Showrooming Vs. Webrooming

Posted on 09/02/202214/03/2022 by camiloaristy17

In recent years, everything has been changing at an accelerated pace, and consumers are not the exception. These changes have been closing even more the gaps between online and offline marketing, giving more prominence to omnichannel.

As a result of all these changes, two important terms have appeared that every retail or wholesale business needs to understand: Showrooming and Webrooming. Let’s start by defining what they mean.

Showrooming is when a customer visits a store to review a product, but then buys it online. This happens because many people prefer to see and touch the merchandise they are going to buy, and many of these products are at lower prices in online stores.

Webrooming is the opposite side of behavior to Showrooming. Also known as ROPO or “research online, purchase offline”. It is a shopping trend in which consumers research a product online, but complete the purchase in a physical store.

What is today’s consumer like?

Based on a report by Merchant Warehouse, this data is highly relevant to understanding current shopping preferences, and it gives us the conclusion that customers prefer the Webroom over the Showroom:

47% do not want to pay for shipping.
23% do not want to wait for delivery of their product.
46% prefer to go to the store to touch and feel the product before buying it.
36% will ask the store if the price is similar to the price found online.
37% like the option of being able to return the product to the store, if necessary.

¿Cómo es el consumidor actual?

10 tips to take advantage of Webrooming

If you want to keep up with your customers’ expectations, Doctus makes the job much easier with our e-commerce service and integrations with different POS systems. For more information, contact us.