Analysts said Best Buy had suffered from shoppers using its stores as a “showroom” for Amazon, the online retailer.Giovanni Meroni/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Barnes & Noble, Walmart and Best Buy have underlined the shift by the retail industry to online and mobile sales by unveiling three separate moves aimed at consumers who increasingly shop by switching back and forth between the Internet and bricks-and-mortar stores.
Barnes & Noble, the U.S.'s biggest bookseller, on Monday unveiled a tablet computer to compete with devices from Apple and Amazon, while Walmart has opened two small test stores in Californian malls that are designed specifically to draw customers to its website.
Best Buy, the biggest U.S. electronics retailer, said it would close its loss-making "big box" stores in the U.K., buy out its British partner in Best Buy Mobile for $1.3-billion and refocus globally on selling Internet-enabled devices ranging from phones to televisions.
The moves come as traditional retailers struggle to keep up with the digitization of media content, the power of smart phones, and consumers who browse for products online and then buy in stores, or browse in stores and then buy online.
Barnes & Noble's business model of running cozy book stores with comfortable chairs and coffee has been undermined by Amazon, the online retailer.
Its tablet computer launch on Monday – under the brand of its Nook e-reader – was its latest effort to secure a stake in the distribution channel through which a growing number of consumers are consuming books, music and video.
The $249 Nook tablet will be available from next week and will compete with Apple's iPad and Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire tablet, which also begins shipping next week. William Lynch, Barnes & Noble chief executive, stressed that its store network and employees would enable it to provide better customer support than Amazon.
He also said the Kindle Fire's memory capacity meant it was "deficient."
Analysts said Best Buy had suffered from shoppers using its stores as a "showroom" for Amazon, the online retailer.
Brian Dunn, Best Buy chief executive, told the Financial Times: "Multi-channel retail is the right solution. Digital by itself won't be enough. Physical by itself won't be enough."
Walmart's use of two new test stores to promote the Walmart.com brand reverses the practice of using online advertising to attract customers to retail stores. However, the stores are scheduled to stay open only until the end of this year.