'Showrooming' challenges businesses to keep up with an increasingly mobile shopping world

Image courtesy Parago

With the widespread adoption of smartphones, brick and mortar retailers have been forced to accept an increasingly large amount of “showrooming,” a shopping behavior that sees customers entering retail locations to look at items in person, only to find the item for cheaper online while browsing on their phone inside the store.

Parago’s latest study has shown that 58% of adult smartphone users and a third of all US adult shoppers regularly “showroom.” The June 2013 study questioned more than 1,000 US smartphone owners on their shopping habits.

For showroom shoppers, Amazon is the top outlet for purchasing items online, either through desktop computers at home or through their mobile phones before they ever leave the competing retailer.

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