Word: showrooming

[Garson O'Toole]

Headline at "Market Day on msnbc.com" with the timestamp of "28 minutes ago"

Best Buy, other big retailers fighting back against 'showrooming' by
Roland Jones
[Begin excerpt]
Big box retailers such as Best Buy have suffered from “showrooming,”
where customers come into a store to find products they want to buy,
but then walk out and purchase them for discounted prices at an online
retailer, such as Amazon.com.
[End excerpt]

Wikipedia has an entry for "Showrooming". The earliest timestamp on
the history page is "28 January 2012‎".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showrooming

The term is mentioned in a New York Times article in December 2011.

Cite: 2011 December 5, New York Times, "Book Shopping in Stores, Then
Buying Online: [Business/Financial Desk]" by Julie Bosman, Page B8,
New York. (ProQuest)

[Begin excerpt]
Bookstore owners everywhere have a lurking suspicion: that the
customers who type into their smartphones while browsing in the store,
and then leave, are planning to buy the books online later - probably
at a steep discount from the bookstores' archrival, Amazon.com.

Now a survey has confirmed that the practice, known among booksellers
as showrooming, is not a figment of their imaginations.
[End excerpt]

Garson

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