A recent study of showrooming activity is more bad news for retailers that subscribe to the conventional wisdom that mobile is a threat. But a couple of forward-thinking merchants -- Nordstrom and Best Buy -- are looking to use mobile to their advantage.
Some 43 percent of consumers showroom, according to a Harris Poll released this week. Best Buy and Walmart are the most popular showrooming destinations (24 percent and 22 percent). And Amazon is the most likely beneficiary of showrooming; more than half of showroomers said that's where they buy (57 percent), according to the poll.
Showroomers spend an average $211.80 per purchase.
But retailers aren't taking the competition lying down. In the latest effort to make brick-and-mortar shopping more attractive, retailers are tossing cash registers onto the junk heap, replacing them with mobile devices, according to a report on NPR.
The benefits: Mobile associates are more convenient than asking consumers to stand in cash register lines. And no cash register lines means less time for customers to change their minds about buying products and walk out. Also, mobile technology is often less expensive than traditional PoS, and removing cash registers frees up real estate in the store.
Nordstrom is a leader in this trend. It's replacing cash registers with modified iPod touch devices containing barcode scanners and credit card readers. When a customer finds merchandise they're ready to buy, a sales associate simply swipes the bar code and credit card, the customer signs with a fingertip, and is good to walk out the door.
"We think the days of the big clunky cash register... anchoring down a department are really going away," Nordstrom spokesman Colin Johnson told NPR.
And mobile is key to turnaround plans for Best Buy, says Stephen Gillett, the company's new VP of digital, global, marketing, and strategy, told Wired.
"We have a range of opportunities," he says. "There are challenges, but I like the set of cards I have been given."
Best Buy is closing stores -- a process that is limited by long-term leases. And the company is looking to turn remaining stores into an advantage by striking at mobile commerce's Achilles' heel. "People want to try before they buy, and they can't do that on Amazon," writes Wired.
And Best Buy marries its brick-and-mortar presence with its own online business. By revenue, it's the 11th largest e-commerce site, at about $3 billion per year. "That's a fraction of Amazon's electronics business and just 6 percent of Best Buy's total revenue, but it's growing by 15 to 20 percent every quarter," Wired says.
Retailers like Best Buy and Nordstrom are showing the way to beat showrooming. Instead of running away from mobile competition, retailers need to embrace it.
Yeah, sometimes it's easier to start fresh than it is to try to turn around a dysfunctional company.
Still, somebody's going to get retail right for the online era. The opportunity is just to big. It might come from an online retailer moving to brick-and-mortar, rather than vice-versa.
Actually, it sounds like an impossible vision to achieve. But before you can implement a vision – real or (in this case) imagined, you need get the fundamentals right. Nothing's been right with Best Buy from a performance perspective since the middle part of last decade. They have a new CEO, Hubert Joly, who was brought in last September to restructure the company. Among other things he needs a fresh board, which is operating without a full team (there are only seven of the eleven director slots currently serving) and a good house cleaning. We'll have to wait and see what he comes up with.He has his work cut out for him.
Best Buy's vision is to own the online shopping experience as well as the offline one, so wherever you buy, Best Buy wins. Sounds like they're not executing on that well at all, though.
Mitch, I'm still wondering about the vision. Their execution is flawed, but it doesn't seem to me like they have a vision. From where I sit both as a customer and an observer, they look like they're simply trying to imitate other companies. If I've missed something, let me know - do you know what their vision is?
Mitch, I'm still wondering about the vision. Their execution is flawed, but it doesn't seem to me like they have a vision. From where I sit both as a customer and an observer, they look like they're simply trying to imitate other companies. If I've missed something, let me know - do you know what their vision is?
Mitch - as a marketer and having tried (really) hard to be a customer – both online and in the store - I would have to disagree.
What's the vision, "Best Buy carries stuff?" I see nothing that differentiates them from their competition. At the store level their product selection continues to get smaller and smaller. They carry only mid-to-low-end-priced products in the store, attempting to offset the lack of choice with their private label Rocketfish – at best an iffy strategy and a very mediocre product line. Combine that with some of the worst retail merchandising I've seen (How does fitness gear, yoga mats and AA batteries for sale as old as my ten-year-old dog fit with HD TV's and computer gear?). They staff the stores with a skeleton crew whose knowledge of the products they carry outside individual departments is "not much." Then there's customer service, which in BB's case lacks the "service" part of the equation.
Their online site is a mishmash of a very limited Best Buy offering intertwined with "marketplace" stores and no clear distinction between the two. The marketplace is made up of mostly unratedstores whose idea of fast delivery is a throwback to ca. 2002 3-4 day processing time to ship.
Once upon a time Best Buy had a vision and transformed the retail electronics. Now they seem hopelessly stuck. That will continue until their founder and CEO gets out of the way in favor of a fresh sensibility and a new vision.
I agree, that is a training issue, and thats exaclty why it wouldnt be so prudent to spill such technology without training employees. I myself spend a lot of my time in stores browing stuff... and only rarely do I come across a salesman who gives me the room to 'browse'.. rest everyone seems to be overly motivated to sell, if you know what I mean. So yes although its not a technology issue, but with the current employee training conditions - having the entire fleet chasing around customers feels like a slippery slope... This is why I love Walmart.. I can roam around all I want, and If i need some help- I got some ... But thats just me.
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Almost everyone agrees that data analytics, digital marketing, apps, and APIs will greatly affect their enterprise's results in the next 12 months. But a report suggests that not all large corporations are moving quickly to adopt these enabling technologies -- and that could seriously harm their profitability, customer satisfaction, and chances for ongoing success.
Enterprises are embracing open-source to avoid vendor lock-in, get better-quality software, and gain access to larger libraries of applications. In return, they may be putting themselves at risk for higher, more complex support costs.
Whereas some businesses search externally when they need a CIO, Choice Hotels had to look only at its CTO for someone with the necessary expertise, industry knowledge, and technological know-how to continue leading the company's embrace of enabling technologies.
Local social media can be powerful marketing tools, but they can't just be add-ons. They need to be tightly integrated into the corporate culture, according to Whole Foods social marketers.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Companies need to take advantage of new technologies to simplify interfaces, improve capabilities, and enhance back-office processes. But they can't upgrade their Websites too often.
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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