The trend of showrooming and webrooming behaviors of the consumers in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

Showrooming is the practice of examining merchandise in a traditional brick-and-mortar retail store or other offline setting, and then buying it online, sometimes at a lower price. The reverse way of showrooming is webrooming which is when consumers go online to search products, but then head to a bricks-and-mortar store to complete their purchase because they can see and touch the real products and have opportunities to experience the products that they want to buy. In the age of smartphones, tablets and ubiquitous price information, showrooming has become a real issue for traditional retailers.According to Google and TNS online shopping research (2014), there were more than 36 million of internet users, accounting for 40% of the total population of Vietnam. 30% of the Vietnamese owned the smartphone and 58% of them use often their smartphone to buy online (Nielsen research, 2014). This rapid development leads day by day Vietnam to the trend that some western countries are facing. That is showrooming and webrooming behaviors of the Vietnamese consumers. This paper aims to discover such a trend and how these behaviors affect the retail marketincluding the traditional retailers and online retailers in Ho Chi Minh City and what factors influent the channel choice of the consumers. The research result showed thatwebrooming is the current trend and continue to develop together with the fast growth of smart devices, information technology and the standard living of Vietnamese people.