While Walmart tests stores where shoppers walk around scanning their own purchases with smartphones, and Amazon tests a store where customers just pick up their purchases and walk out with them, Macy’s doesn’t want to be left out. That’s why the department store chain is testing its own system, which turns its stores into a catalog showroom for smartphone users. [More]
showrooming
Retailers Turn To Electronic Price Tags To Combat Amazon
By 7.17.15
On Amazon, not only can the price of a product change from minute to minute, but you often have multiple sellers offering the same product at different prices. How is a bricks-and-mortar retailer supposed to compete with that level of flexibility and agility? Not having to print out new price tags every time you tweak a price might be a start. [More]
Walmart Tells All U.S. Managers They Can Now Price-Match Online Retailers Like Amazon
By 11.13.14
It’s a war out there in the world of retail, and having the lowest prices around is a weapon every brick-and-mortar store has been trying to keep in its arsenal. Not so easy when online retailers like Amazon are constantly lowering prices. All that might change for Walmart, as store managers have been told it’s time to officially start price-matching Amazon and others. [More]
Mattress Store Tries Novel Approach: Leaving Customers Alone
By 7.15.14
Mattress shopping can be a stressful, high-pressure experience, with difficulty in comparing different models. One store in the Midwest wants to solve that problem by eliminating sales staff from the process. Entirely. No, they aren’t going to sell mattresses online: they plan an unattended store where shoppers can browse in complete peace. [More]
Best Buy Is Just Daring You To Use Their Stores As Amazon Showrooms
By 11.4.13
Last week, we mocked Best Buy’s ad campaign that frames the electronics chain as America’s “holiday showroom,” mostly because it’s close to the truth. For many people, Best Buy is a fine showroom for the online retailers they plan to really buy from. The company knows this, and the ad campaign is a sort of dare. “Come on in,” they’re saying. [More]
Maybe Calling Itself A “Showroom” Isn’t The Best Holiday Marketing Plan For Best Buy
By 10.29.13
A showroom is a place where you go to look at stuff and think about buying it, but it may not necessarily be in stock or even available. In the e-commerce era, it has a slightly different meaning: the term “showrooming” means visiting a nearby store to check out an item in person, then buying that item online from a different company. [More]
Target Is Latest Retailer To Think “Being Like Apple” Will Stop Showrooming
By 10.17.13
Retailers continue to make changes to their stores based on the notion that, like Apple’s retail sleek and busy retail locations, if they can just get customers to futz around with products in the store long enough, they’ll eventually buy something right then and there, rather than buying it cheaper online. Target is the latest to give this idea a shot in its electronics department. [More]
Best Buy To Merge Reward Zone Site With BestBuy.com In Attempt To Gain Online Customers
By 6.13.13
As things stand now, members of Best Buy’s Reward Zone loyalty program who want to shop online have to do so through a dedicated section of BestBuy.com, which is probably not a good idea for a retailer that is having trouble converting in-store looky-loos into online buyers. And so, as part of a major overhaul of its website, Best Buy will finally be integrating the two sides of BestBuy.com. [More]
Survey: Best Buy And Walmart Are Most Popular Stores For Showrooming
By 6.4.13
For the two of you unfamiliar with the term, “showrooming” is the practice of going to a bricks-and-mortar retailer to get an eyes-on experience with a product before ultimately buying it online. A new study confirms what many of us had already assumed — that the practice isn’t relegated to holiday shopping, that price-matching is probably the only way to curb it, and that many showroomers just don’t like dealing with retail employees. [More]
Store Combats Showrooming With $5 ‘Just Looking’ Fee
By 3.25.13
While some bricks-and-mortar chains are trying to curb showrooming — using a retailer to check out an item in person before buying it online — with price-matching or store-exclusive brands, one business has come up with a possible solution… charging a $5 fee for shopping without buying. [More]
Is Showrooming Rude Or Just Part Of Doing Business?
By 11.12.12
Smart shoppers compare prices before they buy anything; this is nothing new. But is there a difference between comparison shopping at retail stores and “showrooming,” where you check out a product at a store and then buy it from an online retailer? [More]
Best Buy To Price-Match Online Competitors
By 10.12.12
Best Buy has already said that it intends on dropping its prices on BestBuy.com to better compete against Amazon and other online retailers, but now comes word that the electronics chain plans on actually matching the prices of its online competitors at its bricks-and-mortar stores. [More]
Target Thinks You Want To Be Hassled By A “Beauty Concierge” While You Shop
By 7.18.12
Taking a cue from department store beauty counters, where employees ply customers with samples and tell them they look fabulous, Target has begun testing the deployment of so-called “beauty concierges” at its stores in the Chicago area. [More]
