Consumers are increasingly using stores not to buy their
products, but to interface with the products they are considering on buying;
they are comparison shopping. In the stores consumers are asking questions,
trying to understand the different options and models available to them, using or
playing with the potential products before checking on their mobile phone or
tablet to see if they can get that item cheaper on-line. The best example being
Best-Buy or any other tech product store which basically becomes a showroom for
Amazon.
These retail stores should be encouraging consumers
to check their apps whilst in their stores to try and bring both the store environment
and the comparison or research shopping experience together.
As showrooming increases (JiWire’s Mobile Audience
Insights Report for Q2 2013 suggests that there has been a 25% increase) what
can the Best-Buy’s of this world do to ensure that customers purchase from them
(either in the store or online) apart from offering competing prices to the
likes of Amazon? One lobby option is to persuade the manufacturers not to sell
to companies which undercut as Target did when it wrote a letter to its vendors
saying it was unwilling to be a showroom and would not carry products which the
Vendors then sold online at a lower price.
If a customer wants to buy a product on line; one
route would be for the store to offer a discounted price, longer warranty, a
free special offer such as a camera case if the consumer purchases that product
either in the store, or online whilst in the store. Using locational software,
companies can potentially advertise special offers to consumers whilst they are
in the store hoping to encourage them to buy there and then.
According to a blog on econsultancy one shoe firm
was doing this whereby shoppers were offered a 99% discount which was reduced
by 1% every second in an effort to encourage fast purchases. 
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