Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of an article from the Retail Doctor's blog.
Throughout my career, I've heard merchants say, "They come into my store and get all the information and then go somewhere else to buy it." As a retail consultant, those responses used to infuriate me; it was like a loser's limp. I felt it was an excuse for them not doing better because they miraculously "knew" their customers were at a competitor's.
I always answered, "How do you know that?" They didn't.
That's all changed in the last few years.
Consider this story from a business owner who prides herself on custom fit swimwear for women. "We wait on women hand and foot with a process that takes no less than an hour most times and sometimes up to 2.5 hours to find just the right suit. Then occasionally there is the one customer who comes out with two or three suits and says, 'Okay, I like these but I need to see if I can find them online for cheaper' and proceeds to write down all the numbers from the tags."
Recently, it's become more immediate.
A sales associate said that when she waits on customers at the fitting rooms, especially young women, at a certain point when everything fits, the dressing room goes silent. That's because they are scanning with their smartphones to see if they can find a cheaper price online.
How did she know? They told her.
It's not just clothing. How about any time a customer needs to make serious choices and the retailer has invested a lot of time to learn the products' intimate details? It could be custom bedding to custom flooring. It could be fine wine to fine china.
Contractors got tired of having people "ask for a bid" only to see their detailed list of materials and time given to some other competitor who low-balls them out of the job. That's why many require a non-refundable fee to get a bid. Travel agents had to start charging for their services. What if a retailer charged a browsing fee or consulting fee in shops where extensive product knowledge is required? Or how about a non-refundable personal shopper fee with a credit towards future purchase?
The challenge many retailers in an always-on mobile world face is that there is always someone ready to undercut them. And not just down the road but across the country.