So what does encourage customers to purchase in the store versus shopping around? There are a couple things retailers can do to make the in-store experience “stickier”. Consumers are more likely to purchase from stores with expert employees trained to be consultants. Compared to a self-service model, providing expert advice results in a 7% lift in purchase intent in an apparel store and a 6% lift in purchase intent in a consumer electronics store. Apparel customers place particular emphasis on employees being “experts”. In fact, they prefer a self-service approach over access to employees with no special training. Price matching is another way retailers can convert foot traffic into sales. However, for consumer electronics retailers, offering to match the prices of other brick and mortar retail stores is not enough; they must also match prices of major online retailers in order to truly have an impact on purchasing behavior. While neither of these offer a silver bullet for converting visitors to purchasers, it’s clear that charging a browsing fee is a surefire way to lose both.