Showrooming or Web-rooming?

Physical retailers have been suffering at the hands of eCommere for years. The ability to browser and buy from the comfort of your own sofa (or bed) has been a growing and compelling proposition, especially compared to the madness of Christmas or sale times.

And now, thanks to in-store Internet connectivity and smartphones online shopping continues to grow at the expense of in-store retail. Consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices (mobile phones, phablets and even tablets) in stores to: get product information, check competitive prices and obtain feedback from reviews & social media contacts. They are therefore using the in-store experience to 'showroom' by looking at, touching and even experiencing a range of products only to then convert online.

However this is only part of the story, as the reverse experience is also true. In a recent PWC survey, 70% of the respondents stated that they started the purchase process online, but converted in-store.

This process, now know as “web-rooming" is a growing trend that has benefited from the factors such as:

• a focus by retailers on an improved in-store experience 
• better staff training, to help customers purchase rather than put them off 
• better and immediate stock availability 

The graph below, taken from the report, outlines the specific reasons why the respondents prefer to buy products in-store instead of online:

The future is responsive

PC's, tablets, mobiles and TV interfaces.... The list of devices used
to browse the Internet changes and increases all the time.

When designing and developing a new website, the common accepted
practice is that you start your user experience (UX) work first, based
upon how users with a PC and sometimes large tablets (e.g. the iPad),
might see things. Then depending upon the other popular devices used
to access your site, you then consider building an alternative
version.... say mobile.

But turn this concept on its head for a moment and consider the following:
1. Nobody fully knows what the future devices will be (up until 2
years ago the tablet market was virtually non-existent).
2. It is safe to predict that mobile devices will continue to grow in
use and that the available range will expand over time, as
manufacturers experiment and try to invent new form factors (in the
hope of finding a previously in-tapped customer need).
3. Bolting a mobile interface onto your existing site is hard work.
Some do fancy things with style sheets, while others just 'make the
buttons bigger' (yes this is a cheap and quick change, but not all
sites look good with chunky submit buttons, etc.).
4. Building a separate mobile-specific site is usually more work than
spending a little longer on your main one.
It is therefore unsurprising that I predict a future where a
significant number of company websites will no longer be developed
with a version for each specific device.... but a single one that
automatically adapts to the size and orientation of the devices used.
Note: I'm not talking about interfaces such as the Microsoft Metro
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(design_language) design
language, which the software giant is successfully using across most
of its devices.

But this isn't a pipe dream for the far-off future, this is all
possible now using responsive site design & development techniques.
And soon it will be clients asking for this technology that will drive
its adoption, as they realise they don't need to spend a lot more
money building separate versions just for specific device profiles....
For examples, take a look at:
http://mediaqueri.es/
http://designmodo.com/responsive-design-examples/