The full title of this short book by Scott McKain is
“Digging Wells and Building Fences: Discover the Steps to Combat Showrooming, Converge Physical & Digital Retailing, and Create Customers for Life“.
In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a Four Stars rating. This means I consider the book to be in the range of good to very good.
Here is my book review.
A very useful book to help you to think about retail showrooming
Have you ever seen something you like in a retail store, taken out your phone and gone to Amazon? I have. I’d probably justify it, if challenged, by saying I wanted to read the reviews but I can’t help but notice the price too.
This is the problem of showrooming. It’s defined as using a physical retail store to find products you want but buying on the Internet. It’s a significant issue for the retail chains bearing the costs of the physical stores and service staff but not receiving any of the revenue to compensate.
The title of the book refers to two ways to stop customers switching, based on how to keep animals on your land.
The first method is expensive. It involves building fences all the way around to physically stop the animals. This is like blocking access to the Internet to stop shoppers going online whilst in the store.
The second involves digging deep wells with lovely cool water which makes the animals want to stay. The business equivalent is providing a unique customer experience that the customer wants to reward.
The book makes the point that too many businesses respond the wrong way to the showrooming threat. They cut back on staff and make the customer experience worse. This inevitably reduces any feeling of loyalty or obligation the customer feels for the business.
This is a short book. More examples of how retailers can build in different types of customer experiences would have been helpful. However the author is often worth reading and he is again here.
It is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
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