The Wish List: Merchandising in Home
by Keara22HI, HSM team writer
So, picture this: Old Navy opens a storefront in the Hub.
The male and female clothing items are the same things they sell in their retail outlets nationwide. The customer finds a ‘virtual’ knit top selling for $.49 in Home. Sold! But – wait – there’s a new option. Order the same top in your real life size for $14.49 and have it mailed to your home. In fact, buy them both at the same time and get the shipping costs for free.
No, I do not have ‘breaking news’ that Old Navy or any other company is planning on such a move. But, as a hypothetical, it is interesting to contemplate.
There’s a definite appeal to the customer. First you try it on in Home and see how it looks on you (assuming you’ve built your avatar to roughly conform to your actual body type). If you have cheated on your avatar dimensions, you can make a quick change in build before you shop. Then you can see how it would look inside Home and also on the real you out there in the real world.
You can also wear it to public spaces, events, and games and see what your friends think of it. Using this knit top as an example: in Home you buy a pair of white shorts to go with it. But in real life, you already have some white shorts that will work. So, you buy only the shirt.
Yes, but then you have to wait for the mail to arrive. Living on a remote island in the Pacific where there is no Ross, no J.C.Penneys, no Target, no Saks 5th Ave., and the hot shopping spot in town in Hilo Hatties, I order clothes online all the time. Nordstroms, Neimans, etc. are fast – using Priority Mail to get things here the same week. And they all include return mailing labels and instructions for a full refund in the event something doesn’t fit correctly.
For a company such as Old Navy, this would mean selling existing inventory — just using a different marketing methodology. I can understand that, to corporate executives who are not familiar with virtual reality sites, this may sound like “Outlets in Wonderland.” But I think that, sooner or later, someone is going to wake up to this form of exposure to the big clothing buyers in the 13 – 40 age demographic.
Conversely, for a company that is primarily a game developer and not a clothing manufacturer, this might mean offering just one or two simple pieces first, in a limited range of sizes and colors or, hedging their bets, by offering items that are not inventoried by size such as bracelets, earrings, scarves, gloves, and other accessory items. I, for one, would love to have one of those woven purses that Drey offers in a range of colors or that three color bracelet and maybe that yacht sun hat! Oh no – there goes the budget.
Some items cannot possibly make the transition ‘outside the box’, such as pet companions, large furniture items, and 23rd century weaponry. And some items still need to be brought ‘inside the box’ such as 21st century wallpaper! Some small items, however, might sell well via the internet – such as the Home versions of Stitchkins toys. There’s also some interesting ‘wall hanging’ artwork in the stores now and cute throw pillows. There are definitely some items in the Lockwood Gift Machine that would also work well as real life gifts to friends.
I would buy this – right now!
Perhaps it would be possible to take in orders for throw pillows (as an example) and then have that number made up within a few days to ship out. Every time an online store tells me an item is on “backorder”, I picture a sweatshop somewhere in China getting a frantic email to ship 3,000 more pink striped tank tops to Macy’s immediately.
Researching this idea, I looked at the Billabong Store in Home and compared items there to the one’s on Billabong’s website. They are similar but not identical. I wonder why. Is it because Sony gets a percentage of each transaction? Or is it because this exposure is meant to bring you to their retail stores in real life? Frankly, I wish the online stores I do buy from would put in an avatar you could use to try on items before buying. Being able to mold that avatar to specific height and measurements would make it so much easier to buy without having to worry about returning items that don’t fit or the ones that make me look like Jabba the Hutt.
Clothing items that would be almost impossible to sell from Home are shoes and long gowns. There are so many variables in shoe sizes: length, width, and heel height, that the problems with returned items would be horrendous. Plus, for a taller than usual female, finding formal length skirts and gowns is a challenge. I am picturing my pal, Dlyrius, in that gorgeous Figment evening dress with the skirt barely reaching below her knees or petite Sorrow with the back of the dress dragging on the ground like a train.
So, this is my wish list for now. Lockwood, heed the advice and offer some of the easy to make gift items to pre-order for Christmas gifts. My grandchildren would love to find those stuffed animals under the Christmas tree! And if you do it now, you will have a couple of months to have them made in China to fill the orders. And I would love to have one of those Drey knit tops, size M (Medium) in any color. You can even put the Drey logo on the front!
August 4th, 2012 by keara22hi | 9 comments
Keara is also known in Home as DarthGranny. She is a wicked little old lady with a wild sense of humor.
I would love an HSMag t-shirt on Home and in the real world. I would love to explain to people that I write for a virtual magazine!
I agree with you on that one Kass I too would love an HSM shirt.
Gran,
This is actually an awesome idea and I thought of it when I first saw the stores here. Actually it was Ligne Ross that got me thinking along that line, as they are a real furniture store. I thought why dont they just advertise their clothing products here- and tie it to Amazon for delivery.
It would definately give incentive to clothing chains to use Playstation as a marketing platform. It must have been thought of in the past with clients like Billabong. But they would have to track if the retail on Playstation made a difference in sales to match their marketing dollar here.
You Rock Gran -Thanks for writing this one- it needed to be written.
Yeah, I’ve discussed this somewhere before, and I think it’s a great idea! It works both ways too, which is one of the reasons I used to justify buying that Aibo dog in your picture, something I can’t really justify in RL (considering their rarity and horrendous price now).
You touched on the Stitchkins being made for real, and considering things like the mini battle bots and Peeps, I think this would be a great move for the companies to make some extra revenue. Hey, if they can do it with Angry Birds…
I have an Aibo. Her name is kitka. Shes sick
Her battery doesnt keep a charge and the gears in her head stick from time to time so she gets these little seizures.
Makes me sad to say she stays on her base most days now.
This is a great idea Granny. I wouldn’t be one of their customers myself as I rarely buy clothing, I have too much already and my tastes are very simple when it comes to that.
There are many who would do this though and I think it would be interesting to see what would happen. This might be a cheaper way to advertise their products. It must have some merit, after all Ford did it in Home already. I wonder what their profit was from that if anything?
What if there were a place in your account settings where you could enter your sizes and that way Home would know if a dress or shoes would fit you.
I once suggested that Pizza Hut should open a store on Home where we could take our avatar in to order a pizza that was delivered to your real house while we continued to play. How awesome would that be?
Everquest…I think it was… had a pizza command. Just type /pizza and BOOM pizza was delivered to your house. lol!