How many times do we go into a shop and not buy anything? Often, and certainly in good faith. But there are instead those who almost always do it and by "profession": they are the followers of the so-called “showrooming”, or rather the syndrome of the showroom, of looking without buying, or more specifically of investigating – even by taking photos and video – the products and prices of a chain to compare them with those of the competing brand and then choose where and what to buy.
This is a legitimate attitude, but one which for some traders is starting to become detestable: the customers of Celiac Supplis, a shop on the outskirts of Brisbane, in Australia, where gluten-free foods are sold, have known this since 1 February. No more curious or time wasters, but from now on only really interested buyers: if you don't buy anything, you still pay the entrance fee of 5 Australian dollars, equivalent to 4 euros.
This is explained by a large sign so attached to the window that it could now set a standard elsewhere in the world: “Too often it happens that people use this shop to look at our products and then buy them elsewhere. These people are unaware that our prices are more or less the same as the competition and that we sell products that are rarely found elsewhere”. Very clear, but it is equally clear that the practice of price comparison has always existed and is spreading with the internet.
After all, it's called e-commerce: finding all the prices online, comparing them, banging around looking for discounts and offers and even buying directly online. So what will be left of the dear old shops, if what's more now to compensate for the frustration of the merchant it will also be necessary to pay the "entrance fee", as happens in Brisbane? According to economists, there are two solutions: create customer loyalty with cards that bring benefits, as is already used a lot in large-scale food distribution, or to diversify the points of sale to make them more and more points of contact, with different functions from time to time and which are not precisely those of selling but also of exhibiting, promoting, advising.
Yes, because after all even the showrooming itself can be seen as a resource: everything can be bought on the internet or elsewhere, but without physical places in which to convince a customer, no shopkeeper can ever be certain that he has sold everything possible.
Read the article on Libération
