The recent launch of two brand new 3D shopping sites could signal the beginning of a new era of online spending.

NO PRESSURES

Gemsta.com, which launched in October last year, was developed by real world architects, landscapers, interior designers and programmers to create a photo-real world across a number of ‘islands’, complete with light reflections on rippling water and the sound of rustling palm trees. Using the latest Flash animation technology, visitors can travel through different virtual arenas, browsing various shopping categories and clicking on brand ‘posters’ to be taken through to that retailer’s website. It is, according to Chief Executive, Richard Laing, ‘based on world that has a sense of freedom – a place with no crime, no cars and no pressures.’

A SENSE OF TRUST

At Gemsta, you can buy everything from mobile phones and insurance to women’s fashion, homeware or gifts. The first ever 3D Virtual Farmers Market (vfmuk.com), which launched this January, takes care of your food and drink. Using the latest games technology, this site lets you ‘stroll around’ a 3D farmers market and ‘meet’ the producers behind the products. Founder, Marcus Carter comments, ‘Seeing the face behind the food is more important today than it has ever been. To be able to connect remotely by using the internet, with the people who make what we eat, enables consumers to get a sense of trust before buying.’

THE FUTURE

In an era of iPlayer, Xbox and Playstation, when we take virtual exercise on our Nintendo Wii and watch movies such as Avatar in 3D, it seems only natural that we should be able to shop online in the same intuitive way. On Second Life, the virtual world, users interact and carry out activities via avatars, which they can send in to shops to pick up and try on items of clothing and pay with virtual money. While Gemsta and Virtual Farmers Market are not quite at this stage yet, at the rate technology develops, such an experience - but this time using real money and buying real items - cannot be far away.

Emily Jenkinson

19 January 2010