Brick & Mortar Tech

Author: Pyrofenix

The other day I was browsing the internets for an item trying to find the cheapest price.  It turned out the Circuit City was cheaper than everyone else by at least $15.  I drove down to the store and the tag listed a price that was $35 higher than what I had seen online.  Of course, there were 3 employees in the store, all grouped together helping an attractive blonde in a short skirt in the car audio section, so I pulled out my Iphone to verify the price I had seen.  Typed in www.circuitcity.com and was re-directed to mobile.circuitcity.com - a site that is severly limited.  Interestingly, it also listed a different price than the standard web version of the site.  I got on their local computer and pulled up the site and verified, that the price I had seen which brought me to the store, had not changed.  I decided to make the purchase and went up to the register where the item rang up at the higher ‘in store’ price.  I explained that it was cheaper on their website to the <sarcasm> very friendly </sarcasm>lady ringing me up.  She told me to hang on a moment and disappeared to go to lunch before confirming the price listed on the website with her manager.

So why would circuit city redirect my iphone’s browser to their mobile site when the phone is perfectly capable of displaying the normal site (best buy doesn’t do this)?  I can see no reason except to keep customers from checking the price on their website while in the store.