Retailers Fight Showrooming

A customer walks into your store and heads for the TV displays. He’s on a mission and spends the better part of an hour drilling the TV salesman on the pros and cons of a half-dozen big-screen sets, moving from one TV to the next. Eddie doesn’t hide the fact that he’s ready to buy and narrows his search to a 50-inch LCD.

He thanks the salesman for his time, and as he’s walking away pulls out his iPhone and slips into a corner to see if he can find a better price online. Amazon has the lowest price but the model is also on sale and in stock at nearby competitor. Eddie walks out and heads to the store just down the road to buy the TV.

Price shopping has been around as long as retailing but the practice of “showrooming”—a customer checking out products in the store and using his smartphone to search for a better deal, in some cases scanning barcodes—is a relatively new and growing trend that’s making brick-and-mortar retailers nervous.