Same. If I’m using the sales person/floor, then I feel that as a a general rule, I should buy it from that store.
Online reviews and articles, when taken in aggregate, are generally sufficient to satisfy the kicking the tires urge. It at least gives you some idea of quality and value for money. There is one thing that I find frustrating: I’m quite picky about user interfaces, believing that no matter what the specifications or functionality a kludgy interface can completely ruin a product.
So there are times that I will want to test drive the user interface before buying. However, I have never once been able to do this in a retail store, because either they don’t have the product on, or the remote is missing, or the power supply to the aisle is tripped and nobody knows how to fix it, or a host of other reasons why there is no working demo model. The closest to a helpful response I’ve ever gotten was from Fry’s, which went something along the lines “come back in a week or so, maybe it’ll be fixed then”.
I only purchased our smart TV once I had seen it in action at a friend’s house. Of course at that point I had no reason to step into a retail store to purchase it, so Amazon got the business.
In theory retail stores serve a purpose making it worth supporting them. In practice, not so much.
I agree with this. I like having local stores around so that I can get things quickly when I need them and get that one-on-one service. If I “showroomed” and then bought online, I would be contributing to the destruction of the stores I like.
The local store pays rent, buys inventory, and contributes to the community I live in. Wasting their time so that I can buy the product online would be a real douchebag move.
This is the exact opposite of showrooming.
So is this. You and tomcar are supporting your local stores, not showrooming them and buying online.
I’ll look for clothes in person, then find that they don’t have the size/length/color combo I want (I wear petite-length pants and wide-width shoes) and go home and shop online. The same store, of course - but usually this time with a coupon!
If I go to a Best Buy, I’m there to drop my money in person.
Yes. That or I use it to buy big ticket items I don’t want shipped for security purposes. I bought my TV at Frys because I didn’t want to buy one online and have it shipped, I didn’t want to have it delivered when I was at work and having it sitting in the hallway for 6 hours until I got home.
I have reached the point where I expect online prices to be lower, which I have found out is not the case more often than I would expect. I’m finding B&M stores are sometimes cheaper more often than I would expect.
Wesley, either I don’t understand your response or you don’t understand what showrooming is (browsing products in a brick and mortar store with the intent of buying them online from someone else).
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:23, topic:650739”]
I agree with this. I like having local stores around so that I can get things quickly when I need them and get that one-on-one service. If I “showroomed” and then bought online, I would be contributing to the destruction of the stores I like.
The local store pays rent, buys inventory, and contributes to the community I live in. Wasting their time so that I can buy the product online would be a real douchebag move.
This is the exact opposite of showrooming.
So is this. You and tomcar are supporting your local stores, not showrooming them and buying online.
[/QUOTE]
That wasn’t supposed to be. It was however an excellent example of price matching. I do usually showroom. This was a time when I didn’t need to.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:26, topic:650739”]
Wesley, either I don’t understand your response or you don’t understand what showrooming is (browsing products in a brick and mortar store with the intent of buying them online from someone else).
[/QUOTE]
I said ‘yes’. I go to B&M stores to view products to determine if I want to buy them online, assuming they are cheaper and I don’t mind them sitting in the hallway for hours after UPS delivers them.
Absolutely! I can’t imagine buying a laptop that I haven’t typed on. Same thing with cameras. If my hands are going to be touching it constantly, I need to be comfortable with how it feels.
I used to work for a small electronics chain, and I pretty much predicted their death in the early nineties. At the time, I thought the electronics brands would increase “co-op” money to compensate the retailers for losses to on-line sales, and eventually move to an entirely direct shipment model, that the physical retailers would survive as showrooms. But it turned out that enough people are OK buying things they have never touched, and the retailers died. I underestimated just how aggressive Amazon would prove.
I wish there were still stores like the one I used to work for, where I could see a whole bunch of cameras, or TVs or speakers all hooked up and functioning. As far as I know, the only remaining live display in this area is Nebraska Furniture Mart, which is a trek to visit.
I’m glad BB is instituting this. It won’t work across the board, as mentioned upthread, because large retailers have items like televisions made with slightly different product numbers to prevent just this sort of thing. However, it will work with some things. For example, I needed a new gaming mouse over the holidays. I’m usually very particular about mice, and really prefer to try them before I buy, as the shape, height and feel are important. Since it was nearing the holiday season though, and there was so much else to do,I just bought one online and hoped for the best. It’s OK, not great but OK. Now that BB is matching prices, next time I’ll look up got prices for a few models I am interested in so I can go in, try them, and walk out with what I want. If I could walk out with a price near what I’d pay online+shipping, it makes the trip more worthwhile, and I won’t just use them as a ‘showroom’.
