The Myth Of Showrooming Takes Another Hit

May 15th, 2013
Written by Evan Schuman, StorefrontBacktalk.com

The myth of showrooming—the suggestion that tons of shoppers are flooding stores to only use them as a physical showroom as they had always intended to purchase the product at Amazon—lives on. But a survey conducted in late April by Bizrate Insights is helping to add a little clarity. First, showrooming really doesn’t happen very often. But more interestingly, when it does, it’s more likely to be within the same chain. That’s a problem all right, but the name of that problem isn’t showrooming. It’s internal politics.

Bizrate surveyed more than 9,000 shoppers (between April 24-30) who had just completed an online purchase at one of their e-tailers. The first—and arguably most meaningful—stat is an overwhelming 78.15 percent of those online purchasers had not looked at those products in any physical store. No surprise there, but it’s a key number to remember the next time someone shouts about how showrooming is gutting brick-and-mortars.
When they zeroed in on that remaining 21.85 percent of shoppers who had looked instore before buying online, most of them (54 percent) ended up buying from the same chain. In other words, they were in a Target or a Best Buy and then purchased from Target.com or BestBuy.com.
Granted, that’s a slim margin (in the survey, it’s the difference between 11.8 percent and 10.05 percent—and it’s not clear what the survey’s margin of error was), but it’s still interesting.  Read the rest of the article