What Does Showrooming Mean?
Showrooming is when a shopper visits a store to check out a product but then purchases the product online from home. This occurs because, while many people still prefer seeing and touching the merchandise they buy, many items are available at lower prices through online vendors. As such, local stores essentially become showrooms for online shoppers.
Techopedia Explains Showrooming
Many large retail chains have failed to keep up with the pace of e-commerce and transition to online sales, which has led to a decrease in traditional brick-and-mortar locations, due to being increasingly captured by online operations with lower prices. Combine this with a new breed of mobile apps that allow users to automatically check prices, and you have a disaster in the making for chains that can’t compete, in terms of price. This is especially true with stores that sell home electronics. Some commentators joke about Best Buy becoming a showroom for Amazon.com.
