Shopping

Overview
Nothing gives developers more of a chance to showcase amazing new public-facing technology than the shopping experience. From the dazzling interfaces of virtual bazaars to the aug-enhanced immersive experiences of the modern shopping mall, no holds are barred in the marketers' rush to own the brand loyalty of every potential customer.

In every store or market, every individual item is embedded with a unique RFID tag that can be sensed and tracked within range of the store's sensors. When you take an item from a shelf, this tag identifies that particular item to a database in the fog, where it is stored and cross-referenced into your datawake.

Throughout most stores, targeted advertisements play above or near product shelves. Many of these ads are interactive, not only speaking to you directly, but immersing you in a dynamic virtual experience. Many ads are tailored to your interests, and track your gaze. This tracking allows store owners and their business partners to fine-tune their consumer-targeting systems and compare the performance of different campaigns.

In UbiComp Zones, these ads may often be avoided by paying higher costs (about 10%).

Many “low-tech” and “hand-made” items have taken on an air of rustic quality, and are often quite expensive. These goods – things like physical books, old-fashioned wines, and analog media - are mostly relegated to the upper corporate classes, who can afford to possess such luxury items. The middle classes, when wishing to seem cultured and erudite, will compromise by buying physical media that are printed within minutes, on demand. They may use a virtual or augmented display to browse all works the store has legal rights to print (thanks to corporate partnerships and media acquisitions, titles in these databases usually number in the millions).

Most stores possess their own chatty and knowledgeable phone apps, while others rely on robots and AI assistants to help consumers with purchase decisions. In trendy districts, some upscale shops and restaurants still hire human staff as a nostalgic fashion trend; this is part of the whole "customer experience," not unlike themed restaurants or parks.

Apparel
Clothing stores feature live catwalks complete with virtual paparazzi, augmented video mirror-walls showing your face and body merged with your favorite celebrities, and AR product displays that enable product customization prior to ordering – even prior to manufacturing. Dressing rooms are outfitted with SmartGlass mirrors, allowing you to choose everything from style and color to optional tailoring, seeing it on your own body as it will appear once fabricated.

In upscale fash stores your image may be taken by hovering stylecams, and the franchise's AI will determine whether your look is suitable for brand advertising. If so, you may be offered an image-use agreement, yielding micropayments from the designer whose threads you're sporting, or from the store itself.

Cosmetics
Makeup counters in UbiComp area run a wide variety of advanced virtual facemaking applications, enabling detailed looks to be created with assistance from a friendly automated style guide, and applied rapidly and precisely by dedicated makeup bots.

Groceries
In most grocery stores, human clerks have been replaced by bots, natural language interfaces and store-wide customer service AIs. Many of these digital entities will know your name, your purchasing history, your tastes and your budget. Obsequious GopherBots will happily assist you in gathering items, or reaching items on the highest shelves.

Anyone with AR gear or a PDA (which means practically everyone) receives personalized ads from the store's system as they walk up and down the aisles. These AI-driven messages take into account the shopper's profiles and recent behavior: "Hello Dave. You gave this product five stars last time you bought it… today we have the complementary/new one on sale…"  When you place a product in your cart, your inventory is updated in realtime.

While shopping, you can glance or point your PDA at any product to get more information, such as its origin, expiry date, ingredients, nutritional data, or pull up a price comparison of competing brands.

Many stores offer Apps that can be downloaded for free, or for a monthly membership charge. These Apps start up as soon as you enter the store, guiding you to the items your PDA has listed for you, and making helpful suggestions of their own.

Grocery stores are often noisy places, especially during peak shopping hours; filled with the voices of people talking to themselves, to their children, to GopherBots and autocarts, to remote friends and family members, to the store's automated system, and to their own augmented assistants.

Checkout and payment are automatic; there are no queues. As you step through the checkout gate with your products, your total is calculated and your account is electronically debited.

Vehicles
Vehicle showrooms can be found in small stylish storefronts featuring “product experience displays” rather than actual cars and trucks. These are like large AR-equipped sensory experience pods with enough capacity for two to six people, capable of emulating the features of various model vehicles and road conditions. After selecting your make, model and options using the AR interface the vehicle is printed, and soon after that, it drives itself to your desired location.

Delivery
All stores, of course, offer drone-based home delivery.

Your Shopping History
If you've ever shopped at a given store or purchased a specific brand before, the company that manages that store or brand is aware of it, as well as your entire shopping history with them. This data allows them to make offers and suggest products or services that are tailored to suit your personal preferences. Other companies track your responses to ads, linking your purchases to your ad exposures, in order to present ads for similar products to you in the future.

Ways to Shop
A hallmark of Fractopian Commerce is the convenience of the shopping experience, if nothing else. Many options for purchasing and receiving your goods and services are available -- if you can afford them.

Automated Luxury Malls
Products are sold or advertised against AR/VR backdrops indicative of their intended use (skiing equipment on the slopes, hiking gear in the wilderness, etc)

AR/VR visualization systems and interactive mirrors enable you to see yourself wearing/using the product, even blurring the lines between sales and games (hunting or sports, etc)

Malls include fewer brick-and-mortar stores than they once did, and more "experiential" ventures: recreational activities, hotels, residences, and themed environments for various social activities. In the most affluent areas, the boutiques that remain are more like luxury showrooms: highly augmented and/or automated, with impressive technology for the most jaded shopaholic.

Drone Delivery
TBW

Virtual Shopping
Buying furniture or home improvements by viewing them in situ from your own home. Customer associates appearing via telepresence to answer questions or make suggestions.

Mobile Malls
and other forms of autonomous commerce (TBW).

SalesBots & VendorBots
TBW

AR and VR Shops
TBW

Small Merchants & Boutiques
Small merchants still exist but they are either using the barter system and fiat electrodollars (some of them are off-grid and have no fancy AR interfaces at all), or else (more common) they operate as franchised reps, licensed dealers or captured contractors (and simultaneously, advertising partners) of some larger company. They have to get their inventory from somewhere.

Street Vendors
There are peddlers and street vendors in Union City as well, but they need to be licensed if they want to work in the Ubi Zone, and most aren't, so they peddle their wares elsewhere or get run off by district patrols. As a result these vendors can most often be found in the Sprawls and Squatter Towns, but occasionally drift into the Corporate Projects or the Downtown area. Street Vendors can be good sources of “defitted” and off-grid items, as well as home-made foods. They will take barter or electrodollars.

Independent Tradespersons
Small professional trade businesses - machine shops, repair technicians, specialty skills, traditional medical practitioners, etc. - can be found running storefronts in most districts. Others work as independent contractors, advertising their services with cheap ads and online marketing. Approached by the right skilled people, some still cut franchise or sponsorship deals, either for the money or for the advertising, or as an investment. While the skills of a professional tradesperson provide business opportunities that are unavailable to the general unskilled public, their fortunes and ratings are by no means stable. Independent vendors will set up shop wherever they can afford it, but only the best can attract the kind of clientele that will keep them in a pricey area for long. It's not uncommon for a small business to last only a few weeks in a given district, only to be replaced by another, completely unrelated, business. The credit scores of independent merchants and tradespeople tend to fluctuate, often pushing them up or down the social hierarchy and into other neighborhoods.

category:Life