Because those two B&M stores are offering the same service. Neither one is relying on the other. If you “showroom” one you could have just as easily showroomed the other.
In the case of online purchases, the online guy is cheaper because he’s not providing a showroom. You’re taking advantage of the guy who does.
I see this as a moral/ethical issue. What you’re saying is that no one can force you to be moral or ethical. I agree.
I agree. I’m talking about when you seek out the salesguy for the purpose of getting his advice.
For me, the decision is based on whether I want the item NOW or can wait a couple days for it to be shipped to me. But I’m not hugely price-conscious so if I happen to see what I like in the store, I’ll just buy it right there and take it home.
Speaking with my online retail shop owner hat on, the idea of price matching makes me shiver in fear. I’ve never offered it and this is why: Last year I was selling some larger items (rabbit hutches) on a drop-ship basis through a distributor. A few months ago I was price-checking on Amazon to keep an eye on my competition and noticed that the manufacturer of those items was selling them on Amazon for less than wholesale.
Thanks for undercutting your entire distribution network, asshole. I complained to the distributor who hand-waved it away as stolen merchandise and then I removed the items from my shop. There are shady actors everywhere, I guess.
What’s with everyone sanctifying small businesses these days? Do good people not work at Amazon and Walmart, too? Do cutthroat assholes never open brick and mortar stores? They’re doing what’s best for them, I’m doing what’s best for me. If your prices are high, don’t be surprised when you lose business to competitors. If it suited their bottom line, they’d sell your sister to the highest bidder, so why the hell do you owe them some sort of chivalrous overpayment?
Stores suck. I hope every one of them dies a quick death. Robotic online drone delivery can’t replace them soon enough.
Please note I’ve been saying “local business”, not “small business”. Your local Wal-Mart is also a local business, albeit one owned by a large, continent-spanning company.
Of course good people work at Amazon and Walmart. They have their niche. Yay Amazon, I’m a fan (Wal-Mart not so much). I believe local business also has a niche.
Of course they do - I had to sue one to get several months’ worth of wages a few years ago. And some on-line markets are scams.
You don’t - but there’s more than just who has the cheapest price on a material object. Sometimes, people want service as well as an object. Sometimes they want to see/touch/smell/hear something before they actually buy it.
So… you don’t mind millions of people currently employed in the retail industry to be unemployed? You don’t think that might have consequences for your local area?
I mean, I’m glad we now have an alternative to brick-and-mortar for someone such as yourself, but eliminating such a large job category is going to have serious repercussions for society at large.
And some of us just like to get out of the house occasionally.
My two hobbies are rubber stamping and dressage (a version of English horseback riding). The local stamp stores closed before online buying got popular, and there isn’t enough interested in dressage in these parts to keep a brick and mortar store open. Heck, there are only 2 English tack stores in a 50 miles radius (non-discipline specific). So yes, I buy my hobby gear online. I would be happy to go to a real store.
If I want something and see it in a store, I buy it. I don’t showroom. If I want something but can’t be bothered to go to the store, I find it online. Last week I decided I needed an Under Armour shirt but didn’t want to battle Dick’s Sporting Goods. Ordered it from Amazon.
But to paraphrase my opinion from my thread. If I take up a salesperson’s time and they’re on commission, I’ll buy it in the store. If I just went into the store to pick it up and get a feel for how it’s made but I can get it 20% cheaper from Amazon I’ll give them the opportunity to price match before I buy online.
If you feel that way, you’re free to stay home and buy everything online. However, I find that I need to see, feel and evaluate some goods before I buy them. (For example, you may not care, but I prefer to select my fruit and vegetables myself, rather than relying on some clerk in a giant warehouse to do so for me.) And checking out the goods in the B&M store but buying them online is exactly what we’re talking about here.
And how do you imagine “robotic online drone delivery” is going to work if everyone uses it for everything they buy? I’m trying to picture the traffic jam of drones above even a small city if that becomes the go-to method of delivery.
