From...

May 25, 1999
Web posted at: 3:34 p.m. EDT (1934 GMT)

by Julia King

(IDG) -- Will that tomato-red bathing suit make me look fat?

Can I see home plate from a seat in Section 213 at Yankee Stadium?

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Online shoppers can now see the answers to these and other questions on a handful of Web sites that are deploying new interactive, 3-D and personalization technology designed to mimic consumers' in-store experiences.

For example, at www.sharperimage.com, you can pop open a CD player to get a feel for how it ejects disks.

Go to www.landsend.com, type in your measurements and you can create your own personalized apparel model.

It's cool. It's fun. And according to retail experts, it's seen as one of the most promising ways to convert online browsers to online buyers.

"If you get them past the point where they need to see [a product] in person, they're much more likely to buy," said Tom Fornoff, vice president at Intelliquest Information Group, an e-commerce market research company in Austin, Texas.

That's important because only about 11% of people shopping online actually make purchases over the Internet, Fornoff said. About 32% of all Americans are shopping on the Internet.

Giving customers the power to spin, zoom in on and listen to products helps keep shoppers online longer -- which, again, increases their likelihood of clicking on the buy button, retailers said.

The Sharper Image, an upscale electronics and gadgets retailer, features 25 of its top-selling products in an enhanced 3-D area of its Web site. The 3-D portfolio was created by Viewpoint Digital, a Marina del Ray, Calif., services company that specializes in streaming technology and interactive 3-D imaging.

Online, The Sharper Image's gadgets spin, whir, beep and buzz much the same way they would for an in-store shopper.

"It keeps users engaged, so it keeps our site sticky. We've already turned browsers into buyers, and that's all that matters," said Meredith Medland, director of Internet marketing at the San Francisco-based company.

In the Web world, stickiness refers to a site's ability to maintain users' interest and keep them coming back. It's what Ticketmaster Online is hoping to attain by letting users zoom in on exactly where their seats are located for a given concert or sporting event.

The Los Angeles-based ticket agency also is using Engage Technologies Inc.'s software to collect user data and preferences to create personalized Web pages for regular customers. The system also notifies them of events of interest indicated in their profile. Aretha Franklin fans, for example, would receive e-mail reminders in advance of the singer's scheduled local concert dates.

But being cool and having fun online doesn't come cheap.

The cost of creating 3-D images that shoppers can spin and twirl ranges from $3,500 to $10,000 per image, said Steve Wollock, director of field marketing at Viewpoint Digital.

Another potential downside of the new imaging is the time it can take some users to download complex, interactive 3-D images. At Ticketmaster, for example, it can take customers using a 28.8K bit/sec. modem between three and five minutes to download certain images.

But Ticketmaster also has created a software plug-in for viewing that users need only download once, said Josh Zarov, a ticketing product manager.

Also, "[advances in] technology moves quickly enough that the barriers drop," Zarov said.

At The Sharper Image, Medland figures she more than makes up the cost of the new 3-D technology on greater publicity and increased visibility for the company's Web site.

"The PR value alone of new technologies can increase sales and drive results, even though you might not see those results the next day," she said.