I think that advert is probably the most blatant example of externalisation I've ever seen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

The irony is that for years Dixons have been the place that geeks go to try out laptops before buying them on the Internet. They obviously decided to pay it forward.

Dixons always seemed to have the cheap rubbish I'd never buy whenever I went in one of their horrid shops.

I saw those Dixons ads when I was last in London. It amused me (as an ex-employee, of all things!) - I have gone to shops to see things in the flesh, then ordered from Amazon. But I've never had a nice chap talk me through the options, spend half an hour finding me the right TV, then walked out and bought it online. I'd feel too guilty to do that. Either I do my own homework or I buy instore and let him get his commission. It's the same with shoes; if I've been a pain to the sales assistant, I'll buy them in store even if they're a wee bit cheaper online.

(On the other hand, while it was still around, I'd have been quite happy to abuse Dixons' sales staff to talk me through options, then walk out and buy from Amazon/Ebuyer/etc. Their staff were terrible and I was patronized by my manager, and customers, every single day. One phoned up, after the usual "Hello, Dixons, how can I help you?" they said "Oh hello love, can I speak to a man who knows about computers?" - I was the most knowledgeable technical member of staff and they had put me on checkouts.)

The problem with buying in-store is that most reasonably intelligent customers can find more out in research before hand than the in-store customer service. I think people would like an experience in store, it's just that the only experiences available in these stores are bad ones.