I just made a post on Nookboards about the future of bookstores and it got me thinking. That's generally a dangerous thing, but it sparks the imagination sometimes.

There are two types of shopping that people partake in. First and most common are the necessities of life. The trips to the grocery store or Wal-Mart to get food, basic items, pet supplies and for many people clothes.

Then there are the special purchases. The "Best Buy" purchases, mall boutique shopping, sporting goods purchases and even furniture would fall here.

With the special purchases category, a lot of that shopping has been moving to the Internet. For people like me who live two hours from a mall, there is even more of a probability that I'll buy online.

Unfortunately buying online requires a good imagination. Shopping in stores helps to increase the emotional bond with a product before you make a buying decision, but the cost of providing these gigantic big-box stores at premium price per square foot, plus housing all of the inventory is very high. Retail stores have a hard time staying in business, particularly in a recession.

The next step is for someone to merge the retail store browsing experience with online ordering and fast delivery. Technology like the Microsoft Surface (I can't believe I just added a link to Microsoft) or the "Virtual Mirror" for shopping for sunglasses. Or perhaps just full fledged virtual shopping using technologies like Second Life.

I can envision a shop appearing in any small town using already available technologies to allow customers to virtually experience all of the products available for sale. Perhaps projection walls, virtual mirrors or even 3D head mounted displays, depending on the class of products they were buying. This would extend the experience of shopping online into a much more personal and emotional buying experience. It also would allow stores to focus on well trained sales staff that could assist with buying decisions.

Customers could maintain encrypted profiles that are unlocked by their own secret password, so they would still maintain privacy and yet have a personalized shopping experience.

The hardest part of the entire process is not the technology, but getting good virtual representations or images for all of the products to be sold. When offset by the reduction in required retail floor space and local warehouses, I bet the result would be a net improvement.