[mhb]

Their business model hasn't been superseded. Amazon is free-riding on the stores' display of physical goods. If the shoppers don't value being able to view, handle or browse the physical goods, why are they in the store? So they value having the store there but don't want to pay for it.

Maybe Amazon's plan is to drive these stores out of business and then open its own display stores where people can go to inspect merchandise before ordering it online.

[tomjen3]

That is silly.

The store makes it free to see the items and so forth because they believe the customers are more likely to buy then.

Nobody is free-riding anything here. The offer is to view the merc for free. The offer is taken. That is the end of it.

If the stores don't make money this way they will have to change. Maybe they should charge for shoppers who don't buy anything, mayby they should charge for people coming in the door (like a museum or a zoo or a gallary of modern art).

There is no free-riding here.

And please in the future don't use such loaded terms. It does generally not lead to an improved debate and will make some here (me at least) suspect you of astro-turfing.

[MichaelGG]

Or perhaps Amazon, by offering a discount and an improved checkout experience (you're in the store, but don't have to wait in line or carry the item out), is converting people to not go to retail stores.

Or, as I've encountered myself doing, you're price checking because sometimes you run across an interesting item but want to make sure you're not getting ripped off. For a $5 discount, I'm unlikely to change my purchase action on anything - however I've been in situation where the price at the mall is 100% more than Amazon's.

[tuppy]

I really haven't seen any evidence to back up your claims outside of fear-mongering news articles and general whining from the big box brick-and-mortars.

"Maybe Amazon's plan is to drive these stores out of business and then open its own display stores where people can go to inspect merchandise before ordering it online."

This cannot be a serious conjecture. Opening up quasi-retail locations with all the expenses of retail but no ability to actually making a sale? Didn't Gateway do this in the late 90s?

[jaredsohn]

If it ever got to the point where brick-and-mortar stores for certain things ceased to exist since everyone was buying online, you could have a store that actually charged admission to browse (and to convince people to still come, you could make that admission count toward an online order or toward food at a store restaurant.)

Pretty unlikely, although maybe it would make sense in a less-developed community (third world countries, outer space) that does not already have modern brick and mortar stores.

[knorby]

Amazon isn't the one free-riding there--it is the customer in the store. If Amazon didn't have a bar-code scanner in their app, or even an app at all, I would still check store items versus Amazon on my phone. It is fair to say that local stores are providing a valuable browsing experience that customers don't necessarily compensate them for, but that was also true well before Amazon existed. I don't see how anyone can blame amazon here. They are just improving the experience for their existing customers.

[chris11]

Then the stores just aren't competitive enough if Amazon is taking business away from them. Tax isn't usually a big enough reason for me to order something online when I'm standing right in front of the product.