A customer with smartphone in hand walks into Runner's Roost, peruses the wall of footwear, snaps pictures and scans barcodes and bolts out.
What just happened?
It's called "showrooming," and it is starting to hurt some businesses. Customers visit a store, examine merchandise, touch it and sometimes even try it on, then look online for a cheaper price.
"It's like we're doing the work for these online companies; accommodating customers takes time and energy," said Jamie Bavaro, a sales associate at the Runner's Roost in Orchard Park. "Customers come in and try on shoes and then go spend their money online."
Using brick-and-mortar stores to sample products in person and then buying them from online competitors for less may be a way to save money, but for traditional stores it is a threat. It is a global phenomenon and an almost daily occurrence at Runner's Roost.
Bolstered by smartphone apps that make price comparison handy, retailers are increasingly worried about the trend.
The siphoning of business from traditional stores to e-commerce sites via showrooming could lead to long range changes in the retail space. Small stores, especially mom-and-pop shops, could be forced out of business, taking with them the jobs, property taxes and sales taxes they generate.
"It's becoming more and more prevalent; I see four to five people a week doing it," Bavaro said. "It's a concern. In the short-term? Not so much. But when you start thinking long term, it could be a problem."
For starters, the playing field between brick-and-mortar versus e-commerce isn't level. Web-only companies are bare-bones operations, free of fixed costs, allowing them to offer lower prices than traditional stores. And many sites do not charge sales tax, although consumers are supposed to declare that unpaid tax on their state taxes.
National retailers are getting hit hard by the trend. Cava said showrooming occurs more frequently when consumers are considering larger, more expensive purchases, such as electronics and furniture. The larger chains - while trying to curb the practice - are merging in-store and online businesses for seamless, quicker and cheaper transactions, without shipping fees.
For example, Walmart and Sears offer in-store pick-up for online purchases. Target has asked its suppliers for exclusive products and for special pricing to help it compete with Web-based stores. Best Buy, which experts say has suffered the most from showrooming, especially its big-ticket items like computers and televisions, moved away from the universal barcodes and created its own for its pricier merchandise to prevent scanning with apps.
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