Bob Greene's Essay: The Negative Effects Of Showrooming

Bob Greene is a contributor for CNN and his article “ Will ‘showrooming’ kill businesses” brings to light a new issue created by modern day use of the Internet. Bob Greene discusses a new phenomenon known “show rooming”. Greene defines “show rooming” by quoting Any Zimmerman, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, and describes it as “ the act of shoppers coming into a store to see a product in person, only to buy it from a rival online, frequently at a lower price”. Many people do this but fail to realize the negative impact this has on both small and large businesses owners. I sympathize with the merchant of the small business owners whom this effects due to “showrooming” harmful and unfair effect it has, even though it is most convenient to the buyer. Prior to this article I had little knowledge as to what “showrooming” was, I never even knew it was a growing problem. Yet, after reading

Many people in today’s age are opting to buy their merchandize or products online as appose to buying them in the store and at the core of this problem is the Internet and its convenience. Business had previously not had to deal with things such as “showrooming” that negatively affect their business. The rise of the Internet has allowed for this to take place, 10 or 20 years ago businesses did not have to deal with online companies that have surfaced up largely in the past 5 years or so. We live in a world today where we can do almost any thing and buy almost anything with the use of the Internet and this has allowed “showrooming” to take place. It makes sense that people want to buy a product at a lower price, it seems rather unfair and insulting that stores are serving as a show rooms where people could see their product, but go and buy it else where. While “showrooming” affects both small and big business I this will hurt the small businesses that cannot keep up with large competition that larger businesses