Get Out Your 3D Credit Cards - Virtual Shopping is Coming To a Computer Near You

Boston based, Kinset Inc. has announced the launch of Kinset 3D Stores. This new technology gives retailers the ability to build 3D virtual stores that have the same look and feel as their real life brick and mortar stores.

In the next 6 months Brookstone and Tweeter will launch online virtual stores created with the Kinset technology. Currently there are 2 stores available for testing out the technology, a bookstore and an electronics emporium. These stores have over 10,000 items on display with a purchasing mechanism integrated with Amazon.com.

“Powerful personal computers and fast broadband Web connectivity allowed us to build the first software technology that can present realistic online stores in 3D” said John Butler, CEO of Kinset.

Shopping in one of the Kinset virtual stores involves downloading a free piece of software. (the download was very quick and takes up very little space). One of nice features of downloading the software is the frequent updates that occur whenever a user logs into their account.

The 3Dwalkthroughs.com staff has downloaded the public store and found the shopping experience very easy and fun to use. We imagine that the Kinset technology will eventually move away from a strictly Amazon based purchasing mechanism.

Earlier attempts at building 3D online stores couldn’t handle the thousands of items on display in real stores but this has been overcome as a result of improved computer processing speeds. As we have mentioned in previous posts, now that Intel is getting involved in building a 3D internet, we expect computer processing speeds to improve dramatically over the next year.

Very similar to a commercial property developer using our 3D walkthroughs, 3D floor plans and 3D renderings to test and market their concepts before their properties are built, Kinset software provides retailers the ability to test actual store designs, layouts and merchandising in a live testing environment. For example a retailer can create mulitple store designs with various product placements within the store, and then track the results using Kinset's detailed analytical output.

We will certainly be following the progress of this company and look forward to seeing the other national retailers adopting this new technology.