Best Buy Says It Has Killed 'Showrooming' For Good

[Spike89]

145. More complicated than that

I'm no fan of big box stores, but this isn't really about them specifically--the issues also affect Mom and Pop's and virtually every area of retail. You have two things going on here--people like to physically shop (showrooming) and the Internet enables extreme price comparisons. For a retailer, it does cost money to have a brick-and-mortor presence. Amazon (for example) has incredibly low overhead because they don't have physical stores.

You want the lowest price, but you also want the most expensive retail model (physical store) to deliver it? It just can't happen. It isn't about ripping off Grandma, it is how physical retailing simply can't compete on price with virtual retailing. It is virtually the same argument as the big box stores vs. the Mom and Pop's...the big retailers can use economy of scale to lower their costs and independant stores simply can not compete on price.

For some industries/segments this can be offset by making the product(s) difficult to compare, i.e., (you really can't compare a loaf of bread made at a craft bakery to a loaf of Oroweat in a Safeway). For others, say electronics, it is virtually impossible to distinguish your inventory from any other source (an iPad is an iPad once you get past scammers, counterfeits, etc.)

As long as people want to actually touch things before buying them, we'll have physical stores. Those stores will never be able to compete strictly on price with virtual stores.