From showrooming to webrooming

Today’s consumers turn to a new practice in their purchasing process. Indeed, webrooming is now prevalent and has a big impact on leisure products/services. People tend to look at hotels, restaurants or tourist attractions on the Internet very closely before buying or booking at their destination.

The Business Dictionary defines ‘showrooming’ as ‘purchasing an item online after you have looked at and inspected the item in a store’. Webrooming is the opposite process — the consumer first examines a product or service online and then go buy it in a physical store.

PXCom, Pinterest and Polyvore already encourage this practice, since consumers tend to buy products/services they first check on these websites.

Some figures about webrooming

TC Group Solutions released a study in 2017 about the consumers’ behavior towards webrooming in Spain. It shows that, even if there is a decrease in the percentage of entrances in physical stores, the conversion rate increase is considerable. About 3.6% in Madrid, Spain for example. Less visitors but who are readier to purchase something.

What do the ‘webroomers’ really do and how to target them

They first check online if the product is available in store — they check its characteristics, read the reviews and compare the prices. The products they mostly look for are electronics, clothes and leisure services (tourist attractions, hotels…). After checking everything, they go to the store and actually buy the product or service.

However, that doesn’t mean you should let down the customer’s experience! Indeed, webroomers still seek for a unique experience in store and on your website. In order to reach and target these special customers, ready to buy your products or services, you need to make them visit your website where they can find anything they want. Here are 3 ways to maximize your chances to reach them:

1. Optimization and UX design

2. Online-exclusive offers

3. Inflight advertising: the ideal solution to help your business target consumers and increase your website traffic. At PXCom, we can provide it for you! We are a French company offering onboard digital media to airlines and media agencies. Thanks to different visual contents — banners, videos, pre-rolls, carrousel — you can easily promote your activity to passengers — a highly captivate audience — right on their seatback screen, tablet or smartphone.

Want to know more about inflight advertising? Visit our website and take off with us!