Brian L. Frank for The Wall Street Journal
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Tri Tang, a 25-year-old marketer, walked into a Best Buy Co. store in Sunnyvale, Calif., this past weekend and spotted the perfect gift for his girlfriend.
Last year, he might have just dropped the $184.85 Garmin global positioning system into his cart. This time, he took out his Android phone and typed the model number into an app that instantly compared the Best Buy price to those of other retailers. He found that he could get the same item on Amazon.com Inc.’s website for only $106.75, no shipping, no tax.
Mr. Tang bought the Garmin from Amazon right on the spot.
Mr. Tang’s smartphone reckoning represents a revolution in retailing—what Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Chief Executive Mike Duke has dubbed a “new era of price transparency”—and its arrival is threatening to upend the business models of the biggest store chains in America.
I find lower prices on line all the time.
Best Buy isn’t.
I was in Best Buy 4-5 years ago with my new digital camera taking pictures of everything just for grins. The Store Manager told me to stop. So did Costco if I remember correctly. I assume some sort of “trade secrets” where not wanted documented.
With the ubiquitous phone camera’s and coming personal computer/video in the frames of your look behind/document your life glasses, competition on price/honesty in prices will certainly increase.
THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. Think of a snow ball starting to roll at the top of a very long snow covered hill. It will get larger over time and no one knows where it will go. Fascinating to watch.
Let’s roll another one. Speaking of cell phones, just saw that motorcycle rider that got arrested for cell phoning the cop that arrested him cover here some months ago: that case was thrown out by the judge. Commentary was interesting: citizens are charged with knowing the law but cops and District Attorneys can violate it at will. Makes me want to go film a cop. I’m that bored.
http://dvorak.org/blog/2010/07/17/videotape-a-maryland-cop-go-to-jail-new-law-proposed-to-end-problem/#comments
The “only” weapon against an over reaching government is video tape. Not guns. Film.
Do it in Maryland Bobbo, that should keep you busy for awhile.
Pirate–ha, ha. Yes. I do have friends who still think protesting is effective. I’d certainly do that before going to a Board Meeting waiving a gun==but all too likely all with the same end result?
Its a reality many cannot deal with: things not being the way they are supposed to be. Makes some people crazy.
I could go out with a video camera in my hand==but first I have to organize my video collection and that could take years.
Seems to me the last “high tech” glasses I saw were all about a wireless internet connection and some clothes mounted buttons that allowed various functions all triggers when the glasses mounted video camera (streaming to your home website for permanent recording) recognized a bar code? Its off the shelf right now, at least at Stanford?
Would that be a biotic man/cyber man/or consumer man?
Hah, ha. It really is all a diversion.
I don’t read Newsweak, but it was the first google. Should be some video out there somewhere as well:
http://newsweek.com/2001/06/17/the-future-of-computers.html#
I’ve been using Shopkick for a few weeks and part of the process is to go into stores and scan the barcodes of promoted items to earn points towards rewards. I presume the benefit from a marketing point of view is it gets you into the store and gets you to actually handle the item being promoted.
Best Buy is one of the retailing partners for Shopkick but someone should tell the BB employees that. I was in the store scanning an HP printer barcode to earn points the other day and a sales associate ran up to me and asked me what I was doing. I tried to explain I was using Shopkick but this drew a blank stare. I even tried to show him the app and how BB is prominently featured but it still seemed he was skeptical. I eventually just walked away because it was becoming an uncomfortable situation.
I think that retailers are getting wise to those using their smartphones to compare prices. It even wouldn’t surprise me if some began covering the manufacturers barcodes with custom, retailer-specific stickers to thwart the practice.
Isn’t Tri Tang the opposite of Tri Tip?
For those that dont get the point..
1 corp makes product with 4 Different Company names.. SAME product, different NAME.
Also there is another neet TRICK.. A reseller can have a product made with a SPECIAL model number.. When you TRY to price match, it WONT MATCH..
ANOTHER Cheap trick, is the company that USES 4+ different names for the SAME product, MAY also CUT COSTS with 1 name over another. Insted of using the part that cost $10, they use the one for $8 THAT BREAKS, Quickly or a PART that cant be fixed, easily.
WE need to FORCE companies to compete.
WE need repairable PRODUCTS, and MODULAR.
WE need durable goods, NOT designed to FAIL from a $0.10 part. So, that we can KEEP OUR MONEY LONGER, insted of BUYING NEW every year.
I wonder how much more it costs to operate a retail store chain with associated infrastructure than to operate a web only store and warehouses, and how much that contributes to the price difference. It’s nice that you can get items cheaper online, but I do agree that it is pretty lame to use the in-store retail experience to find things to buy, and then turn to Amazon for the actual purchase.
Ha, Ha.
Sea Lawyer: A CHALLENGE:
Describe the “value” that you are promoting.
Extra Credit: discuss how that value fits into a competitive free market system.
Awww poor box stores first they ran all the small guys out of business, now the giant online warehouses are going to do the same to them.
#10,
Store fronts generally cost, 10 times as much.
Net stores, can be GIANT HANGERS/distribution center..
Storefronts can be 1 per 20 miles..
Distribution centers, can be <1 per 4 states..
The WHOLE of the problem, tends to be PASSING SAVINGS to the customer. It isnt happening.
Bobbo, what is your point? That you are shocked I would make a value judgment about consumers who take advantage of the hands on service that brick and mortar retailers offer, fully intending to then turn around and buy from somebody else who can always offer the lower price because they don’t have the overhead that providing the in store experience incurs?
