An article in bloombergbusinessweek (Nov 14, 2011) decribes worries by retailers regrading an increase in informed focused consumers, a decrease in impulse shopping, and steps to compensate. Pacific Sunwear offers iPads to salespeople to assist consumers with possible clothing combinations, with out of stock items seamlessly orded from its website. Brookstone uses iPads to get customers to consider its entire inventory, int the store and the site, to drive sales.  And Old Navy equips its salespeople with iphones to check inventory of any item.  As stores look more weblike, will the number of store shoppers decrease or increase ? Will the costs associated with equipping salespeople with technology generate a sufficient enough rise in productivity to enable lower retail headcount to provide thee required level of service ? Will the web integration, which can enable customers to visualize store configurations the way they perfer, enable a more targeted salesperson interaction and thus higher sales ?