chibifriends.com, a now mostly forgotten, defunct, virtual pet / social website from the early 2000s. this site is so rare that me and my siblings almost started thinking this was a mandela effect memory we shared, until i finally found it today on the wayback machine - after my sibling confirmed the name was chibifriends, and i decided to just put that .com into wayback and hope for the best!
it launched in 2002, and seems to have peaked in 2004-2006, falling off relatively quickly after that, based on the wayback's archive. i assume gaia online, which launched in 2003 and became very popular very quickly, was pretty heavy competition for the same userbase XD
it had several layout changes of course.
since this was somewhat of a virtual pet site, there was a shop system for users to buy and sell their items. (if my memory is right, you could equip items to your chibifriend, but they only showed as a list of equipped items with no effect or visual change.) you could include images in your shop somehow (i don't remember how it worked but my sister said something about it) and people would usually use their favourite anime and manga pictures for these shops.
i found an old personal fanpage hosted on angelfire featuring graphics to use for your chibishop. you can browse this site here (not on wayback - still live where it was) or just enjoy the screenshot below!
