The price differences are usually not that great–many stores are now aggressively competing against online sales, especially commodities like consumer electronics. When I buy online, it’s for the convenience. If I need to see a product in a store before I buy, then it’s no longer more convenient to order online. I’m already there, the store has provided a service by showing me the product, and I can have it immediately. I don’t mind paying a little extra for that service.
Missing option: “Never, I don’t shop offline.”
I don’t buy everything online because it’s cheap, I buy everything online because it’s convenient. Actually going to a store would defeat the purpose.
As a professional shopper (I’m a buyer), I’m pretty much guaranteed to research anything I buy. I have gone to a store to check something and then bought it on line, but not often. More likely, I tend to shop at local places that honor online sales. For instance, JoAnn Fabric and Craft will honor all Amazon prices of things they carry in the store. You just pull up the ad on your phone and show it to the cashier.
On the other hand, the 28lb box of kitty litter is the same price from Amazon as it is from the grocery store. No shipping charges, so I order from Amazon whenever it’s not an urgent need. Save me the picking up, carrying to the car, and carrying to the front door. With arthritis, this is not a small consideration.
I usually do it the other way around. I will see it at a store and then do my research online. If the item is what I am looking for, and gets good reviews, I will buy it locally.
I did the previous-lifetime incarnation of this once. In 1980.
I remember it because I felt crappy about it.
(before there was ‘on line’ there was ‘wholesaler’ - you go into a tiny office with cash and make/model/color/size and place an order. You got a call when the item came in. Arranging transport was your job (they had business cards and would give you the number).
It was a mattress - still a nightmare to buy.
I also used a wholesaler for my ViewSonic 17" monitor. I didn’t showroom that - I browsed enough to decide on ViewSonic, and picked a model from the wholesaler’s catalog ($650 vs $700-$750 in stores).
If someone wants to waste a big box’s time and money, I am all for it - as you screw retailers, so shall you be screwed.
It’s rare that I will head to a non-grocery physical store for something specific that I intend to buy. If I need something right away, I’ll tend to research and purchase online and just accept the two days delay of Prime. Instead, what’s a more frequent occurrence is that I’ll be in the area of a retail store with an hour to kill and I’ll play around with various merchandise so that when I decide to pull the trigger much later, I know the exact model I want.
That being said, I’ve definitely stood inside of a retail bookstore and ordered the exact copy I was holding in my hands off of Amazon. While I felt slightly guilty doing so, there was no way I was going to pay MSRP for a book that was 40% off online.
I don’t do it with the intention of turning around and buying the item online. There are a couple of situations where I effectively do that, even though that’s not the intent.
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I’ll go to say… Wal-Mart and Target to check out their toasters. I find that I don’t like their in-stock models for whatever reason, so I’ll go buy a different toaster from Amazon based on the features available in the showroom models, and whether I liked or didn’t like those features. Like say… by fiddling with the display models, that I really don’t like a certain lever style, nor do I like any of the options at the stores. So I go buy one from Amazon that I like, with the lever style I like.
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I might go to Target and like the model present in the store, but go to Target.com and buy the same thing in a different color or size. Not quite “showrooming” per-se, as Target makes the money either way, but doesn’t do the local store sales any favors either.
I shop in a store planning to buy at a store.
I shop on-line (which is 99% of the time) to buy on-line.
Price isn’t a deciding factor for the few non-routine things I buy.
I try to support local businesses and will shop if they have some selection. But I’m tall and wear size 11 or 11.5 wide shoes (I’m a woman) and very few places stock clothes or shoes that fit. There is no local bookstore anymore, and big box retailers for things like electronics are just painful places to shop.
This for me too.
I’ll go into the store, but I’ll double-check my prices. No point in paying a significantly higher amount for something I can get cheaper online.
Voted “Other” because I never buy online unless it’s something impossible to find locally, and since I live in the Seattle/Tacoma area there isn’t much that qualifies. I’m the odd duck that actually enjoys the shopping experience, and when I do finally get to a decision I want the stuff now. I also “reverse showroom”; after all your average Target/Best Buy salesperson doesn’t know the details of their product anyway.