Social Networking Meets 3D Shopping with the Launch of VirtualEShopping.com

Featuring a unique combination of social networking features combined with a robust 3D shopping environment, VirtualEShopping.com offers holiday shoppers a virtual alternative to mall traffic, pulsing crowds and parking headaches. The launch of the 3D social shopping site coincides with the introduction of the first 3D laptop from Acer, the Aspire 5738DG.

Shoppers load free mall software and enter a virtual, 3D shopping mall where they can create a persona to represent themselves, interact with other shoppers, and view storefronts from familiar retailers like Apple, Best Buy and Footlocker and from unusual web retailers like Prankplace, Preschoolians, and ShopIrish. Retailers offer coupons, have salesbots and sales personas in front of their stores and have storefronts, mall carts, billboards and info’ kiosks to woo customers to shop. Special events like seminars, concerts, guest appearances and contests are held on the main stage in the mall atrium.

VirtualEShopping.com offers an array of social networking features that include an “I Want It/I Got It” section that allows shoppers to share images and links of their favorite items with friends, a special dates section that makes it easier for friends to remember gift-giving occasions, a shopping tips chat function, and a section to share favorite stores. The site grabs a snapshot of a shopper’s mall persona to represent each user in the social networking section.

Registered users can also invite friends to meet them in the mall at a prearranged day and time.

To assist with tight holiday budgets, virtualEshopping is offering a $500 gift card giveaway to help new users “put something extra under the tree.” The contest requires no purchase but does require registration and completion of certain activities on the site (such as inviting friends, meeting friends in the mall, etc.)

The site is ideal for young people who like to socialize in malls, moms with young children who find it difficult to shop during store hours but who like to shop with friends, tech types who prefer a more robust interface, and seniors who enjoy walking in the mall.

The site’s virtual, 3D shopping environment introduces shoppers to previously unknown brick and mortar and web retailers, fosters impulse purchases from overlooked retailers, adds more visual interest and a wider variety of activities than 2D shopping interfaces, and introduces a social element to online shopping that has been previously enjoyed only in “real world” shopping centers.

Informational shopper and advertiser videos can be viewed online. A link to press resources such as screenshots and photographs can be found at virtualEshopping.com and virtual tours of the site and mall can be scheduled with VirtualE, Inc. President, Mark Stein upon request.

For more information and to schedule virtual tours, please contact pr@virtualEshopping.com