That’s my interest as well; even at B&M retailers like say…Lowe’s or Home Depot, they have more models available online than in the stores.
What I will do, however, is if there’s a feature that I’m not familiar with or a configuration that is novel, I’ll go and check it out in person. Not necessarily showrooming any particular model, but seeing a feature or configuration in person.
For example, my wife and I recently got a new range, and neither of us was familiar with 5 burner ranges, so we went to Home Depot and checked them out, so we had an idea of the layouts and how a 5 burner range might work.
Or, back when I got a TV, I went to Best Buy and looked at LCD vs. Plasma screens to see which broad category I preferred.
In neither case did I actually make my purchasing decision between models in the store, and then go somewhere else online and buy the same thing cheaper, but I did take advantage of the showroom to narrow my search, and then gave equal consideration to the store when buying. Generally speaking, if I have narrowed it down to a particular model, I’ll usually either buy it in-store, or order online and either have the local store deliver it or pick it up from them.
I ended up ordering my TV online, and picking it up at the local Best Buy, because I didn’t like the idea of a big delivery truck showing up and a plasma TV box coming out right there in front of the house.
Ditto, for the most part. However, I often leave with my money still on my person, having not found what I was looking for or being so shell-shocked by BB’s price that I wandered away in a fugue state.
A good industry to look at for this issue is hunting and archery/firearms.
A high end hunting bow will be $850 in a local store, but $550 online. You pay the extra $300 for the expertise and help setting it up. There’s a lot of hostility if you walk in to a store with a new bow and want help getting it tuned.
I get that the local store needs to make money, and I am fine with paying a premium for it. But there is a limit to my largess.
I recently needed arrows for my new bow. I talked to the owner of the small store for a half hour about different kinds and the pluses and minuses of metal jacketed shafts and illuminated nocks. When I had determined which brand, I made sure it was a common one that is available everywhere and easy to find online. I bought six arrows for $85, which is a lot. I already found the same arrows online and can have them cut to length, fletched and shipped to me for about half that. I’ll probably buy another dozen online.
If the retailer had a more reasonable price, I would have just bought them all from him.
Spoiler alert for the walking dead:
In a prequel yet to air, it will be revealed that this is how the zombie apocalypse began.
On my last Amazon.com purchase, I was charged sales tax.
It’s coming for nearly all states. Everyone’s recognized that a huge amount of the retail economy has moved to online purchasing, and a level playing field for buyers and sellers alike is a positive step.
If you’re not going to abolish sales tax, make it apply to all purchases.
I buy a ton of stuff online, mostly for the convenience. But if it’s stuff I feel I need to handle in order to make my decision, I’ll go to a local retailer and buy the item there. I’m not going to cheat the brick and mortar place of a sale after using their salesmen and facilities to aid in my decision-making.
And it seems to me that a lot of brick and mortar places are setting up online sales capabilities, which means I can get the best of both worlds. Heck, two of the biggest online camera dealers - B&H and Adorama - run brick and mortar stores in New York City. Now my local camera store, Rockbrook, has online ordering, too. So I can order conveniently online while still supporting the local guys, or I turn to one of the two big chains if the local store doesn’t stock what I need (like Panasonic m4/3s lenses, which Rockbrook doesn’t stock). What’s not to like?
It can’t come fast enough for me! My state recently passed a law requiring residents to report the dollar amount of online purchases made over the course of the year for tax purposes, and it is a pain in the neck to have to look over a year’s worth of credit card statements to find and add up all those online purchases. I’d much rather just pay the sales tax at the time of sale. I buy online for convenience and increased selection, not to avoid paying tax, and I suspect in that regard I’m typical.
online reviews at online vendors are highly suspect. people write bad reviews for fun or profit or because they didn’t know what they were buying.
i find trying an item in a store to be of great benefit. a store that has knowledgeable or good product displays is worth patronizing. i’ve spent good amounts of time with electronics/computers to see if i liked them at a deep user level.
I think most states have always required buyers to report purchases that may have been exempt from sales tax but were subject to its kin use tax. Businesses in particular that buy goods, equipment and supplies from out of state are supposed to report all such and pay the appropriate tax. I think it’s been very lax on general consumers because until the last decade, “mail order” and such was a very small fraction of the retail economy.
Collecting all taxes due mean the rates can stay reasonable. If we make a Greece-like move and only a portion of taxes are collected, the rates get stratospheric and it becomes a really nasty cycle. I think most people would be okay with a 5% or so sales tax if that raised enough revenue, but if half the retail economy is exempt, it has to rise to 6, 7, 8% or more, making it unfair.