Showrooming Challenges Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

Last December, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Amazon.com aggressively promoted its price-checking mobile phone application by giving shoppers 5 percent off items on Amazon that they scanned while in brick-and-mortar stores. The application, which compares store prices with Amazon's, brought the practice of showrooming — already very familiar to retail store clerks — out of store aisles and into public prominence.