David Nicholls: Browsing bookshops then buying online is a 'genteel form of shoplifti

[eschwartz]

All I said was less shaky. I never said I agreed even then... but at least then I could sorta kinda see how the article had a logical premise, no matter how misguided or judgmental.

Right now, it is just a farce. Simply because there is no rational way whatsoever to compare browsing quietly to shoplifting. No harm is done, nothing was offered and taken away, and bookstores specifically have been oblivious to this since practically forever...

The only "damage" that is being done is that you have gotten benefit without paying for it, which according to certain mindsets is not "fair". So I guess we now know where the complaint is really coming from.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

All I said was less shaky. I never said I agreed even then...

Oh I know.
I was just getting a kick out of the idea (and riffing a bit on it) that a good salesperson can take someone's supposedly unethical intent and turn it into a sale. Just wondering, in that case, if the (non)customer actually becomes ethical at the point of sale (due entirely to the salesperson's powers of persuasion)? Or would the sale make the customer's still-unethical-intent just not matter any more?

[eschwartz]

It's an interesting idea.

I expect the customer is still a horrible shoplifter though. After all, if one is morally bent for Browsing With Intent (not to buy), then by the same logic, merely purchasing something is not sufficient to redeem your soul.

[DiapDealer]

That's the way I was thinking too!

[twowheels]

I ADMIT IT... I'VE BEEN STEALING FROM AMAZON FOR YEARS!

I can't help it... I'm in a store... I pull out my phone... I <cringe> **SCAN** the barcode... I read the reviews... and if the price is within ~5% (and it usually is), I buy the item from the <cringe> B&M STORE since I'm already there holding it in my hand!

Please Amazon forgive me the theft... I just hope the $3000-$4000 per year that I spend on your site will buy me some mercy.

[DiapDealer]

O.

M.

G.

[eschwartz]

Yer a crook! A dirty crook!

[thewitt]

Consumers in general don't seem to have a problem with this whole concept - be it books or golf clubs.

I used to own a retail golf shop. When the online golf stores sprang up with prices that were at or below my wholesale prices, customers would regularly come in for a "free fitting session" - where my staff would spend an hour or more with them finding the combination of clubs that was right for them, however sales continued to decline. It took me about nine months to figure out that these guys who were back at my driving range hitting the same clubs that we fit them in were buying online.

The short story? We closed the retail business.

Now that same customer wants to be fitted for his next set of clubs so he can buy online. He has several choices.

1) Find someone else that will still fit for free and go buy online
2) Pay for a fitting
3) Buy blind, based on Internet recommendations

Most refuse to do #2, and so they are now buying without a fitting - but they are saving $100 on their $1200 purchase, so they are happy.

The retail model evolved, the golf shops are now filled with clerks, the experts went to do something else.

The bookstore with knowledgeable employees is being replaced by a room full of shelves with clerks for the same reasons, and online buying without a person helping you make choices will be the way 90% of all people buy books before it's all over.

Is it ethical to go browse the shelves of your brick and mortar book seller and then buy online because it's cheaper?

You alone can make that call. I know I can't do it. If I take advantage of the fact that this company has stocked the books I care about, and made them freely available for me to browse, with help, then I will give them my business if they are even remotely competitive in price. If they are not, I would have seen that with the first book and walked out of the store.

You will do what your personal ethics dictate.

[eschwartz]

Err, I never saw that fabled expertise, and I haven't suffered as a result -- I have many ways to find great books.

Perhaps that is the difference -- there are any ways to find books that don't require salespeople. What do you think this forum is, anyway?

[danskmacabre]

Hmmm, interesting discussion.

Much of what I was going to say has been said here, but to reiterate some points that I agree with.

I wouldn't go into a shop and bother a sales-person if I had no intention of buying their products there.
Well, the exception to this is if I have a question relating to products they sell that I'm curious about. But if they're nice about it, I'll make a mental note to come back if I want to purchase something relating to what they sell. I make a special point about telling them how helpful they've been and say I'll be back to their store if I want to buy said product or something related.

If a sales person approached me asking if I needed help and I knew I wasn't going to buy anything, I would probably say "No thanks, just browsing" unless something else caught my eye.

Still, if browsing for something and possibly comparing for an online sale, on many occasions I've spotted something on sale or something that is on an impulse buy price range.
If I felt I shouldn't go into a store if I was going into compare for online prices, I would certainly have not made those other purchases of products that caught my eye whilst comparing or just browsing.
They would have lost a sale in this case.

Also, I'm finding bricks and mortar stores are getting really competitive price-wise anyway these days.
After you factor in delivery charges for goods purchased online, there's often not much difference.

