Approaches for prioritized rendering of objects in a virtual universe are provided. In one embodiment, there is a prioritization tool containing a plurality of components configured to: determine a priority of each of a set of objects in a commercial area of the virtual universe, the commercial area having a plurality of virtual retail stores; assign a priority to each of the plurality of virtual stores in the commercial area based on the priority of each of the set of objects in the virtual universe; and download and cache each of the objects from the set of virtual stores from the plurality of virtual stores in the virtual universe, that are outside a rendering radius of the avatar, based on the relative priorities of each of the set of the plurality of virtual stores in the virtual universe.