Exploring Showrooming Experiences at Small Retailers

The term “showrooming” refers to a situation in which an individual consumes the services of a full-service retailer and then uses the knowledge and services gained from that retailer to make a purchase from a limited-service retailer, which often boasts lower prices (Singley and Williams 1995). The phenomenon of showrooming is increasingly becoming a problem for brick-and-mortar retailers as consumers are using traditional retailers as “showrooms” for products, gathering information about products at a retailer, and then ultimately purchasing the item from an online retailer at a discounted price. This behavior is not new; however, the ease of comparing prices and ordering products online from home or via mobile technology has caused a sharp increase in showrooming recently, with as many as 50 % of online shoppers stating that they first viewed products in a brick-and-mortar retailer before making their online purchase (Zimmerman 2012).