On April 21st, 2008 The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reported that Apple filed a virtual stores patent in which customers might be able to see where other shoppers are in the store and possibly interact with each other.
TUAW makes an intriguing point that "this system would also allow for storewide announcements of special events or sales going down."
MacNN where Apple's virtual store patent was first revealed tells of some of the creepy almost stalker-like features in Apple's patent (under the headline "Caution: A Work In Progress").... which would probably be or quickly become annoying!
Now as TUAW mentioned "I doubt the old methods of clicking and browsing by yourself are going away anytime soon."
The reason the standard web interface of today won't disappear anytime soon boils down to why people are shopping online and what their purpose is.
More frequently than not people who are "shopping" online are just looking for more information... whether it be more information about a particular product or any number of things...
But it all comes down to the basic marketing concept that people are looking for a solution for a problem they have... even if it is just a problem only that they perceive! (But that's a post for another day)
In such a case where people are looking for the solution to their problem or want more information about a particular product then the idea for such an interactive virtual store may be an attractive option...
And may also be perceived as a good option for people who are really interested in making a purchase but are a little unsure... and need that little extra social proof or assistance.
However, in the case that I'm sure we all frequently come across is quite simply the fact that we want what we want and we want it now!!
Many times we've already done our research about the thing we're going to get and the only thing standing between us and having it is the distance between our chair and the place where the thing we want is...
And we don't want to bother with anyone else - they'll just slow us down - so if we can log online, put the thing we want in our shopping cart, pull out our credit card and have it show up at our door we couldn't be more satisfied!
Why try and put any extra steps or roadblocks in our way to get what we want. Plus, why would you want to add a whole new level of complexity to everything that we didn't ask for or ever wanted....
Which is why the standard web interface of today won't... and shouldn't disappear!
It will be a nice feature separate of the standard web-based shopping interface for those who would like it, but give us all the option to do things as we would normally do as fast as possible...
Because if you start adding those extra features into the load-time of the website, it has the potential to make it a much more agonizing experience to get through all the steps for getting what we want!
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