Quote:
Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes
I would think that using the shop to drive business on their website and vice-versa might be a model to go after.
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It isn't.
It's obvious that a lot of people are motivated by price. That means someone who is likely to browse in the store, and shop online, will happily bargain-hunt in the process.
So let's say you're B&N, and your main competitor is Amazon. B&N's online store has to subsidize 650 very large stores for customers to browse -- and Amazon does not. Since price is a factor, B&N can't charge much more than Amazon without losing sales -- certainly not enough to subsidize the stores.
Or, imagine you run an independent bookstore. You can't possibly compete with Amazon's online services, unless you're using another company like B&T for fulfillment -- which means less profit.
To put it another way: If stores did drive online sales, B&N would be mopping the floor with Amazon. The reality is that as Bezos realized so long ago, books are close to ideal for online sales. They're relatively small, easy to ship, and most people are fine with reading reviews rather than holding the object in their hands.