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The Circuit City shop sports a real-world look, where avatars can amble through the store picking up products. Doug Meacham, IT manager for Circuit City, says the main objective was to create an environment that allows the store to engage with the people who visit.

“We’re learning more about 3-D technology and about how to use this type of environment to add a consultative angle to selling,” he says. “A customer can sit on a sofa in our virtual store and move it back and forth in an effort to help them decide what size television is best suited to their needs.”

The company is considering how to take what it’s learning in Second Life and apply it to the store’s website. Circuit City is not selling any “virtual” products in Second Life, but avatars can tunnel from the virtual world to the retailer’s website. At this stage, however, the company isn't counting on significant sales from this venture.

Paul Miller, senior vice president of direct commerce at Sears Holdings, feels the company’s Second Life store enhances the customers’ ability to make choices. Visiting avatars are presented with a menu of departments: clicking on one of the options teleports the avatar to a “store within the store” where they can explore customized options for their kitchen or garage.

“Second Life allows the customer to experience shopping differently than they do on a website,” Miller says. “They can invite a friend to shop alongside them, and the two can share opinions and interact. As far as the Internet has come, it’s still lacking when it comes to the social aspect of shopping,” he says. “This bridges the gap.”

Laura Thomas, corporate metaverse editor for Dell.com, describes the interaction possible in Second Life as “immersive. At Dell.com, you can get a 360-degree view of a product, but it is not as immersive as Second Life,” she says. “On the Internet, you can’t turn to the person next to you and ask their opinion.”

Dell approaches Second Life as a community, a medium for brand-building and a vehicle for learning. Earlier this year, the company broadcast a speech being delivered at the Consumer Electronics Show by founder Michael Dell into in an auditorium built on one of its four islands.

Many of the businesses now operating in Second Life rely on The Electric Sheep Company to help them build and maintain a presence. The New York-based start-up has been described as “movie-production house meets web-development company meets strategic consultancy meets software.”

Sibley Verbeck, CEO of Electric Sheep, is convinced that the virtual world is a better shopping medium than the Internet, and that it’s just a matter of time before the trickle of retailers now testing the Second Life waters becomes a flood. Second Life residents spend more than $1.5 million a day (U.S. dollars, not their virtual equivalent) buying everything from clothing to real estate, “and that figure is growing 20 percent per month,” he says. “It’s emerging as a commerce-driven environment.”

What does it cost to get in the game? That depends on whether a retail company is looking to create a shop exclusive to Second Life or to link the virtual store back to its own e-commerce site. Ballpark figures start at about $100,000, according to Verbeck.

3-D technology is “far more analogous to the real world than what consumers experience now online,” Verbeck says. “You can truly window shop in the virtual world. And we’ve noticed that having anonymity makes it easier for avatars to talk to strangers.

“When voice comes to Second Life, the whole experience will be even more powerful,” he says.

Experts encourage retailers to begin doing R&D now to gain some traction in the virtual world. They acknowledge, however, that it’s not the type of project that will deliver short-term ROI, and the chances are pretty good that it’s not going to win kudos with Wall Street until acceptance becomes more widespread.

Still, industry watchers and early adopters insist that experimentation can deliver meaningful findings. LeGoues sees the potential for an apparel retailer to test colors before sourcing a collection.

“Why not make 15 shades of a top available in the virtual world and see what colors people gravitate toward?” she says. “You can give the shirts away in Second Life, monitor customer preferences and edit the color assortment based on that research when it comes time to source the item.

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