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Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

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Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#31

Post by craftkiller »

Applejack wrote: post #16
hfsktr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of a few things that you just need to see or feel. I was shopping for a monitor and all the reviews on Amazon are great but I can't see the difference on my current monitor or what it actually looks like despite all the specs listed. I did buy it on Amazon but only after I saw the actual differences in store.

Yeah for something like a tv or monitor, you have to see it in person or you're rolling the dice. How's the glare? How does it look from other angles beside straight on? Hows this 4K res compare to the one next to it? Even if Amazon could provide a Hololens sessions for me to look at the product (which maybe they should do at some future Amazon retail location) alongside all the specs and reviews, it's still not goin…

Amazon could integrate that into Amazon Prime Now (1 hour delivery service). They could charge a small showroom fee and have a driver go out with a "floor model" they keep at the warehouse and an unopened box model for if you want to buy it on the spot.

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#32

Post by kelukelugames »

VLM wrote: post #21
kelukelugames wrote: post #17

We have a game store where you can go to play the board games and buy the ones you like. It's crowded but I don't know if people actually purchases things.

Looks can also be deceiving, because of "Friday Night Magic" at least for one evening a week what is believed to be an independent FLGS is actually a junk food convenience store at least WRT revenue by product. Or so I've been told by someone who should know. There are other theme nights, its just "Friday Night Magic" is the most popular. Its not a very profitable or well run convenience store compared to a real conv…

I go to play magic on Sundays. :)

I am not counting the magic players. Though there is certainly an overlap with the board game players.

The shop is a restaurant and cafe.

http://www.moxboardinghouse.com/

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#33

Post by JoeAltmaier »

VLM wrote: post #21
kelukelugames wrote: post #17

We have a game store where you can go to play the board games and buy the ones you like. It's crowded but I don't know if people actually purchases things.

Looks can also be deceiving, because of "Friday Night Magic" at least for one evening a week what is believed to be an independent FLGS is actually a junk food convenience store at least WRT revenue by product. Or so I've been told by someone who should know. There are other theme nights, its just "Friday Night Magic" is the most popular. Its not a very profitable or well run convenience store compared to a real conv…

Just for contrast, our local card store has 8 tables available for whatever. They also have Magic tournaments, MechWarrior tables, a variety of things. They make their money selling - you guessed it, card games. The other half of the store is aisles of boxed games, old and new.

The tables get busy every evening of the week, after folks get out of school/off work. The age range is teens through 30-somethings.

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#34

Post by balabaster »

blumkvist wrote: post #25
balabaster wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am like this also... I wish I could just type into a search engine what I'm looking for and it comes up with "Hey, this thing is available at these local retailers for these prices, all within 5km of your house. Here are the returns policies for those places. Here are the caveats to their warranty programs. These places have free parking. Caution: Place X, Y or Z only takes cash. Here's a list of ATMs enroute." I r…

You wait 4-6 weeks for delivery?

For some stuff, I have waited even longer... and that's even living in a modern connected city in North America.

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#35

Post by warfangle »

realusername wrote: post #24
HenryTheHorse wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the holy grail of "omni-channel retail" - of being able to offer a consistent experience across all channels. But spend a few days inside any large retail company and you'll be shocked at how badly organized they are. Not only do their systems not talk to one another, their people in e-commerce and b&m operations barely know each other.

This seems to be true for most large companies. From the outside, everything looks great and everyone is going towards one clear direction but internally, everyone is actually in an isolated silo living its own life and no-one actually discuss with each other. On the worst cases, you even have some internal competition within these silos.

I've seen this even in small companies.

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#36

Post by TeMPOraL »

a3n wrote: post #5
balabaster wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am like this also... I wish I could just type into a search engine what I'm looking for and it comes up with "Hey, this thing is available at these local retailers for these prices, all within 5km of your house. Here are the returns policies for those places. Here are the caveats to their warranty programs. These places have free parking. Caution: Place X, Y or Z only takes cash. Here's a list of ATMs enroute." I r…

Agree with all. On the warranties: I think that the warranties are offered by someone else. The airlines do it that way for travel insurance. It's probably a no brainer for an executive meeting with a warranty rep to say "hell yeah, almost no cost to us, and lots of people are stupid enough to buy this." The retailer is paid to disrespect you.

Yes. Personally, I like to say: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is to separate it from good men with enough levels of abstraction".

Or as the great HN quote goes,

"Any sufficiently advanced business model is indistinguishable from a scam." -- dsirijus, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227941

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#37

Post by waspleg »

zellyn wrote: post #4

Heh. They're dead right about the difficulty of cutting through a million options. I feel lame every time, but I find myself just going to thesweethome.com or thewirecutter.com, and then buying whatever they tell me to :-/ Either online or locally, whichever is more convenient and/or cheaper.

tl;dr - My best isn't necessarily your best. We're different people with (likely) different needs.

That seems pretty foreign to me. While I would definitely look at something like that (although I've never heard of either of those sites until now, thanks), it seems weird to me that people would assume what some website thinks is "best" is so accurate as to accept their recommendation without doing any research whatsoever and immediately going out to buy that.

Even when I was a kid and had a Consumer Reports subscription I never just bought whatever they said to buy I have always done my own research. It doesn't seem that difficult to me if you have at least a rough idea of what you're looking for in an item and can prioritize those things.

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#38

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Another thing to note is that the auto parts industry does a pretty good job leveraging tools like Amazon and eBay. Autozone, Advance, Summit etc. They have stores and websites but also use those platforms to sell stuff and the price is generally consistent with their websites and stores or reflects the cost of using the platform (e.g. buying stuff from Summit is usually slightly cheaper for the stuff they list on eBay and I assume this is a reflection of shipping discounts.

Obviously, a franchise can't really take advantage of additional platforms the way a chain can.

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#39

Post by waspleg »

kefka wrote: post #15

Sigh. I will buy online for most things. Things I don't: groceries, clothes. (Why: Our meat guy takes orders and we pay and pick up. Avg bill~$55. Grocery doesn't have automated picking -krogers-. Would use it if we could.) Now, why do I buy online? There's many reasons. 1. I'm price sensitive. I don't make that much, so my money must count. Doing X means not doing Y, even for small values of X. Online is just cheape…

I agree with all of this. For your sales people getting paid on commission they will, of course, flat out lie and try to up sell you things or combine those together to say they're out of something they have and try to sell you something more expensive because you look like you need it (I'm looking at you Fry's).

Re: Case study: Can retailers win back shoppers who browse then buy online?

#40

Post by TeMPOraL »

Qantourisc wrote: post #22

Sometimes I wonder why nobody opens a showroom that doesn't sell products, but only shows stuff. (At a fee of course.) But it might cost too much to finance all the products you wish/have to show. Manufactures can help and donate demo gear :)

It's called a trade show, and pretty much every type of product has some. I agree that there could be a room between them and shops, i.e. small-scale displays, but at this point why not just let one buy the stuff?
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