NEW YORK Amazon’s Kindl e Fire is a Catch-22 for retailers: The $199 tablet computer could both help Christmastraffic
and hurt future sales. Retailers hope the Kindle Fire’s low price tag —
which is less than half that of Apple’s cheapest iPad tablet — will
attract shoppers to stores during the busy holiday season. But the
device, which offers free shipping and other incentives for customers to
shop at Amazon, ultimately could drive sales to their online nemesis.
“I could impulse shop,” said Robin Rothberg, 33, a lecturer at the
University of North Carolina in Charlotte. “My phone is too small and my
laptop is too cumbersome to start on a whim. But a tablet would put
e-commerce nearly instantly at my fingertips, anytime.” That’s the
dilemma retailers now face. Tablets are almost sure to be a big hit this
holiday season for the likes of Wal-Mart and Best Buy. But at a time
when more consumers are eschewing big-box stores to shop online, tablets
are making it easier for them to do so. In fact, a Forrester Research
study found that more shoppers who browse on tablets tend to buy — and
place bigger orders — than they do when using personal computers or
smartphone.
No comments:
Post a Comment