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Originally Posted by charmian
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This:
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Politics & Prose co-owner Lissa Muscatine said showrooming is a major problem for the industry, but not so much for her store. “As long as customers appreciate the services that indies provide — a gathering spot that offers human interaction, expert booksellers who can make thoughtful and customized recommendations, other kinds of programming, and the browsing and discovery experience that readers enjoy — we won’t have to contemplate something as draconian as charging people to browse the aisles. I certainly hope it never comes to that.”
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People walk into stores just to browse all the time.
Sometimes they buy, sometimes they don't. Not everybody that fails to buy is showrooming.
In fact, unless the bookstore is well-placed in a high traffic area, people are *not* going to go out of their way to visit a bookstore just to showroom. So most likely people who invest the time and effort intended to buy but the store failed to close the deal. Given the limited catalogs of most B&M stores, compared to online, most online shoppers by now know better than to waste time showrooming and just go straight to the online sources.
Which is to say, the prevalence of bookstore showrooming is way overstated. (I'm sure they'll all say the same thing, if they're honest; "It's a big industry problem but I don't see much of it.") Unless the customer actually pops out a phone to buy on the spot the odds are more likely the customer was just browsing to see if anything caught their eye and found nothing worth buying.
Now, BEST BUY, they have a serious showrooming problem because TV and audio gear needs to be physically experienced before buying. But bookstores? They have bigger problems to worry about.
Top of the list: generating traffic.
For which problem a cover charge is counterindicated.
But if they want to try it I'm sure Amazon and Kobo won't mind.