Are Brick-and-Mortar Stores Just Showrooms for Online Retail Sales? Not Really

Bizrate surveyed more than 9,000 shoppers (between April 24-30) who had just completed an online purchase at one of their e-tailers. The first"”and arguably most meaningful"”stat is an overwhelming 78.15 percent of those online purchasers had not looked at those products in any physical store. No surprise there, but it's a key number to remember the next time someone shouts about how showrooming is gutting brick-and-mortars.

When they zeroed in on that remaining 21.85 percent of shoppers who had looked in-store before buying online, most of them (54 percent) ended up buying from the same chain. In other words, they were in a Target or a Best Buy and then purchased from Target.com or BestBuy.com.

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Keywords: retail supply chain, online sales vs. retail sales, e-tailing, value chain IT, supply chain management IT, in-store vs. web retail sales