Retailers Dread Phone-Wielding Shoppers 725
Ponca City writes "The WSJ reports that until recently, retailers could reasonably assume that if they just lured shoppers into stores with enticing specials, the customers could be coaxed into buying more profitable stuff too. But now, marketers must contend with shoppers who can use their smartphones inside stores to check whether the specials are really so special. 'The retailer's advantage has been eroded,' says analyst Greg Girard, adding that roughly 45% of customers with smartphones had used them to perform due diligence on a store's prices. 'The four walls of the store have become porous.' Although store executives publicly welcome a price-transparent world, retail experts don't expect all chains to measure up to the harsh judgment of mobile price comparisons, and some will need to find new ways to survive. 'Only a couple of retailers can play the lowest-price game,' says Noam Paransky. 'This is going to accelerate the demise of retailers who do not have either competitive pricing or a standout store experience.'"
Re:So, the system works? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the fact that Wal-Mart is the only local place I can buy my clothes and groceries is a sign the system is working I'm not so sure I want it to work. I'm not saying we should regulate the hell out of everything but I really miss having other options when I shop.
And Nothing of Value was Lost (Score:5, Interesting)
Stores can no longer use tricks to get me to spend my money there, and I'm okay with that.
I actually bought an iPod case at Best Buy the other day for $11 knowing it was available on Amazon for $7. The brick-and-mortar shopping experience is still worth it if I want something now or doing what to worry about paying for shipping (usually I buy *more* than I need at Amazon for small purchases to qualify for free shipping).
At the end of the day, the customer wins. The best stores win. And crappy stores lose. This is a good thing.
Re:Books (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of the results of a survey. People were asked "If you found out that this $100 piece of software were only $50 across town, would you leave this store, drive across town and buy it cheaper?" The answer was almost always less. Others were asked "If you found out that this $1,000 computer were available for $950 across town, would you leave this store and by it cheaper?" Fewer than half said yes.
So why is the value of our time less for more expensive products? It seems people are fundamentally illogical. Yes, I know... I must be new here.
Self Price Match (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Books (Score:4, Interesting)
People working with large numbers deal in percentages and proportions. It's how our monkey brains try to handle values that are so much larger than anything we were designed for.
There's also the question of worth. Something that is only worth $50 might not be worth a purchase of $100, but something that is worth $950 most likely is probably still worth $1000 to someone.
This is, of course, why the most efficient use of your time for most people is in negotiating a better deal on your car or your house.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So, the system works? (Score:4, Interesting)
I recently bought a book as a Christmas gift for one of my family. It's a best-seller in hardback, and it cost me nearly twice as much in my local bookstore as it would have cost me from Amazon.
On the other hand, it is in pristine condition (unlike the last books I ordered from Amazon, which were significantly damaged due to careless packaging) and it is here (unlike my order full of Christmas DVDs from Amazon, which is now five days overdue, and my other half's similar order, which is now more than a week late).
The trouble is, if most people start checking books out in the bricks and mortar stores but then buying on-line, the kind of crappy service I have received from Amazon lately will be the only option, while the reliable and helpful service provided by my local book store will go the way of the dodo because offering those benefits to potential customers does not directly generate profit. I'm not sure what the answer is, but a pure-capitalism, only-the-price-matters approach certainly isn't it.
Re:I did this (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was a sales manager, I would be offering some incentive to my customers to do all their shopping at my store at once. The more they spend, the greater their savings.
See, that's what's gone away: Any reason for customers to have store loyalty.
It used to be that you could actually get discounts. Nowadays, they can offer discounts for exactly one reason: price matching.
Sure, there are those customer loyalty cards, but the free ones are clearly just privacy-invading discounts that should already exist. You're not given a discount for being a 'good customers'.
The ones you have to buy, like bookstore ones, are a manual discount, which is just as idiotic. Those things should be offered free after someone's bought $30 or whatever. Or, even better, offered free, but with no discount, and as you buy stuff using them the discount gets larger and larger.
The only place you get actual discounts for actually buying stuff are those places that punch the goofy cards, which appear to somehow be the lowest rung of discounting. (And airlines have some sort of frequent flying thing too, which I don't know much about. Normally people when talking about 'frequent flyer' inexplicably mean 'stuff out credit card company gave us', but I'm sure there's some actual rewards from flying a lot.)
