The effort required of consumers was a kind of transactional friction. With the advent of mobile technology, friction has all but disappeared. Rather than ruminate with a salesperson before making a selection, tech-savvy consumers are more likely to walk into stores, eyeball products, scan barcodes with their smartphones, note cheaper prices online, and head for the exit. Shoppers can purchase virtually any product under the sun on Amazon or EBay while sipping a latte at Starbucks. For traditional retailers, that spells trouble, if not death.
"So far nothing Best Buy is doing is fast enough or significant enough to get in front of these waves," says Scot Wingo, CEO of e-commerce consulting firm ChannelAdvisor.
