Amazon’s Price Check is pretty rude
Offline retailers have been comforting themselves about online retailing by talking about ‘multi-channel’; you know, offline and online can coexist and the success of offline will in fact come from online.
To date, this has been sort of true in Australia – JB Hi Fi, Dick Smith, Apple etc.
It is perhaps a different case in the US however, where eCommerce is literally generations ahead of what we have in Australia.
If you are a traditional, offline retailer, you might want to stop reading this blog about now; you’re going to become upset.
Amazon’s Price Check
Amazon has this nifty iPhone application called Price Check.
It lets you scan the barcode of any product to determine the comparable Amazon price. From there, you can of course purchase the product directly through the application.
Two days ago, Amazon announced that users will get 5% off their purchase (up-to $5), up to three times when they scan and then purchase through the application.
In other words, Amazon wants you to visit the local shops, try on the boots and then buy through its app on the train ride home; the local shop becomes a great fitting room for Amazon.
From the store’s perspective, it is damned whatever it does. If it chases the customer out, they’ve chased them to a competitor or worse, to Amazon.
All the time, Amazon is collecting rich pricing and customer information and making the sale.
I guess what is important is that the customer wins, though it’s a pretty aggressive play and you can imagine the uproar from retailers.
Australia… it is only a matter of time.
