With Black Friday and its shopping bonanza madness quickly approaching, big retailers are getting ready to fight each other in an effort to attract customers during the busiest shopping days of the year. In recent years, major retailers such as Target and Walmart have waged discount and inventory battles to gain the most customers, but such tactics are no longer effective with the advent of major online retailers such as Amazon.
Retailers have been paying attention to the slew of mobile apps that help shoppers get the most out of their retail experience. There is no shortage of apps that scout deals, deliver coupons and give shoppers detailed information about the good and services they crave. To this end, many retailers offer their own mobile apps that keep shoppers informed about store discounts and special sale events, but shoppers have upped the ante in recent years with “showrooming,” a 21st century shopping behavior that consists of going to a store and using a smartphone to check for lower prices in the vicinity.Showrooming has led to apps such as Find&Save, which recently added a new feature that enables retailers to engage in a bit of cutthroat competition to steal potential shoppers away from each other. Until recently, Find&Save was similar to many mobile apps that deliver enticing coupons on smartphones; what was added is the ability for retailers to reach shoppers while they are physically on the premises of their competitors.
One example would be a shopper whose GPS-enabled smartphone places her at the nearest Home Depot. This could open an opportunity for competing chain Lowe’s to steal that potential customer with either lower prices or a cash reward of $25. For the time being, apps like Cash Dash require shoppers to take a photo of their purchase receipt in order to have their reward transferred to their PayPal accounts, but future versions of the app may actually subtract the reward from the customer’s purchases at the checkout register, thereby making the offer even more attractive and convenient.
