Showrooming - Best Defense Is A Good Offense

 

Last Act Of The Truly Desperate

Scooping an article from Forbes about how Best Buy's latest showrooming defense was scary off legitimate customers I had to weigh in.

Forbes Best Buy Showrooming Defense Scares Customers Post

Recent WSJ Article on Can Retailer Halt Showrooming 

 

Here is what I just wrote on Curation Revolution on Scoop.it

***** Best Buy's Last Act of the Truly Desperate
The best way to defend against showrooming is to embrace it, build it into your campaigns and be creative with rewards. People aren't all that complex when it comes to buying things, though we are predictably irrational. We go where the incentives are best. Best Buy would be better served to think about how to engage, reward and create community around showroomig instead of "defending" against it as if it could be stopped without damage or consequence.

Nothing in the digital revolution has to destroy anyone or anything. I love the alarmist "a practice that threatens to destroy big box retailers", but Forbes has to sell views like anyone else. Ecosystems (i.e. companies) that flourish in these digital times are creative, adaptable and fail fast. I've yet to meet the company who has defended themselves to greatness. Defense is for suckers. Creation is where the juice lives, where the gold can be found.

My favorite goofystupid move is Target removing Kindle's because people were shopping them in store and buying them from Amazon. Shame on you Target. Gut up and match Amazon's price and do something Amazon can't such as give me 10% off my groceries when I buy a Kindle or create a community of Target Buzz Teamers who insure you have the lowest prices as you profess is your desire. Problem is we both know your "Price Match" is gutless and soulless. Amazon may be a brand vampire but at least they have the courage of their convictions even if those convictions are to suck the life out of any hot brand as fast as humanly possible (lol).

I hope this latest goofystupid move doesn't mean the end of Best Buy since it is nice having a showroom to view all of those electronics in, but, if it does, some wiser startup will take its place, a startup capable of holding two opposing ideas in their head a little better than Best Buy can (at the moment). Come on BB don't become a Zombie, snap out of it and get creative.
Marty