Why is it now 2006 and still you have to jump into your car to find if the local store has something in stock? Why can’t you go to the store’s website, enter your ZIP code, and have it show you whether something’s on the shelf or not? Wasn’t this supposed to be the promise of the commercial Web? For instance, Lowe’s Home Improvement does it right while Barnes and Noble doesn’t have a clue.
If you’re a local merchant and I visit your site, I want know if what I want to buy is available now. I don’t want to drive all the way to your store only to discover the product I want is out of stock or only available on the web. Get with it, folks! The web has been around for, what, 16 years now? This isn’t new stuff here. Are your inventory systems so inaccurate that you don’t know what’s in stock, or is there some other reason you don’t want to make this public?
Your website is another storefront. I want to look at your shelves just like I do in your brick-and-mortar store. I do not want to have to pick up the phone and spend ten minutes on hold while some lackey checks the shelf for me. Let me do it myself! It’s easier on both of us.
Until brick-and-mortar stores figure this out, places like Amazon.com will keep eating their market share. At least you can avoid a trip.