Poor Old Sea Lawyer: answer the question. I’ll do it for you should you continue to evade by merely repeating it.
Lawyers at Sea should still be able to explain themselves/their ideas–or are you just pointless?
Look within yourself. What you were thinking of should be near the surface.
#10 – Not sure I follow your logic. If I go into a store and see an item for $200 that I saw online for $120, I should buy the $200 item because I went in that store? Unless of course you are impulsive…
I’m not opposed to telling them that their prices are high as giraffe’s pussy.
[I didn’t even know that giraffes liked cats… especially ones that smoke pot. – ed.]
And anonymous clowns who post on blogs trying to play stump the chump with each other is just as pointless.
>>I think that retailers are getting wise to those using their smartphones to compare prices. It even wouldn’t surprise me if some began covering the manufacturers barcodes with custom, retailer-specific stickers to thwart the practice.<<
No matter, the genie is out of the bottle and can't be put back in. If retailers put stickers on the barcodes, the apps will then scan the product through image recognition of the packaging itself. Just like snapfish is able to recognize a book by its cover. And if the retailers pressure the manufacturers to provide retailer-specific model numbers or imperceptively different products for each retailer, then the apps will respond with smarter and more complete databases that will know that "model X" printer at Best Buy is almost exactly the same as "model Y" printer at Walmart and "model Z" printer at Amazon.
The brick and mortar retailers have no choice but to find a way to compete with online retailers, or increasingly lose out on sales.
It's a whole new world.
On-line services, such as Amazon, are an area where America (or any western country) could actually dominate.
It won’t be long before manufacturers differentiate product skus between online and brick & mortar retailers. I know Costco has this to some extent already. But, I’m sure there will eventually be an app to find the comparable item number
Sea Lawyer–you surprise me. You go on line to chide every reader here as to your moral position but to a casual iconoclast like myself, the moral you are asserting appears to be so matter of chance rather than grounded in any real moral hierarchy, so rather than just assume you are as knee jerk as you post, I request you explain yourself.
Something any/all posters here should be wanting to do?
I certainly welcome and vanquish all challengers to my own vanity. I even learn from it. Whatsamaddayou Sea Lawyer? Too full of yourself?
Heh, heh. Stoopid Lawyers.
Thing is, by walking into a store and browsing, you are an expense to that store. It costs money for them to provide that possibility, and you reap the benefit of getting to see and handle the goods in real life.
If you then turn around and buy it online you are in essence a parasite.
Of course, there is no distinct place where one can draw the lines here. But walking around with a smart phone in a store looking for better deals is clearly over the line in my opinion.
The brick-mortar store provides at point of purchase:
— PROS —
1 – tactile interface with prospective product.
2 – human interface.
3 – possible return point for purchased product.
4 – instant reception of product
— CONS —
1 – Leaving the house to get there.
2 – Standing in line.
3 – human interface
The on-line store provides at point of purchase:
— PROS —
1 – More thorough discription of product
2 – intrinsic comparison capabilities. (You can easily compare their price with other on-line stores)
3 – no lines
4 – no shipping costs
5 – easy return policies
— CONS —
1 – No tactile interface with product.
2 – possible shipping charges
3 – possibility of fraud
4 – difficult return policies.
5 – time between ordering and receiving
EricD: A CHALLENGE:
Describe the “value” that you are promoting.
Extra Credit: discuss how that value fits into a competitive free market system.
You actually have already posted 70% of what YOUR value is making your extra credit task even more interesting. In that endeavor, Rider #12 gave you and Sea Lawyer a road map.
So silly you retail luddites. Sensitive about it too?
Ha, ha.
#16, Special Ed, did you not gain any value from being able to see the item in person at the retail store? Test out the features, make hands on comparisons with other models, etc.? If so, why then would you insist on still scraping the bottom of the barrel and buying from another place that didn’t offer you this additional service that probably assisted in your purchase choice, just to save a couple bucks? Maybe in the case of an $80 price difference as in your hypothetical, there isn’t $80 worth of value being offered by the retail experience. But that still doesn’t dissuade me from my more general criticism of the people who use brick and mortar retailers for the very service that lower price online retailers can’t provide, and yet will still go and make the purchase online as they fully intended to. But that’s just me having an opinion.
I miss independent hardware stores, bookstores, record stores, et al, a lot more than I will miss the big box stores that mowed them down.
Hey Sea Lawyer–would you support a law that outlawed mail order catalogues, or on line retailers–or made them charge the same as their retail competitors?
If so, your value statement is becoming clear. If not, you are a rather confused little boy.
Good thing I’m patient.
Libraries! They buy one book, and hundreds of people get to read it without buying it.
Bastards!
bobbo, throwing a casual opinion out is hardly what I would consider “chiding every reader here.” I do appreciate that you enjoy issuing challenges to everybody who posts here, but today I just don’t have the time to care.
Perhaps tomorrow when a more worthwile topic comes along? The plight of Best Buy really isn’t interesting to me other than it caused me to briefly make a judgement about an aspect of consumer behavior.
Ok Sea Lawyer: I caught you, now I’ll let you go. So sensitive are we. It is however the only gift I can offer you this Yuletide: an idea. You can unwrap it more fully later.
Ef-yall==what a coincidence. Books=words=ideas=google.
Google has amassed a “fossil book record” of 500 Million words. Our knowledge base/insights proceeds apace:
http://newscientist.com/article/dn19877-googles-fossil-record-digitises-5-million-books.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news