Other than that, no one offers any sort of discount, which is ironic, because they have more ability to track you than ever, and hence could easily offer customers discounts. They don't even need cards. At checkout: 'I see you've purchased more than $80 this month. If you total more than $100 by the 31st, you get $10 off, so next time you're here, you can get $20 and only pay $10.'
You're doing it backwards, you idiotic resellers. Stop invading privacy against the customer's wishes. Just offer them an actual discount for loyalty, and actual discount based on them being good customers, not a pretend one by marking up prices and then pretending to 'discount' them because someone filled out a stupid card, which people see straight through and, um, doesn't encourage any loyalty. At that point, people will start making sure that you know how much they've bought there. You set something like that up, and forget needing the customer cards...people will deliberately link their credit cards if they're using multiple ones, and tell you their actual name and address. (Not the 80% fake address the 'customer loyalty' cards have.)
And that's just the 'general discount'. It used to be that if you bought a X, you could get X accessories for cheaper at the time, which encouraged people to buy all their stuff at once. Now half the time X is a loss leader and the accessories are marked up 300%. (I'm looking at you, Best Buy.) This is insane.
The only store that gets any sort of store loyalty from me is Barnes and Noble, because I'm afraid if I don't, actual physical bookstores will cease to exist. B&N has it sorta right, in that they keep mailing me coupons (Which I actually do use.), but it seems they're just mailing them because I'm a member, and not because I've bought things per se.
Until companies start actually rewarding actual purchasing and actual loyalty, there is absolutely no reason for customers to be loyal.
Re:So, the system works? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was able to actually see the TV, see how it looked, and spin the thing around to look at how the I/O ports are configured.
Having just helped my g/f buy a netbook at Best Buy, I'd highly recommend you do the same thing to the TV they actually sold you, which may not be the one on the shelf.
Seriously: the clowns at Best Buy tried to sell us the wrong netbook with the wrong battery at the wrong price. That was AFTER I had opened the box to check things and noticed a 25 Whr battery that was supposed to last six hours, spoke to the sales-person about it, who spoke to the "Geek Squad" clown about it, who assured me that advances in battery tech and power management made it totally plausible that it was the right battery.
When I realized the price was wrong on the bill I got the sales clown to bug the manager who tried to blow me off. I then pointed out the model number on the bill was different from the one on the self and the manager claimed the last four digits were only for colour. I leaned on them (politely) and got them to look up the model number online, and lo and behold it was rather more than the colour that varied with those crucial last digits.
So a computer-literate, physically imposing man who has been described as 'forceful' in performance reviews was just barely able to get the correct product out of Best Buy. I can only imagine what the average person goes home with.
The best thing: after all this my g/f decided to buy a carry-bag for the netbook, and they charged her the wrong price for it (she went back the next day and got it reduced to the posted price, and they immediately pulled the posted price off the stand...)
I've had pretty terrible experiences with TigerDirect, who have great prices but really annoying follow-up (endless calls from salespeople). But I'd gladly buy from them if it meant never having to set foot in Best Buy again.
Shops - Showrooms (Score:4, Interesting)
Are we part way through a transition from shops being where you both browse / research products and purchase them, to separating these two phases of the shopping process.
The way I see it there is still a need for bricks & morter 'showrooms' where you can go and compare products side-by-side or even try them out in real life : e.g when buying a netbook / laptop, I always go to the local PC world or similar to try out the different keyboards and see how the displays look.
However to make the purchase, it is clearly more efficient and therefore cheaper to sell through either giant mail-order only warehouses (e.g. order from amazon, or order direct from the manufacturer) or something like Argos for when you want to be able to collect it yourself same-day.
The problem is how the showrooms get payed for? will we move instead to individual manfactures paying for showpiece storefronts (maybe Apple stores already are this? do they expect to make a profit on on-store sales, or are they just giant adverts driving their sales through other channels?)
The current middle-ground that retailers seem to be using is the online 'reserve and collect' - but they still tend to be keeping the much of their stock on the shelves rather than having it all more efficiently stacked away in a warehouse out the back.
Re:So, the system works? (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazon, Newegg, ZipZoomFly. There's no reason to ever look anywhere else IMHO. Excellent service and prices from all three. TigerDirect and Buy.com are on the avoid list.