This is too flippant. Obviously it’s a competitive dog-eat-dog business world. High prices don’t come about just because some shop owners are greedy, nor do the shops offering rock bottom prices do that just because they’re wonderful. Typically smaller businesses have to charge higher prices because THEY are paying higher prices for their raw materials or inventory. Places like Amazon and Walmart get rock bottom prices because they get volume discounts from their suppliers. It’s impossible for a Walmart-sized company to spring forth into being like Athena from Zeus’ head. They all start small, charging high prices. So if you don’t support the small guys, charging higher prices, ultimately we’ll end up with a commercial monopoly instead of a robust economy.
I’m picturing something like the traffic jam of cars in and around a parking lot. Except, it’s three-dimensional, so not nearly as jammed. And also not involving me playing “parking-slot chicken” in my 4-wheel tin can. So, yeah, superior in every respect. :rolleyes:
Once in a great while I will browse a store to check something out I am planning on buying online. A thing that has happened more than once is that I found what I wanted for a good price and bought it right then.
Am I screwing over Amazon (or whatever) by doing this?
Or I might go to one store, see what they have. Go to a second store and see they have a better deal and buy it there.
Am I screwing over the first store by doing this?
Does it matter if the second place is brick-and-mortar or online?
Service is something businesses can compete on. If you give it away free, don’t be surprised if that is a losing decision. Of course, there are plenty of successful businesses who give away certain services. Depends on the service and the business if that is the right choice. The way people in this thread speak about it though, it sounds like it is a bad idea for most retail businesses.
As far as seeing, touching, and smelling the merchandise? That’s a service too. If it weren’t for the local shops showing off the goods, I expect the Amazons of the world would need a few storefronts to serve the same purpose. Right now brick and mortar stores are basically giving this service away to Amazon for free. That’s their business decision, not mine.
The fact is, if you want to stay in business in retail in this world, you make your money online. A storefront/showroom is mostly a loss leader to encourage online sales. Anyone who doesn’t know this by now is not a good business owner and would have failed one way or the other anyway.
This is the broken windows fallacy. No, keeping an inferior system in place for the sole purpose of providing busy work to the otherwise unemployed is not a winning move for anyone.
I like to get out of the house, too. That’s what parks are for.
There actually are businesses where it is impractical or unsatisfactory to depend on the online variant.
One example is garden centers/nurseries. It’s a distinctly inferior experience (not to mention quality issues) to order online a kind of plant you’ve never grown, compared to checking it out for yourself at the nursery and being able to ask those working there about it if need be. And if I run out of seeds or peat moss I want them now, not to wait days for delivery (or pay a premium for rush delivery).
And there’s something to be said for instant gratification with many other types of goods.
Admittedly I did the vast majority of my Xmas shopping online (couldn’t face the crowds, dismal weather and parking hassles) and just ordered freaking socks from an Amazon seller because my idea of fun is not clothes shopping in any form. I regret seeing Macy’s outlets closing though.
I don’t get the hostility towards retail outlets, and am not looking forward to the future under my Drone Overlords.
You and me both. I have literally no place to burn time, now that the book stores and record shops are gone. I used to love to go out, browsing and shopping at knick knack places and playing at video arcades. All gone now. About all that’s left are clothing stores and perfume shops at the mall. That’s no fun.
Crap, there’s no where to go and just hang anymore, except for Starbucks. That gets old after awhile. :(:(
I buy plenty of stuff online too, but I think you’re underestimating the importance and scale of in-store sales. According to this PDF document from the Census Bureau, ecommerce sales are less than ten percent of all sales.
You succinctly captured the essence of what has changed in the mall. When I was younger, my wife and I would often go to the mall and split up—she would go clothing and shoe shopping while I would browse book stores, record stores, the tool section of Sears, and possibly slip into the arcade. All of that is gone.
I now realize why we go there so rarely anymore—all of the good stuff is gone and we are left with meh. We went for the first time in months on Wednesday night to pick up a couple of phone cases at the Apple store (one cool place to visit). In and out. That was it.
…or maybe it’s because we aren’t as young as we once were…I try not to think about it that way.
Anything that I need to try on, or need help getting fitted, or need to seek guidance from a salesperson I will buy from that store. Or I’ll order it online from that store if they don’t have the size/color I need in stock. I order a lot of stuff online but I look for opportunities to buy local. Any slight added cost doesn’t really concern me.
