Monday, February 11, 2008

"Go to" Stores and Remodels

For me, every day in Second Life presents new opportunities to shop—to find just the right pair of boots to wear with my dress slacks—to hunt for just the right pair of glasses to complete my preppy image as well as the perfect pair of sunglasses for shielding my avatar from those virtual UV rays. But of course, I'm doing all this on a budget.

The good news is, for the hard core shopper like me, the hunt is as much fun as the purchase. Every day I seem to discover a new LM for the next new favorite store of mine. Last week it was WRONG, this week it's UK Couture, next week it may be some store a friend tells me about or something I wander into by accident from the search menu. With all this shopping, it's easy to lose control of your inventory, let alone the phenomenal number of landmarks one collects in all this hunting.

But I've discovered out of all these fad places, I have a select group of stores that I keep going back to. The tried and true "I can always find something" here stores. And most importantly, these stores are often times very affordable for the quality of products produced. I'm the picky shopper looking for extremely detailed clothing and objects that are not only low prim, but a bargain.
One of my "go to" places is Pixel Dolls. I was introduced to this store as a newbie. I remember looking there the first time, wanting everything in sight, and thinking how expensive 100L was for an outfit. Of course, this was when I was still thinking of Lindens in terms of dollars and someone had gifted me 1,000. I wasn't sure if I'd ever get any more, and each one had to be spent wisely. Looking back on it, I realize what a bargain it was. Now with over 12,000 items in my inventory, at least three quarters of which is clothing, I still go back to my outfits from Pixel Dolls. And every time I wear them, I receive compliments.

Recently, a friend was in a bind. She wanted an outfit for an event that evening, and we had roughly half an hour to find her something. Remembering the massive walls of outfits organized by price and the variety available, I TPd her to Pixel Dolls, figuring if she couldn't find something she loved at a reasonable price there, we weren't going to have any luck. Imagine my surprise when the store rezzed in around me and gone were the screens full of tiny outfits priced at 100L and 200L and up. In its place was a fantastically elegant store. I didn't believe my eyes! Where was the Pixel Dolls I fell in love with?

In place of the tiles upon tiles upon tiles of designs was a store that looked like an actual store. Displays of shoes dotted the landscape. Plush sofas and chairs for lounging underlined large pictures of new outfits at every turn of my camera angle. I wanted to curl up in the store with a friend and have a long chat while we tried on shoes and flaunted our new skirts and blouses. I started looking for a sales associate to offer me Rooibos tea or a mineral water with lemon. As I should have expected, Pixel Dolls' new store was all about the details.


When my friend arrived, it took her no time to find what has become her favorite outfit in SL! And as I wandered around the store, I found some of the old Pixel Dolls blended into the new design. What a fantastic surprise to see what happens when our old standbys reinvent themselves into something bigger and better than we could have imagined. I can't wait to shop there again and explore and the fantastic new designs. And the best part: Pixel Dolls is still Pixel Dolls. I can wander in at any time, find just the right outfit for any occasion, and leave without having spent a week's pay. The great quality and affordable pricing that I loved best are still the foundation of Pixel Dolls.

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