We recently blogged about showrooming – well this is an update on that blog. We recently attended an Ecommerce Expo where there was a seminar about Fighting Showrooming with Showrooming delivered by JustBought.it and Clarks.
There were some salient points raised in this seminar on how retailers can combat showrooming and below is a brief outline of them with some further comment from Cybertill after that.
Give customers free wi-fi – the psychology goes if you give customers something free of charge they are more open to in-store texts and promotions
A retail experience – make it fun in store. Give tablets to staff to show reviews and videos, demonstrate products & give staff autonomy to make decisions – such as discounting.
Offer the customer the service now – through fulfilment companies like Shutl, ByBox. Of course retailers need to have live stock levels for this!
Encourage customers to shout and share where they are via social media, such as Foursquare and Twitter.
Clarks also talked about how retail is now polarised between retail experience and convenience for time poor consumers
Clarks have rolled out different initiatives to combat showrooming including in store kiosks – these allow consumers to search for products, watch videos, read reviews. They have also developed apps and have foot gauges where children have their feet measured with interactive touchscreen tablets.
Although one could argue that Clarks can combat showrooming higher up the food chain, as they control the distribution of their products and therefore the channels and retail places they are available. They will also offer different SKUs to different channels.
All the above may sound great, but those with deeper pockets can do more than those without. These are tactics aren’t the Holy Grail or a perfect solution they are a starting point and hopefully motivation for retailers to start fighting back.
The conclusion to this blog is similar to JustBought.It’s – basically retailers need to start fighting showrooming now. The best way to learn is to implement ideas and refine them as you go along. The best way to learn to ride a bike is to sit on it and give it go, the same way is true in learning to combat showrooming. Start giving it a go and learn and refine as you go along.
