Brick-and-Mortars Take on Showrooming

Shoppers armed with smartphones have become a major challenge for some brick-and-mortar retailers, according to a new eMarketer report, Adapting to a Showrooming World: How Retailers Are Earning Customer Loyalty. In 2011, InsightExpress found that more than one-half of smartphone owners said they had used their device for "showrooming" — i.e., looking at an item in-store before buying it online from a competitor at a lower price.