迟来的爱：零售商拥抱WiFi

    顾客光顾商店只是为了选好商品，然后回家在网上以优惠价把它们买下来。多年来，商家们都窝着一肚子火。这种现象非常普遍，以致于有了一个专门的说法——展厅现象。

    随着智能手机大行其道，这种现象愈演愈烈。例如，顾客可以用手机迅速将一家实体店的Fossil手提包与亚马逊（Amazon）上同款手提包的价格进行对比。商店经理对此无能为力。在这场价格战中，顾客取得了胜利。

    一些商家意识到了他们的失败，于是态度来了个180度大转弯，开始帮助顾客上网。就在圣诞季之前，像塔吉特（Target）、彭尼公司（J.C. Penney）和萨克斯第五大道精品百货店（Saks Fifth Avenue）这样的大型零售商在全店安装了免费的WiFi。梅西百货（Macy’s）和山姆会员店（Sam's Club）去年就安装了WiFi，而诺德斯特姆公司（Nordstrom）早在2010年就已经抢先一步。塔吉特的发言人艾迪•巴伯说：“顾客的潮流是什么，我们就要做到什么。” 今年秋天，该公司已经在旗下1,780家门店内安装了Wifi。“我们自己预订销售的时候，也喜欢展厅现象。”

    如果说有什么不同的话，那么零售商是最晚一个加入到这场游戏中来的。咖啡厅、快餐店和机场早在几年前就开始提供免费的WiFi，体育馆和大学也是如此。竞争压力显然是零售商接受WiFi的原因之一。而在几家零售连锁店提供无线网络之后，其他商家因担心顾客流失也匆忙效仿。公开地说，零售店提供WiFi为那些不愿使用手机数据流量的顾客带来了更多便利；有些商店就像山洞一样，有时手机信号很糟糕，这时，WiFi就好比给它们上了一道保险。

    究竟有多少顾客实际上使用了店内的WiFi还不清楚。大多数零售商都拒绝透露使用其网络的人数、顾客浏览的网页数，以及可能引起尴尬的数据：顾客有多频繁地访问竞争对手的网站。萨克斯第五大道精品百货店与美国电话电报公司（AT&T）合作，在44家门店内安装了WiFi，他们更愿意提供这方面的信息。在9月宣布无线服务工程完工后，该公司宣称在过去10个月内，已经提供了500万次网络连接。

    最近走访旧金山几家百货商店发现：零售商为顾客提供WiFi的形式有很大的差异。很难说清大多数顾客到底有没有注意到它们的存在。萨克斯第五大道精品百货店并未提供任何指示，告知顾客他们提供WiFi。想要知道它的存在，唯一的办法就是用你的智能手机查看可用的网络。塔吉特在这点上做得稍好一些，商店入口的屏幕上偶尔会闪过他们提供免费WiFi的提示。

    For years, retailers frowned on shoppers visiting their stores merely to scope out products before returning home and buying them online for less. The phenomenon became so common that it earned a name -- showrooming.

    The practice has only expanded with the proliferation of smartphones. Shoppers can use them to quickly compare the price of a Fossil handbag, for example, with the same version on Amazon.com (AMZN). There's nothing store managers can do to stop them. The shoppers have won the war.

    Recognizing their defeat, many retailers have made a u-turn and are now helping shoppers get online. Just before the holiday season, big retailers like Target (TGT), J.C. Penney (JCP) and Saks Fifth Avenue (SKS) installed free Wi-Fi throughout their stores. Macy's (M) and Sam's Club (WMT) deployed Wi-Fi last year while Nordstrom (JWN) did so in 2010. 

"It's where guests are going and where we need to be," said Eddie Baeb, a spokesman for Target, which finished installing Wi-Fi at its 1,780 stores this fall. "We love showrooming when we're the ones booking the sales."

    If anything, retailers are late to the game. Cafes, fast food restaurants and airports have offered free Wi-Fi for years. So have sports stadiums and universities. Competitive pressure clearly played a role in pushing big retailers to adopt Wi-Fi. After a few retail chains added it, others quickly followed for fear that they would lose customers. 

Publically, retailers tout Wi-Fi as more of a convenience for shoppers who may otherwise be reluctant to eat into the limits on their smartphone data plans. It's also an insurance policy against the sometimes spotty mobile phone reception inside cavernous stores.

    How many shoppers actually use in-store Wi-Fi is unclear. Most retailers declined to share information about the number of people accessing their networks, the number of pages they viewed or the potentially embarrassing statistic: How often people visited the sites of rivals. Saks Fifth Avenue, which has equipped its 44 stores with Wi-Fi in partnership with AT&T (T), was a little more forthcoming. In announcing the completion of its network roll out in September, the company said it had enabled over 5 million connections during the previous 10 months.

    A recent visit to several San Francisco department stores showed a wide disparity in how retailers market Wi-Fi to shoppers. Whether most customers are even aware it exists is tough to say. 

Saks Fifth Avenue's men's store failed to put up any signs about its Wi-Fi. The only way to know it existed was to see the network listed among those available on your smartphone. 

Target earned slightly higher marks by occasionally flashing messages about its free Wi-Fi on a video screen at the entrance to its store.