Mobile phones are offering consumers a large number of shopping options from checking prices to making the purchases themselves, and Target is taking a significant step forward to help to make sure that this doesn’t cause its customers to head elsewhere to buy their products.
Target has announced to its vendors that it is taking aim at attractive in-store purchase incentives in order to keep consumers away from common mobile apps such as price checkers that can drive customers that have already made it inside their walls, right out the door again to shop elsewhere. These efforts include better prices and exclusive merchandise.
Their main concern is the habit of people to visit the stores to give merchandise a “test drive”, that is, to have a look at it in person to check it out, but then to return home to buy it online from another merchant. The term for this practice is called “showrooming” where the brick and mortar stores provide the display of the product so that consumers can have a look at it, though this is not where they will actually shop to find it for a lower price.
The company issued a letter to its vendors stating that it would like to increase the amount of excusive merchandise available in its stores, and when those items are not available, then lower prices should be the alternative. It is their hope that this will encourage shoppers who have come into the store in order to investigate products to actually buy them there instead of using a price comparison app, the latest mobile commerce trend, and then purchasing the item elsewhere for less money.
Target has also been mulling over the possibility of starting a subscription program that would offer customers lower prices on the items that they purchase the most.
