Showrooming describes the scenario where a consumer visits a physical store when shopping for a product, before checking to see if they can get a better price online. In the lead-up to Christmas, design agency Foolproof conducted a new study which revealed the true impact of showrooming on the UK high street.

It found that around a quarter of all UK shoppers used their mobile in-store to compare prices and, worryingly for retailers, 40% of those showroomers (amounting to one in 10 of all shoppers) then continued to buy the product elsewhere.

With over £5bn estimated to have been spent on the UK high street over the final weekend before Christmas, showrooming activities would have meant £500m worth of sales were switched between retailers that weekend alone.

 

So what can retailers do?

The more progressive retailers are already embracing the new behaviour. This may mean simply enabling it to happen. Asda offers free Wi-Fi in store and is encouraging shoppers to use its Price Guarantee tool, confident that it will win on price.

 

But where price isn't the sole reason to buy, retailers should invest in the overall shopping experience to encourage in-store purchases. Burberry's London flagship store features a digitally-integrated showroom, where certain articles of clothing carry RFID chips that interact with store mirrors to display product information and complementing items for purchase.

 

Adidas has created a high-tech virtual shopping wall, displaying the brand's full range and offering the chance to personalise their purchase receive next-day delivery. The new technology not only provides a richer shopping experience, it allows the store to carry less stock and make savings
in logistics.

 

Making the shopping experience frictionless

Today shoppers expect more from their shopping experience. Long queues at the tills and getting bulky purchases back to the car are the pain points of shopping. Offering mobile checkouts and specific, convenient delivery slots for store purchases makes home delivery far more appealing. Apple arms its staff with iPads to help customers check out from anywhere within the store. Click and collect services allow shoppers to buy items in-store using a mobile app and stored payment details.

 

Although this required investment in new technology, more efficient and cheaper stock distribution solutions and the benefits of a slicker customer experience can out-weigh that cost.

 

Showrooming is here to stay, and set to grow. Foolproof's research showed that younger (aged 18-39), more smartphone-savvy shoppers are more than twice as likely to showroom as the over-40s. The high street needs to work out how to embrace this change and turn it to their advantage by playing up the strengths of having a physical store and removing their weaknesses.

 

By Peter Ballard, managing partner, Foolproof