For many of us, online shopping has revolutionized our shopping experiences. We have 24/7 access to basically any store we want and we can shop from the comfort of our own home – it can be seriously dangerous. While I really try to stay away from the temptations of online shopping, sometimes I just have to give in and recently I’ve been noticing some new additions to the online shopping experience. Here’s what I’ve noticed…
With all this access to stores 
and online shopping, we are all guilty of webrooming. You compare prices, read reviews on the items and maybe even about the service the store provided before you make your ultimate decision. I’ve always known that stores like Walmart and Target will price match, but sometimes it’s not even worth it since you have to be in a physical store, wait in customer service lines and have proof of the lower price.
Well, a few days ago I was doing a little online shopping at my favorite store, Nordstrom, and was looking at one of my favorite brands, Tory Burch, which rarely has sales. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the shoes I wanted were on sale and when I clicked on them, it said these shoes had been price matched. While I already love Nordstrom and am a loyal customer, this completely sold me all over again. I loved that Nordstrom was being honest about pricing and took all the hassle out of price matching. Talk about excellent customer service…! If a high-end retailer like Nordstrom is willing to price match online and be transparent
with their customers about pricing, I think this will start to be a trend among other online retailers as well.
Another one of my favorite retailers is the Gap. Whenever I’m at the mall I always have to pop in and see what new styles they have, and to be honest I do look at their daily emails that tempt me with cute outfits and discounts. In their last email I noticed a link that said “reserve in stores.” Naturally, I was intrigued and had to check it out. With this program you can reserve clothes online at both Gap and Banana Republic and as long as the items are available in the store that you have selected, your clothes will be ready within an hour for you to try on or just buy. Since noticing this in the Gap email, I also saw a similar program at other stores, including Office Max, which is awesome since if you’re anything like me, searching for a specific office item nearly drives me insane.
Both of these examples show that retailers are working hard to make customers experience in stores and online even better and even more convenient. I’m looking forward to more retailers following these trends. The only thing that might make their customer experience even better would be to offer exclusive discounts, but that’s just my opinion… 😉
Photo Credit: Flickr user Mike Mozart
