Who’s minding the competition?
I just wanted to pass along a personal anecdote about buying a book. Last weekend we had some friends over and my wife and a couple of friends started talking about a great new book they wanted to read. All I heard was that it was from the same author of The Shadow of the Wind.
To make a long story short, I went into a nearby Barnes and Noble today to buy the book for my wife. Since I didn’t know the name of the book, I binged (the verb to Google is sold school) the shadow of the wind from my mobile and got sent to Amazon. From there it was easy to click on the author’s name, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and find the name of his new novel, the Angel’s Game.
On Amazon it was $16.17. Staring in front of me at Barnes and Noble, it was $26.95, or 40% more. So wanting to save some money and a bit out of principle, I walked out of the store, planning to buy the book online when I got back to the office.
On the way back to the office, I stopped into the Deli counter of my local grocery store, QFC, to buy a sandwich to take back to my office. Walking through the store, I see an end cap display of new books including The Angel’s Game, at 25% off the suggested retail price. I ended up leaving the store with a roast beef sandwich and a copy of the book. I saved almost 7 dollars and I had the book in my hand instead of waiting for shipment.
The moral of the story is, well… purchase behavior is a fleeting thing. I represent a modern multi-channel shopper. I used a mobile interface to help me find what I wanted and compared prices. And the significant discount online was enough to alter my purchase intent. But then a completely different channel became open to me, one that provided me with enough of a discount to get me purchase on the spot and change my typical behavior. In the end, the grocery store won my book purchase. Knowing the competition isn’t always enough.
