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Going to brick-and-mortar stores, but buying online
A shopper at a Lowe's home improvement store walks by a display of artificial Christmas trees San Francisco.
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Kai Ryssdal: I'm Kai Ryssdal, with an apology to the e-shoppers among you who might be listening. I took a swipe at online gift-giving the other day. Said there's not much effort or emotion involved in just clicking and gifting. But then the weekend's retail numbers came out. Foot traffic in stores was up, but the actual sales figures didn't quite match. At the same time, online purchases rose as much as 19 percent over a year ago. So, could that all mean shoppers did take the time and energy to go to stores and finger the actual merchandise, then go home to search out a cheaper price online?
Our senior business correspondent Bob Moon has been testing the theory.
Bob Moon: I didn't have to look far to find one of these cheapskates -- just a few steps, to the office of Betsy Streisand, one of our Marketplace editors. She wanted to buy some flat screens for her new home.
Betsy Streisand: I didn't want to buy a TV without actually looking at the TV, and seeing the picture. So I went to Best Buy.
Where she apologized to the salesman for spending a half hour of his busy Black Friday learning about flat screens.
Streisand: He even pulled the little cards they give you that describe the TV, that you use to pay for it, and he made me a copy of them. And I left, I drove home, plugged in the numbers from the paper he gave me and I bought three televisions from Amazon. I was really happy I saved money, but I feel bad about it.
Britt Beamer: The number of consumers over Black Friday weekend that said that they did this was about 6.3 percent.
Britt Beamer tracks consumer behavior at America's Research Group. He says in these tight times for retailers, even such a small but growing number of "see it in person, buy it online" shoppers could mean the difference between make-or-break sales.
So why didn't salesperson Jackie Martinez sound all that concerned when I got her on the phone at an L.A.-area Best Buy store?
Jackie Martinez: We're actually flattered that, you know, people come to Best Buy to get our information. You can't get everybody, right?
Martinez says you get what you pay for: Real stores offer more services, support and the quick return of a purchase if you're not happy.
Still, there are signs that brick-and-mortar retailers are taking note of the growing competition. Industry consultant Britt Beamer points to the bargain TVs Wal-Mart offered Black Friday. Through a deal with the manufacturer of one particular model was available nowhere else.
Beamer: So Wal-Mart could have an exclusive product that could not be shopped easily, unless you could find out everything about that TV set and compare it all to specs from TV to TV, and that's very difficult to do.
But the competition might not be as cagey as shoppers like our editor Betsy.
Streisand: Probably, the other things I buy at Best Buy -- and I do buy other things at Best Buy -- I'm probably paying for the time for that salesperson to educate me in televisions which I do not buy at Best Buy.
What do you think? Which buy is best?
I'm Bob Moon for Marketplace.
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We had been to Best Buy to look at the latest MacBook Air. The sales rep was more than happy to help us and was extremely knowledgeable (he was a biomedical engg graduate student from India). He spend 1/2 hr with us and said they were not paid commission but were given hourly pay so that they could give more quality service and concentrate less on servicing more and more people to get commission. We purchased the Mac from the store. There was no other way we could have bought it as the rep was so helpful and guided us and educated us. It was a wonderful experience. Thank you Best buy. Even Apple store reps are not this helpful.
Offline search is harder than offline. I live in NYC and we have local product search service http://goodzer.com here. Helps me tremendously. I don't know if they will expand their service on the whole US but so far NYC-only.
Continuing with the electronics and Best buy alagory, I live out in a rural area, about 45min from the nearest major shopping center and about 1.5 hours from a big city with lots of choices. My brick & mortar store choices are limited; Best buy and Walmart. So what do I do? I research which screens I might want. I order online useing my credit card, through Upromise, and pick up the product in the store. I don't get the cheapest price, I do get a good price. I get mileage on my credit card and savings from my kids college from Upromise. Not the best answer for some of you, but makes something of the situation.
Heaped upon the pile of defunct electronics stores (Circuit City, CompUSA, Federated Electronics, Computer City, etc.) one remembers the plan. Start with "rock bottom" prices and great selection. Then increase "service" to boost the bottom line. What everyone forgets, is that when the economy cycles down (like now) price trumps service. I believe it was the downfall of all. Fry's probably has it right. Good prices. No service.
It is hearting to see how many solid people believe that wasting ones's time to take advantage of a "deal" is wrong.
I run a full service vacuum cleaner and sewing machine store and it is astonishing how some people believe you should spend thousands of hours and dollars educating yourself to be of service so they can figure out what to buy on-line. They drive on the roads to get to my store, they bring their messy kids in here to trash the place and feel "why should they pay sales tax?"
These same people,if they were asked to work 10 minutes extra off the clock, would be outraged., but think it is dandy to waste a salespersons time so they can get educated to buy online. People thinks it is savy and smart to buy foreign goods on the net? , good, remember that when your company closes shop!
I work in an independent bookstore which is danger of closing because of this kind of behavior. People use us as a showroom for Amazon which has no showrooms of its own. They browse our shelves and then buy from Amazon. Unfortunately, no one compensates us for this - not Amazon, not the publishers nor the authors who all benefit from the existence of our "showroom". Once all the bricks-and-mortar bookstores go out of business, maybe Amazon will have to open (and pay for) showrooms of its own, and then their prices will go up to cover the additional costs. Or they could avoid this hassle and expense by asking each purchaser where if and where they saw the actual book and sending a finder's fee to that bricks-and-mortar store.
Come on, people, give me a break. Since when is it a crime to have three TV sets?
"More than Half the Homes in U.S. Have Three or More TVs" - Neilsen
blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/more-than-half-the-homes-in-us-have-three-or-more-tvs/
Betsy Streisand's attitude while appalling, is unfortunately not uncommon. She is a typical example of a significant segment of our population who is hungry to consume as much as possible (3 flat screen televisions for one house??) and pay as little as possible. As a result, we have seen much of our manufacturing industries move overseas and local stores unable to compete with big box stores. I'm not opposed to internet shopping, particularly if that's where the research is done. I, too, like to see some things in the flesh, but understand that I bear some responsibility in supporting that process--financially. Congratulations to Ms. Streisand for scoring a deal on the backs of minimum wage earners, BB stockholders, and CA taxpayers. She seems able to console herself with the knowledge of how much money she saved, a halfhearted apology and a giggle. God bless America.
I'm a local shop owner. In many ways, it is too bad that this story was focused on Best Buy - a big box. Best Buy has the resources to survive some percentage of looky-loo's. As a small retailer, our margin to support that behavior is *much* narrower.
I don’t think we should vilify Betsy, we’ve all done what she has done in one way or another. This issue really is that our nation is at an economic precipice. Do we want to shop locally or manufacture locally or not? It all means the same thing, our local friends and neighbors (and even ourselves) will have jobs and will be able to financially contribute to our families and communities.
According to the 3/50 Project, (http://www.the350project.net/home.html), for every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. That same $100 spent at a national chain, only $43 returns to the community and if you spend it online $0 comes back.
Bottom line, things will tend to cost more locally. Local retailers have to pay local market rents, local pay rates. Local retailers can’t gain the efficiencies of volume that big boxes and online retailers do. At the same time, big boxes and online retailers don’t give people the sense of community that walking into my retail shop gives my customers. Big box and online retailers can’t solve your “outside-the-box†shopping problems.
Clearly there are people that this isn’t feasible financially but for the vast majority of us, it is feasible. Consume less low-cost, low-value “crap†and spend your money where it counts, for you. For me, shopping as locally as possible as much as possible.
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