February 18, 2003 12:39 | Bits

E-Commerce/Bricks-and-mortar

The U.S. electronics megachain "Circuit City" has a brilliant feature in it's online store. It allows you to pick physical store locations near you and, as you browse around the site and look at products, it will tell you if those products are available at those locations or not.

This is great because they realised that far more people use such online stores just to research prices and availability than to order. It also encourages "I want it today" buyers such as myself. (It happens every now and then that I'll wake up and tell myself: "today, I will buy myself this". Try to find it online, bingo, go get it. Most often in fact it is with books. I will check the Chapters website and then head down to Ste-Catherine St.)

The Circuit City feature came in handy last year when my ex wanted a car radio with an audio jack on the faceplate. We found one model and realised it was only avaliable in the States. Within an hour we were on our way to Williston, VT.