Andrew LaVallee

When Jeff Keller ordered a Windows Vista upgrade and a wireless-Internet adapter on CircuitCity.com, he expected to save some time, as well as shipping fees, by picking them up at a store near his Oakland, Calif., home.

First came the call that the adapter was out of stock. Then, when he drove to the Circuit City store, he was told that the Vista order had been mistakenly canceled. He waited 20 minutes while a warehouse clerk found another copy of the Microsoft operating system.

Mr. Keller, 30 years old, turned to Best Buy’s Web site to order the missing wireless adapter, again choosing the “buy online, pick up in store” option. He encountered another setback when he arrived at the Best Buy store: His item was in stock but hadn’t been set aside. He waited while a staffer located the product in an aisle and walked it back to the cash register. The whole transaction took about 15 minutes, he said.

“What’s the point of in-store pickup if they don’t have the product ready to go when you arrive?” Mr. Keller asked. “Lesson learned: It’s faster to just pull it off the shelf yourself.”

Retailers are increasingly touting features that let customers order items online, and then pick them up at nearby physical stores. Consumers are offered the ability to save on shipping charges and get orders faster, and retailers find it can boost store sales. Many stores advertise that items will be available for pickup soon after the order is placed, while others take days to transfer online-only items to stores from warehouses.

But as in-store pickup has grown in popularity — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Company Inc., Lowe’s Cos. and Payless ShoeSource Inc. have joined the ranks of retailers offering the service — complaints are mounting over faulty Web information and slow service. And some analysts are cautioning retailers that the process is trickier than it looks.

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Girls Click-and-Drag to Outfit Celebrities on Doll Sites, and Investors Take Notice

Hannah Reichert, an 11-year-old in North Bergen, N.J., likes dressing up dolls, but the worlds of Barbie and Bratz aren’t so interesting to her. Instead, she visits Cartoon Doll Emporium, a Web site she discovered while searching for dolls.

“It’s just cool,” she said of the site, where she can drag and drop shirts, dresses, shoes and jewelry onto drawings of celebrities and cartoon characters, as well as chat with friends in online forums. She doesn’t play with actual dolls, but CDE, as she and other users call it, is a regular stop between dinner and bedtime. “I go on there every day,” she said.

CDE is one of a handful of virtual doll sites, including Stardoll and The Doll Palace, that have seen traffic surge. The straightforward sites, which evoke traditional paper dolls, have managed to capture an often ignored segment of the online audience: young girls. And investors are taking note: Stardoll, launched by a Finnish doll enthusiast and her son, has received more than $10 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. Meanwhile, the makers of Barbie and Bratz dolls are moving to add new online dress-up offerings.

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(Also appeared on AOL News)

Second Life Designers Make Real Money Creating Clothes for Simulation Game’s Players

In the real world, fashionistas are recovering from the spring collections in New York and London and gearing up for shows in Milan and Paris.

But in the fast-growing virtual world of Second Life, many players are too enmeshed in the game’s online fashion community to dissect what Vera Wang or Baby Phat sent down the catwalk in New York. Some players are buying up high fashion for their online graphic incarnations, known as avatars. Others, armed with Adobe Photoshop instead of a needle and thread, are creating their own clothing lines, pitching their designs to style editors, selling their creations, and — in some cases — even earning a living.

Second Life is a simulated world with more than 700,000 “residents,” or players, who sometimes refer to their offline existence as their “first life.” As in earlier computer simulation games like the Sims series, the point isn’t to fulfill a quest, and there are no dragons or wizards to slay. Instead, San Francisco-based Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, has provided a platform for players — median age 32 and 57% male, with 40% living outside the U.S. — to do whatever they want, whether it is building a business, tending bar or launching a space shuttle. Residents chat, shop, build homes, travel and hold down jobs, and they are encouraged to create items in Second Life that they can sell to others or use themselves.

When players buy items or services, real money is involved. That’s because Second Life’s in-game currency, Linden dollars, is based on real U.S. money ($1 U.S. buys about 280 Linden dollars). It’s possible for users to play Second Life free of charge, but closely held Linden takes a cut of many in-world transactions (such as uploading a design to the game), and it charges players for “premium” accounts, which offer more flexibility in owning land and displaying merchandise.

Many virtual items are bought and sold in Second Life, but clothing has emerged as one of the hottest categories. Real clothing makers, including American Apparel Inc. and Adidas, sell items in Second Life that mimic apparel they sell in the real world. Thus, players can dress their avatars in some of the same clothes they wear themselves.

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A look at some clothing designed by Second Life players.

(Also appeared in the Northwest Florida Daily News and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)