My showrooming journey was born on t of a need for a new pair of running she’s. I’ve been training for the Auckland half marathon and in the process put a pair of Nike Free 5.0 through its paces. After doing a bit of research and fittings, I settled on a pair of Nike Lunarglide 6.
The next step in the journey was going out and trying them out and getting sizing sorted and so and so forth. The surprise (as expected) was how much they were going to set me back. One retailer quoted $199 and another $220.
Yes, when it comes to items such a running shoes, you shouldn’t skimp on price and should get a pair of shoes that will carry you through kilometre after kilometre without putting undue stress on your feet. But, I wasn’t so willing to part with $200 because I was adamant I could get a pair overseas for a lot less than that.
The online search began and it wasn’t long before I came across a few, mostly US based retailers that had Lunarglide’s listed from about US$90 to $110. Some of them don’t ship to New Zealand but an easy work around for that is YouShop. For those that do offer shipping to NZ, it came in at about US$40 so at the lower end of the spectrum, the total came to about US$130 (approximately NZ$165).
That in itself represented a saving that may of may not have been worth the while depending on how you look at it. The search continued and then came Wiggle.com who had an even better offer. They had the shoes on sale for NZ$110 (from a list price of NZ$158.08) and best of all, the price was inclusive of shipping (that’s for them to be delivered within 8 working days but can be shipped quicker at an additional cost).
After having tried on a pair for size and knowing that Wiggle is a reputable outfit, the choice was easy for me make as to whom I was going to spend my money with. This choice saw me saving about 45% off the RRP from a large NZ retailer which in dollar terms was NZ$90.
One question that I was asked by a friend was wether or not I felt guilty about showrooming. The answer to that question is both yes and no. How I felt was dependent on which retailer I went into to try on the shoes, for one of them, was pretty much left alone to my own vices so there was no guilt there. With another, the sales associate took the time to identify my foot type and suggest a range of options which included the shoes I had in mind. In this instance there was a bit of guilt given the personal touch I received with me knowing that I probably wasn’t going to spend my money with them.
At the end of the day, that guilt was pushed aside and I went with Wiggle because it represented a significant saving. Some people embrace showrooming, others and a number of retailers shun it and there are a few retailers who have found a way to work around it. Whatever the case may be we all have differing opinions about it. Are you for it or against it?
[…] and Wiggle (where I managed to get almost 50% off the NZ RRP on a pair of Nike Lunarglide 6, see here), just to name a […]