Sylvain Sénécal Professor of Marketing RBC Group E-Commerce Chair Tech3Lab Co-director

1. Showrooming, webrooming
and outshopping:
How to address these new
consumer behaviors
Sylvain Sénécal, Ph.D.
October 2014
DTLQC

2. In the next 30 minutes…
 What are showrooming, webrooming, and
outshopping?
 Are they important phenomena in Canada?
 What can retailers do about them?
 Concluding remarks

4. www.adexchanger.com

6. Price Check (by Amazon)

7. Bizzreport.com
From a competitor

8. Outshopping:
Online cross border shopping

9. So what?
Are they important
phenomena in Canada?

10. In order to answer these questions…
 Survey of Canadian consumers in 2012 and 2014
 Samples: 1501 (2012) and 1507 (2014)

11. Showrooming evolution in Canada
Purchase
(n=242/363)
SP in
store
(n=617/805)
Smartphone
(SP)
(n= 1501/1507)
Data plan
41%→53%
Yes
39%→46%
In store
52%→58%
Retailer’s website
11%→13%
Competitor’s
website
5%→5%
Competitor’s
store
9%→6%
No purchase
23%→17%
No
61%→54%
2012→2014
63%→71%
14%→11%
23%→17%

12. Price, service, and product aavailability (2014)
Reasons for Showrooming (or not)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Other reasons
Product availability
Better service
Better price
Purchase from competitor
Purchase from retailer

13. Product prices and showrooming (2012)
Any price; 46%
At least 100$;
At least 50$;
24%
24%
At least 200$;
6%

15. Webrooming in Canada (2014)
Webrooming
- Purchase
from same
retailer
40%
Webrooming
- Purchase
from a
competitor
9%
No
51%
Webrooming

17. Outshopping
62% of $ spent online by Canadians
31%
7%
38%

18. Younger shoppers
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Outshopping and Age
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+

19. Paypalobjects.com

20. What can Canadian retailers do?

21. About outshopping
 Competitive offering (relative to US retailers)
 Product assortment
 Price + Service = Value
 Trust & ethnocentrism
 « Buy from a trusted and local retailer »
 Secondary costs
 « No additional costs or surprises »

22. About showrooming & webrooming
 Attract:
 Multichannel strategy « web-to-store » and « store-to-web »
 Same prices and assortment across channels
 Sales promotions linking web and stores
 In-store pickup, in-store ordering
 Convert :
 Competitive prices and price matching guaranty
 Service
 Mobile coupons
 Free Wi-Fi!
 Retain
 Product returns across channels
 Loyalty program
 Exclusive brands
 Strong private brands/labels

23. Concluding remarks

24. You can forget these buzzwords, but not
that…
 Consumers are well-equipped to compare
products and services when and where they
want to.
 Focus: Competitive offering
 Consumers want seamless experiences within
and across channels;
 They will select the most efficient channel for
their current needs.
 Focus: Customer experience

25. It’s called SHOPPING (in 2014)
25
Your Channels Your Competitors’
Consumer
Decision-making
stage
Website
(Non-mobile
device)
Store Call Center Website or
App
(Mobile
device)
Website
(Non-mobile
device)
Store Call Center Website or
App
(Mobile
device)
Information
search
Evaluation
Purchase
Good old days!
Outshopping (if international)
Webrooming
Showrooming

26. Thank you!
ss@hec.ca
chairerbc.com
imarklab.com

27. Commerce: Outshopping
H2b
.57 (15.19)
H1
.15 (3.27)
H4
.15 (4.65)
H2a
.45 (12.77)
H6b
- .15 (4.70)
H6a
- .11 (2.69)
Ethnocentrism
Skills in Foreign
e-Retailers Language
Trust in the
Foreign E-Retailers
Offer
Competitiveness of
Foreign E-Retailers Intention to Perform
Online International
Outshopping
H3b
- .13 (3.32)
H5b
.16 (4.99)
.25 (7.83)
H3a
- .46 (11.79)
H5a
.08 (2.66)
.13(3.92)
Secondary Costs
Susceptibility to
Interpersonal
Influence
Sénécal, Boeuf et Aljukhadar (2014)