Retail versus Internet shopping was the
issue for me, last week.
I looked up a pair of shoes, online, that I wanted to buy. The shoe was a replacement for a pair I use every day and love. On the Internet the price, with shipping and sales tax is $118.
Looking in one of my favorite neighborhood shoe stores, I found the same pair in stock for $146. Out of what I now view as pure sentimentality, I bought the shoes at my local store telling myself I wanted to help keep the local shoe store in business.
I now believe I was wrong. No retail business can survive on sentimentality. There are a number of factors that favor a local retail store: immediacy of possession, no anxiety about delivery not being left at the front door by FedEx when I'm gone, ease of return, ability to compare products and try them on for size and color.
None of these factors justify the $26
price differential. On calm deliberation I should have only been
willing to accept a $5 differential.
The whole point of this blog is that local retailers must compete with the Internet on abundance of product, depth of inventory, good return policy and a price differential that is quite modest. Stores that depend on impulse purchase and a good sales pitch and other factors related to immediacy, can charge more.