Mobile CRM Gives Retailers Ammo Against Showrooming

Showrooming enabled by the proliferation of smartphones has become the bane of brick-and-mortar retailers. Basically, consumers waltz into a local Best Buy or similar store, find the product they're thinking of buying and check it out. So far so good, from the retailer's perspective. Only then the consumer goes online, sometimes even while standing in the store aisle, to buy it from an e-tailer like Amazon.com. Such behavior is in part responsible for Best Buy's lackluster performance of late. Now retailers are fighting back with their own mobile strategies to best online retailers in this scramble for sales.