Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
I think HarryT meant that if you only check out merchandise in the store and then buy online, in the future there will no longer be stores and you won't be able to check out the goods beforehand. My grand-mother told me how surprised she was the first time she came to a city (1920's) and found out that they had stores where you could try before you buy. She was used to purchasing from catalogs, choosing from b&w pictures, and then having to fix things so they fit. We would be going back to something similar. Used to be that all golf clubs had a pro shop on site, with big box stores and online shopping they are disappearing, with it goes the ability to have a cart fixed, a club re-gripped etc.
That may be going with the tide, but it also means that you will have to accept a lower grade of service.
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If
no one buys
anything at a store,
for any reason, the store will close. That has nothing to do with shopping for online purchases.
That
some people shop for
some things in store and buy them on line in no way leads to the conclusion that this behavior will actually or even likely lead to the demise of pro shops, etc.
It does mean that some stores might want to rethink some strategies if the want to do better against online competition.
To say that a customer using a store as an online outlet's showroom is unethical, or to single it out as the path to failure of the store, is to say competition and innovation in the marketplace is bad, or that having a public showroom is a poor business choice.
Neither of these are true IMO.