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We're all guilty of it.
Showrooming:
"when shoppers come into a store to see a product in person, only to buy it from a rival online, frequently at a lower price."
A Columbus business was featured in this article on CNN.
Say a merchant owns a retail store -- a brick-and-mortar store, on a city street. He or she hires staff, pays rent, writes checks for electricity and telephone service, pays for janitorial work, pays real estate and sales taxes, invests heavily in merchandise.And hopes against hope that customers will come in, look around and buy something. This is how the retail sales business has always worked.
But in recent years, as online companies without a single physical store have risen to prominence, something new has occurred.
People will come into stores, look around, stop at items they particularly like -- and instead of carrying them to the cash register, will take photos of them, or type a description into their smartphones.
Then, in many cases, they will go home, enter the product into a search engine and find some online-only merchant -- a merchant who has no real-life stores -- who is selling the item for less money. A tap of the "Enter" key, a few keystrokes to provide credit card information, and the item -- the item the person has examined and liked in the brick-and-mortar store -- is on its way to the buyer's home.
It's all so effortless.
Will 'showrooming' kill local businesses?
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I'm curious.
Are you guilty of showrooming?
Does it all come down to saving a few bucks for you or is there something a local business could do to win your business from an online business that has a cheaper price?
Launched in August 2010, TheMetropreneur.com is a local online resource devoted to small business development and entrepreneurship. Its aim is to tell the stories of Central Ohio's business community, foster regional economic development and assist entrepreneurs with its resource-heavy focus.