Showrooming

DarenD

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Feel really bad as I committed 'showrooming' today.

Had a problem with my caravan locks so went to a local dealer who sold me a bag of 8 locks for £40 (only need 4) Went home and found a bag of 4 online for £23 so took the other bag back and ordered online.

The thing is if it wasn't for the dealer I wouldn't have know what locks to get in the first place. The flipside is I didn't need 8 and if the dealer did the smaller bag I would have got that.

But £17 saving aint to be sniffed at. Still feel bad though lol
 
But on the downside, you actually ended up paying £5.75 per lock rather than £5 and still have more than you actually need!
 
Perhaps you could have sold the extra 4 for £23 online?
 
At least you feel bad about it. There are people who have no qualms show rooming, spending hours demoing systems with the full intention of ordering elsewhere.
 
I've done that with shoes before...try them on for size then get them online... but haven't done that for a couple of years...
 
As this is an AV forum it's a pet hate of mine when people go to a dealer for a demo, then go home and order it online. Maybe saving £200 on a £2500 projector (which IMHO is a luxury anyway which you can either afford or you can't). Worse still if they buy a grey import and then are taken aback to find that they don't have a UK warranty.

However, if more caravan dealers go out of business then perhaps there will be fewer caravans on the road in future, so well done OP. ;):devil:
 
People used to shop around between shops when there was such a thing as competition. I go in Waitrose/M&S/Sainsburys and chose the best value from each (they are all close together). Who is feeling sorry for those?
 
Presumably you don't take a bite out of it/take it out of the packet in one store and then buy a fresh one in the next store when you do that?
 
As this is an AV forum it's a pet hate of mine when people go to a dealer for a demo, then go home and order it online. Maybe saving £200 on a £2500 projector (which IMHO is a luxury anyway which you can either afford or you can't).

Well sell it for £200 less then. You either can afford to or you can't.

Ignoring fixed costs, what has a demo actually cost you? You seem quite happy to charge someone £200 for it.

Just another perspective. (sorry if you are not in the business - I wasn't sure).
 
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how much did you spend in petrol / time / parking fee's going back and forth to the shop?

sometimes I look at things ive bought in a retail store, and then worked out I could have got it cheaper online - but the extra costs of my time and petrol money meant it wasn't worth returning it!
 
Well sell it for £200 less then. You either can afford to or you can't.

Ignoring fixed costs, what has a demo actually cost you? You seem quite happy to charge someone £200 for it.

Just another perspective. (sorry if you are not in the business - I wasn't sure).

No, I'm not in the business,I'm a Service Engineer so no connection to selling AV gear myself. The £200 was plucked from thin air; I've seen people quibbling over much less. If it's a bricks and mortar store then I accept that they have higher overheads than an online one. IMHO it's not realistic to expect them to be able to sell at the same price, so they have to offer something worth paying the extra for and (in the case of a good specialist dealer I think they do earn that extra, see below). Of course the online one doesn't let you have a demo first, but that's just how it is. It just seems wrong to me to go to a shop and take up their time demoing to you for possibly a number of hours knowing full well that you aren't going to buy from them.

FWIW about 4 years ago I had a home demo of 2 projectors against the one I had: I wasn't sure if it was worth the expense of upgrading since my room isn't perfect. The guy came over and spent maybe 4 hours doing a demo and I was convinced that it was worth the upgrade, though there were two options and the second was much dearer and only a little bit better in my room.

The dealer left me to think about it over the rest of the weekend and since I'd posted my experience on the forum I got quite a few people telling me that I could then buy the projector (JVC HD350 FWIW) for less at various places, thus saving me about £150. I wasn't going to 'stiff' the dealer over that small percentage (remember this was when HD350s were well over £3k) especially as I didn't even know if it was worth upgrading without having a demo.

As it turned out when the dealer rang me back a few days later to see what I'd decided he offered me a further £100 off the HD350, so I was more than happy to go with that deal. Regardless of what his website showed the price as, it only took a phone call to find out that he was prepared to lower the price.

So for the extra £50 I got to buy a projector that I knew was going to work in my room. I picked it up in person after he had checked it over to make sure the convergence, etc was good so I didn't have to worry about it turning up DOA and having to go through the returns process (or worry that it was damaged in transit).

It was a fairly similar story for my recently purchased JVC X35 but I don't think it's fair to discuss any prices as it's still a current model.
 
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No, I'm not in the business,I'm a Service Engineer so no connection to selling AV gear myself. The £200 was plucked from thin air; I've seen people quibbling over much less. If it's a bricks and mortar store then I accept that they have higher overheads than an online one. IMHO it's not realistic to expect them to be able to sell at the same price, so they have to offer something worth paying the extra for and (in the case of a good specialist dealer I think they do earn that extra, see below). Of course the online one doesn't let you have a demo first, but that's just how it is. It just seems wrong to me to go to a shop and take up their time demoing to you for possibly a number of hours knowing full well that you aren't going to buy from them.

FWIW about 4 years ago I had a home demo of 2 projectors against the one I had: I wasn't sure if it was worth the expense of upgrading since my room isn't perfect. The guy came over and spent maybe 4 hours doing a demo and I was convinced that it was worth the upgrade, though there were two options and the second was much dearer and only a little bit better in my room.

The dealer left me to think about it over the rest of the weekend and since I'd posted my experience on the forum I got quite a few people telling me that I could then buy the projector (JVC HD350 FWIW) for less at various places, thus saving me about £150. I wasn't going to 'stiff' the dealer over that small percentage (remember this was when HD350s were well over £3k) especially as I didn't even know if it was worth upgrading without having a demo.

As it turned out when the dealer rang me back a few days later to see what I'd decided he offered me a further £100 off the HD350, so I was more than happy to go with that deal. Regardless of what his website showed the price as, it only took a phone call to find out that he was prepared to lower the price.

