While online shopping is accessible, the million dollar question is "Is the price better?" since online stores don't have to pay rent for a storefront in a nice part of town.
Take Amazon, the world-renowned online mega store. Most Americans believe Amazon's prices are lower than any other retailer. A writer from Virginia made a price comparison of random hardware purchases on Ace Hardware vs. Amazon. Let's take a look at his findings:
It started when he had been tasked with copying a house key. Obviously, that is one task you cannot do online. As he stepped into a local Ace Hardware store named Logan Hardware-assuming that prices would be astronomical because of where it is located-a trendy stretch of 14th Street recently revitalized in northwest Washington, D.C. He exited Logan Hardware with $20 worth of merchandise, thinking that he would have saved a lot of money if he had purchased it from Amazon. He proved himself wrong....
In this non-scientific comparison, the Ace Hardware price for fruit chews was $1.59, while on Amazon it was $3.08. Non-slip rug pad at Ace Hardware was $5.99, while Amazon was $9.99. Case in point-this Ace Hardware cooperative known as Logan Hardware undercut Amazon by a big margin. To learn more about the comparison, visit https://medium.com/@goddin/the-unlikely-case-of-the-brick-and-mortar-hardware-store-that-undercut-amazon-cd56cc1224d0.
To read the Logan Hardware/A Few Cool Hardware Stores technology case study, click here.
