YUB.com encourages shoppers to browse with new 3-D virtual mall
Are online shoppers relying too much on search to make a beeline to purchases? Not if YUB.com has its way with a new 3-D virtual mall that encourages shoppers to browse and shop among several retailers as if walking through a mall.
YUB.com is a social networking site that provides incentives to shoppers to see what other shoppers are buying and recommending, and the virtual mall further encourages shoppers to check out what’s available at the mall’s more than 50 retailers, including Macy’s, Gap, Target, Drugstore.com and eBags.com, YUB says. “We want to bring shoppers to hang out in this mall, get them to browse more and see what others are buying,” a spokeswoman says.
YUB.com, a unit of Buy.com Inc., the 33rd largest online retailers, according to Internet Retailer’s Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites. The name is the reversal of “Buy” and an acronym that stands for “young urban buyers.” YUB rewards participants with credits for future purchases whenever they buy something or recommend something that gets bought.
YUB’s virtual mall, which is still in a beta stage and being developed in-house, is designed to show anchor stores and kiosks arranged in a traditional shopping mall layout, with images of people moving through the mall’s two levels in a video game-like interface. A map, like those found in traditional malls, shows the location of each store, any of which can be clicked to enter the virtual store. Clicking on the image of a store’s front door in the mall takes a shopper to a YUB page that displays that retailer’s products as well as a site search feature and information posted by registered YUB.com users or “Yubbers.”
“The desire to translate a real-life mall experience to our members was one of our original goals, and we are excited to now offer this unique option to our members,” said president Jared Morgenstern. “We have created an authentic visual replica of a mall including the opportunity to people watch, observe what friends are recommending, and peruse storefronts, all while earning cash back for shopping—the feature that makes our offering more rewarding than its real-world counterpart.”
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