The consumer of today is a totally different animal than the customer of five to 10 years ago. Rare is the shopper of a bygone era who would visit six or seven stores before making a decision.
Today the Internet has changed all that and just about everything else along with it. When a customer walks into a retail store these days you can count on the fact that over 80% of them have done their homework and they have probably even narrowed their list of possibles and, on top of that, have a list of questions to which they need answers.