example. For their new shoe line, “The Six”, they offer a 360 degree, 3D image of a shoe which includes a close-up, close enough to see the stitching and texture of the shoe. Just by dragging the scroll bar across, it gives the consumer the feeling of literally holding the shoe and examining it in their hand. This brings a whole new meaning to the online shopping world. It’s just like standing in the store and rotating the shoe in your hand. By allowing consumers to virtually “hold” the product in their hands without

physically being in the store, companies such as Nike are:

..........A.) Giving the consumer confidence in their potential purchase.

..........B.) Enticing the consumer to visit a nearby store to buy Nike shoes.

..........C.) Having the upper-hand in the new-age online shopping market.

This is the next step into online shopping if companies want to compete with the already advanced ones. Smaller companies might not have the budget amounts as the larger ones, but they can find similar ways to virtually affect the consumer. One way is to take several images of one product at different angles and allow the consumer to access these images to get different views. You might even be able to take a video that continuously runs and rotates the product.

Who knows, maybe the next breakthrough is to make realistic holograms of the products where you can reach out and touch them from your computer chair.

-Cal-