Showrooming – is it a death knell ?

Posted on March 11, 2013

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There has been a lot of talk recently about “showrooming”.

This is where a shopper comes into a retail store and looks around, and whilst in the store uses a mobile to lok up product details and or prices from online suppliers.

Often this results in the shopper leaving the store and going home to order on line.

You hear scary stories like HMV declaring that 75% of shoppers that enter their store leave without purchasing, no doubt many to go home and buy online, and for me the reason for this is that if you are used to buying on line you are used to a lot more information about a purchase, than a store can give you.  Reviews, background info, other people bought … etc etc.

The area of the high street most at risk, according to Comscore is Electrical goods (consumer electronics).  You go to the store check it out,  decide if you like it, then order it for less money on line, or perhaps you just go check out the reviews first.

Here is a slide from Comscore that shows this risk that the consumer electronics in particular.
You can get the original slides from Comscore
Comscore - showrooming
what I think this means is that the physical shops have to become far smarter in both price matching, and providing more details than is the norm, on product tickets.  Using mobile apps that are not just m-commerce, but also a companion in the store that provides decent details, right there and then, so you can capture impulsiveness and general laziness of folks.
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Posted in: Business, mobile