Kinset: Three-dimensional Shopping

[mandy]

John Butler is trying to introduce true browsing to the online shopping experience, blending the innovations of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with the old-school merchandising of R.H. Macy.

Butler is the founder and chief executive of Kinset Inc., a Marlborough start-up that plans to launch its first online stores this week. Kinset's stores combine e-commerce with the kind of visually rich, three-dimensional environment that has been made popular by the virtual world Second Life and such videogames as World of Warcraft, but that would feel familiar to a conventional department store shopper.

In November, Brookstone will launch a Kinset store that will allow shoppers to roam virtual aisles in search of the perfect holiday gift...

full article: http://www.boston.com/business/technolog...ual_aisle/

more:

Online stores could soon become a lot more like their real world counterparts thanks to new, 3-D immersive technology announced Monday by Kinset.

Kinset 3D Store technology allows retailers to create and operate retail stores that look and feel like those in the brick-and-mortar world. Shoppers in Kinset's 3-D stores can browse through virtual aisles displaying hundreds of items of merchandise, linger, look and make purchases just as they would in a real store.

The software has been in closed testing for the past seven months, Kinset said. Starting Monday, consumers can try it through a free Kinset Shopping Browser utility, available at Kinset.com, that is downloaded to their computers like Adobe Acrobat or Flash, the company said...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/SNFBpmXm...here.xhtml