So I was watching Nightline the other night and one of the stories was, surprisingly, about Christmas shopping. The reporter was talking to some 20-something chick who’s apparently an online shopping guru or something. They were in an electronics store and she was demonstrating this “awesome app” on her iPhone. I don’t remember what it was called, but let’s just call it the bar code app. Basically, the bar code app allows you to scan the bar code of any item you might wish to buy and see if you can buy it online more cheaply. So then, when it comes up more cheaply at Amazon, you depart the brick and mortar store in haste — the brick and mortar store that gives you free access to these bar codes but just lost your business — and go purchase said item online for less.
I’m sorry, maybe it’s me, but I have a bit of an ethical dilemma with that. I know that’s quaint and dusty of me — an ethical dilemma, how last century of you, Trace — but I think it’s kind of sneaky and exploitative to use the brick and mortar store not as a place where you purchase goods but as a kind of research tool to find where you can purchase for less the very same items that they are selling. If you do find it for less, why not approach the manager of the store and ask if they’ll match the price? Don’t we need brick and mortar stores? Do we want our entire lives to be conducted online?
The bookstore we used to visit every Saturday morning recently went out of business along with all its other locations in San Diego. And I’m sad about that, really sad. I’m sad that 3-dimensional life seems to be slipping away from us by inches. I’m sad that the printed page seems to be disappearing. I don’t mean to sound like that cranky old lady down the street waving her cane at life and proclaiming doom at every turn, but damn. We’re 3-dimensional creatures who still need to conduct 3-dimensional lives — which is really a different post, I suppose.
But back to my dilemma here. Am I the only one who thinks using an app like that is sneaky and, well, a bit ethically squinky? If you’re willing to ask the store to meet the lower price you found, I have no problem with it, if the store ultimately meets the price for you. Be blunt and tell them to meet the price or you will purchase it elsewhere. In this economy, I imagine they’d meet it. But if you scan the bar code in that store, find a lower price online, and then buy it there, my opinion is you’re exploiting that store and robbing them of your business, business they desperately need.
Is it just me? If so, I’m starting the cane-waving and fist-shaking decades ahead of schedule here.
Look. If the brick and mortar store ultimately goes away, where will you go to use your “awesome bar code app”?
