Reverse Showrooming
“Showrooming” occurs when someone browses a brick and mortar “showroom” store for a product (such as a book or electronics), but then buys it online (where it can often be cheaper, without any sales tax). “Reverse showrooming” occurs when someone looks for the product on the Internet, and then goes to a brick and mortar store, where the product can be received immediately.
“Reverse showrooming” was cited on Twitter on December 14, 2011.
Twitter
Peter Joseph
@peterajoseph
Ha! RT @magiciansbook Reverse showrooming: Download the sample chapter from the Kindle store, but buy the ebook from your local indie.
4:34 AM - 14 Dec 11
Salon
WEDNESDAY, JAN 11, 2012 10:45 AM PST
Resolved: Kick the Amazon habit in 2012
Yes, you CAN buy e-books and support your local indie bookstore
BY LAURA MILLER
(...)
Booksellers have been complaining about “showrooming” — the practice of using a bookstore to browse and learn about new titles while buying the actual books online — for a while now.
(...)
I call this practice “reverse showrooming,” and recommend it to e-book aficionados who want to break their Amazon habit. Unfortunately, not all indie booksellers participate in the Google e-books program, and those who do aren’t always adept at highlighting the option.
Forumopolis
Ewathi
2012-06-19, 1:49 AM
Stores around here seem to price according to Star City Games. It lets Star City pay for and handle up to the minute price updates so you don’t need to database that stuff yourself or try and get a sample of ebay prices. Plus if you’re the exact same price as Star City your customers won’t want to wait/pay shipping for any cards that your store has right there.
Honestly it’s one of the only examples I can think of reverse showrooming. Let the internet guys do the heavy lifting and have your customers browse on their website to buy in your brick and mortar.
MediaPost—The Third Screen
Retail Ready For Reverse Showrooming?
by Chuck Martin, Jun 20, 2012, 11:09 AM
Many retailers have become all too familiar with showrooming, as mobile consumers shop their aisles and then order online or from lower-priced competitors discovered via mobile.
The obvious response to this is for retailers to attempt to interact with consumers as they scan and shop, whether through technologies like geo-fences or plain human observation by sales associates. That would be counter-showrooming.
Forbes.com
5/08/2013 @ 2:37PM
Reverse Showrooming: Best Buy, Amazon And The Internet Sales Tax
By Janet Novack
My four year old Sony laptop died last month. Okay, I killed it, but it was only criminally negligent homicide—the zipper on the old backpack I’d inherited from one of my kids pulled open and my laptop went crashing onto a hard floor.
So last Friday, I started shopping for a new one. In the process, I relied heavily on “reverse showrooming”—a phenomenon that gets little attention even as the media is filled with bricks and mortar retailers’ complaints about Internet sellers’ edge when they don’t collect sales taxes. (That edge would be largely eliminated by the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, a bill which would enable states to require retailers who do more than $1 million a year in online sales to collect their sales taxes. It passed the Senate Monday night but faces an uncertain future in the House.)
Business Insider
Pinterest Drives ‘Reverse Showrooming’ Phenomenon, Where Shoppers Browse Online But Buy In-Store
Tony Danova SEP 19, 2013 11:30 PM
Pinterest, and specifically the act of “pinning,” is driving people into stores and influencing purchase decisions.
Recent data distributed by Vision Critical and highlighted in the Harvard Business Review found that 21% of Pinterest users had bought an item in a store after pinning, repinning, or liking the item on the site.
Vision Critical describes this as part of a wider phenomenon it calls “reverse showrooming,” in which consumers search or browse products online and then enter the physical shop to make a final purchase.