Dumb Policy: Store Charges $5 Just To Look At Goods, To Keep People From Looking And Then Buying Online

from the add-value,-don't-take-it-away dept

As of the first of February, this store will be charging people a $5 fee per person for “just looking.”



The $5 fee will be deducted when goods are purchased.



Why has this come about?



There has been high volume of people who use this store as a reference and then purchase goods elsewhere. These people are unaware our prices are almost the same as the other stores plus we have products simply not available anywhere else.



This policy is line with many other clothing, shoe and electronic stores who are also facing the same issue.

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It's really incredible how manystrategies legacy companies come up with in trying to compete with the internet. Rather thantheir own value and figuring out ways to leverage that value, they often go in the other direction and make the experience. Case in point, this store in Australia that is so fed up with people shopping in the store, but then buying online that it's now charging people $5 as they enter just to look around. If you buy something, the $5 counts towards the purchase. If you don't, the store keeps it.In case you can't read it, the sign says:This story originally got attention via Reddit , and looking at some other photos it appears the store is called Celiac Supplies , and is a "gluten free grocery store."I can understand where theto do something like this comes from. For years, of course, we've heard things about how Best Buy has basically become Amazon's showroom. But this is the exactresponse. Rather than showing ways toto the customer experience so theyto come in, they're taking away value and giving customers reasons to never go in in the first place. That's a stunningly short-sighted way of running a business. The people who were coming in, seeing what was there and then ordering online aren't suddenly going to start paying you for stuff anyway. They'll keep shopping online. But, on top of that, some existingwho are used to buying will be turned off by this andswitch to buying online.In fact, this seems to be screaming out "hey, you get better deals online and!" Not smart.Instead of doing that, why not look for ways to add value? For a specialist store like this, they could create all sorts of additional value, including more support in helping customers find what they need, the ability to offer bundles and recipes, cooking classes and much much more. The focus should be on using the local store to providerather than taking away reasons to shop there.

Filed Under: customers, online, providing value, retail, shopping, showrooming, windowshopping