As to specifically book stores. I haven't spotted much in them that interests me on the occasions I have gone in to have a look around. The books are mostly quite mainstream stuff.
I'm pretty comfortable with ebooks and a bricks and mortar bookstore can no way compete with the vast range and easy availability of the online counterparts.
So if mainstream bookstores disappear, I wouldn't be that bothered.

The exception to this is collectible book stores. There's a great collectible book store I regularly go into in town and spend an hour + perusing their vast shelves and often come out with something I wanted or didn't know I wanted until I saw it.

[twowheels]

Question for those saying it's unethical...

I recently bought a new car. I basically knew which car I wanted without a test drive, but I test-drove a few anyhow.

1) Test drove the exact car I ended up buying -- originally wasn't planning on quite so many features... at a dealership that was convenient at the time.
2) Test drove a competing car, just to be sure... knowing I was very unlikely to buy it.
3) At another dealership, convenient at the time, I test drove the same car as #1, but base-model with manual transmission to see how it compared. Also test drove a few other similar options.

In these I was either putting miles on their cars and sometimes taking a salesman's time, especially if he went for the drive. As for specialty knowledge -- well, that's a joke -- the sales droids don't know the first thing about their cars and I knew more after 2 hours of online research than they did.

When I was finally ready to purchase (almost 2 months later, meaning that one of the sales-boys [he was young] was on the hook e-mailing me almost weekly for that entire time) I sent out a bunch of e-mail basically saying "your website says you have this car in stock... I'm mailing every dealership... whoever makes this the best experience for the best value gets the sale"... sales-boy from dealer #1 responds and the first line says "We do not play any games when it comes to price so ill be completely transparent with you."... I knew where that was going... I ended up getting the car for $1200 under invoice at another dealership that hadn't spent any time with me test-driving it, about an hour from home. $1200 under invoice was about $2000 better than the next best offer.

So... to those who are saying it's unethical to buy online... I basically bought this car online after looking at the cars at dealers closer to home... what's your take on it?

Edit: I won't be offended... call me out! (within the guidelines of the forum, of course)

[meeera]

Originally Posted by thewitt

I used to own a retail golf shop. When the online golf stores sprang up with prices that were at or below my wholesale prices, customers would regularly come in for a "free fitting session" - where my staff would spend an hour or more with them finding the combination of clubs that was right for them, however sales continued to decline. It took me about nine months to figure out that these guys who were back at my driving range hitting the same clubs that we fit them in were buying online.

Charge for a fitting, offer that charge as a discount if the person then buys your clubs. Same as kitchen planning services, etc.

If your business model doesn't work, change it.

[thewitt]

Originally Posted by meeera

Charge for a fitting, offer that charge as a discount if the person then buys your clubs. Same as kitchen planning services, etc.

If your business model doesn't work, change it.

I changed the business model several times over 8 years, and up until the golf industry finally tanked in 2009, the changes were always successful.

We always charged for fittings - real fittings - separately from club purchases.

In this case, we could not charge for a fitting, the casual type that most golfers go through where they simply take the salesman's time and hit clubs for an hour.

AND, if you will read my post again, the purchase price customers were getting from online high volume Internet shops was LESS than my PURCHASE price - so I could never discount the price even by subtracting the cost of the fitting, and sell clubs at a profit.

These customers were PRICE driven only, and the service that I was providing was not interesting to them.

This behavior changed the golf business forever.

The same behavior will change the book selling business forever.

It is what it is.

[Geralt]

Golf club example is not really related to books. Who needs to be "fitted" for a book anyway? Who needs some kind of expertise to buy a book?
Just doesn't correlate.

[thewitt]

Originally Posted by Geralt

Golf club example is not really related to books. Who needs to be "fitted" for a book anyway? Who needs some kind of expertise to buy a book?
Just doesn't correlate.

If you are using my physical inventory, my retail space and my employees to decide whether you are going to buy an eBook from Amazon, then yes it relates perfectly.

When you don't buy from me, I don't make any money. If I don't make any money, there is no capital to buy inventory, no cash to pay my rental, insurance and utility bills, and no cash to pay my employees.

The result is..... yes you guessed it. I go out of business, and you lose the ability to walk into my bookstore to check out books before you make your purchase online.

I get it.

You guys who do this don't consider it unethical, and guys like me won't change your mind.

Think of how YOU would react to this as the bookstore owner.

Would you open your doors wide to everyone who wants to come in and paw your books, only to have them all buy from an online retailer instead?

How many millions in inventory do you think lines the shelves of a typical Books-a-million retail store?

If customers don't buy from retail stores, retails stores go away.

It's that simple.