So for the extra £50 I got to buy a projector that I knew was going to work in my room. I picked it up in person after he had checked it over to make sure the convergence, etc was good so I didn't have to worry about it turning up DOA and having to go through the returns process (or worry that it was damaged in transit).

It was a fairly similar story for my recently purchased JVC X35 but I don't think it's fair to discuss any prices as it's still a current model.

Well, that was certainly above and beyond. And being flexible on the price too. It just makes me a little annoyed that some shops just think it's unfair and blame the 'internet'. There are significant costs to setting an internet store up and you have to comply with distance selling regs, etc., so not free.
Charge for demos if you feel it is justified. You will soon see if people take the view that they will buy it online and test and return if not suitable.
The likes of Comet where the sales assistant would read the shelf label and the only help you got was to be offered some expensive cable or service plan. Failure was inevitable (sweeping statement, but they did not usually add value).
 
Oh yes; I never did buy much from Comet (mainly because IMHO apart from TVs they didn't sell anything I would have considered decent anyway). Mostly just things like printer cartridges (paid for by my work) since it was convienent for me.

That example isn't just one dealer though: I know a few assured advertisers on here that offer similar good service and will be flexible on price. However I wouldn't expect to walk into Currys and get the same service (which is why I never go in there since in most cases I usually research what I'mbuying so would likely know more about the item than the sales ticket/sales person would tell me).

I suppose the specialist dealers do effectively charge for the demo, just that they don't put it on as an item it's inherent in their higher prices. Ultimately if everyone just went to the shop for a demo, then bought online eventually there wouldn't be a shop to go to. In the case of Comet, then it's not something that directly effects me, but if I couldn't go and buy some speakers or another projector without demoing first I'd probably be more reluctant to buy new at all: I'd prefer to buy used so that if it didn't suit I'd sell it on at little or no loss (having done this with my current speakers and other gear).

So, in short: 'Showrooming' at caravan shops and Currys doesn't bother me, but doing it at specialist dealers does. :D
 
I buy online for 99% of items.

However, my dad is a bricks and mortar man. He deals with a local installation company for his AV gear. Yes he pays over the odds, but they take the time to talk through the options, demo equipment etc. They then come and complete the installation, set everything up, configure it etc. If he has any concerns / problems etc they will come out and talk him through them. For a retired OAP who can afford the extra and may lack the confidence to do it himself, it's the perfect solution.
 
For that type and quality of service is it over the odds are good value for money?

For him, good value for money.

He rings them up well outside of warranty and the guy drives over and they go through the problems.

They did manage to sell him separate DVD player and DVD recorder though, although the recorder can obviously play fine in its own right (some years ago now).

I guess they know that he'll always buy his gear from them in future
 
a couple of hundred quid is hardly significant, verses tens of thousands for a shop plus all the extra bills to go with it.

You think the likes of Ebuyer or Amazon pay a couple of hundred quid?

It doesn't have to cost a huge amount, but if you are serious, it will cost many thousands and be ongoing.
 
What's the opposite of 'showrooming' ?(a term I've just heard of for the first time!)

I'll tend to find something I like online, get the lowest price I can, and then go to various 'real' shops, and ask them if they can beat the online prices I'm getting. I'd say that most of the time this works in my favour. I purchased a tv for £600 about 5 years ago, and got the shop to give me a £200 stand for free...Not an option online to do that.
 
It cost us about £40k to fit out our current premises with offices, workshop, shelving, packing stations and dispatching station. We're pretty much online only then there's the 11 pcs 2 servers, 18 monitors, a couple of ups, cloud backup and software. The cost of the actual website is a tiny percentage of an online retailers cost.

In our case anyway.
 
You think the likes of Ebuyer or Amazon pay a couple of hundred quid?

It doesn't have to cost a huge amount, but if you are serious, it will cost many thousands and be ongoing.

yes that's it pickout the biggest of them all in amazon to try and backup your argument, I meant say an independent internet retailer verses a independent bricks and mortar shop, so yes a couple of hundred quid tops to setup the internet business storefront with 50 quid per year server costs.
 
yes that's it pickout the biggest of them all in amazon to try and backup your argument, I meant say an independent internet retailer verses a independent bricks and mortar shop, so yes a couple of hundred quid tops to setup the internet business storefront with 50 quid per year server costs.

And watch the money start rolling in. Really, you think it is as simple as that. Don't know why we are not all doing it. Money for old rope.

Or maybe you already have?
 
And watch the money start rolling in. Really, you think it is as simple as that. Don't know why we are not all doing it. Money for old rope.

Or maybe you already have?

As with any business its about spotting a gap in the market, pick the right one and yes the money comes rolling in, how else do you think business works ? and yes I have setup more than one in the past and I have been trading on the internet since 2000, no its not money for old rope, its hard work like any other business just a lot cheaper to setup, which was my point.
 
If a shop can come near to some of the prices I've seen online, then I will have no worries buying from them, but if they can't then my money goes online.

Just the same as when we had decent shops in our towns I would visit one and if not good on price would go to the next town.

Nothing wrong with that, ESP if I end up with more money in my back pocket.
 
Pet hate.

It's a big problem in retail sectors where demonstrations are essential. It badly affected the trade I used to be in. There used to be 7 competing stores in the town I used to work in, now there's 2. One of them is a bargain clearance place, and the other is part of a business selling other goods.

Former customers/browsers now moan about the lack of choice, and how much they miss us, but if we were still there they'd still be coming in for demos then buying online. It'd probably be worse now with the prevalence of smartphones.

I can't blame anyone for buying online, but I think it's pretty poor to use the facilities of a high street store if you go in with no intention of buying from them.
 

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