Multichannel Marketing in the Age of Showrooming and Webrooming

Multichannel marketing is more vital than ever before as consumer behavior evolves. A recent Bloomberg Businessweek article discussed the difficulty that traditional stores have in keeping up with minute-to-minute price changes from online competitors. Shoppers will be comparing prices online vs in-store, so retailers can't afford to neglect this competitive issue.

Nebraska Furniture Mart, for instance, replaced printed price tags with digital price displays so it can make a price change in all stores with one click. The retailer is known for beating competitors' prices, so digital pricing is a big help when shoppers apply showrooming and use smartphones to check prices while they browse the aisles in person. Carrefour and other chains use digital price tags as well, such as those provided by Pricer (sample shown above).

Multichannel Merchant magazine explains that webrooming is when a consumer researches a purchase online and then goes to a store to buy. This is an emerging trend shaping marketing. For instance, IKEA was successful in using Facebook ads to increase in-store traffic by attracting online browsers who then visited a local store.

Webrooming is increasingly popular among shoppers who don't want to pay for shipping, who want to touch/see a product before buying, and who want to be sure a product is in stock before going to the store.

2011: Another Cut-Price Christmas?

Halloween hasn't arrived yet and already retailers are positioning themselves with discounts and promotions to capture share of wallet well in advance of the holiday buying season. Penny-pinching purchasers do care about price, but how much influence will the following policies have on actual buying?

•  Toys 'R' Us is launching a new version of its customer loyalty program, featuring discounts and money-back after the season. The program has 24 million members and will doubtless attract millions more who will consolidate their purchases to achieve savings.
• Walmart has a price-match guarantee to reassure shoppers that they won't find a lower price anywhere from Nov. 1 to Dec. 25. If they do, Walmart will give them a gift card for the difference in price--bringing shoppers back into the store to spend again.
• Sears will beat a competing price by 10%, subject to the fine print of course.
• Bed, Bath & Beyond will match Amazon.com's prices, which is unusual because very few in-store retailers include online merchants in price match programs.

One thing is clear: Customers will need to be even better shoppers than usual to get the best deal.