Online ordering has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the US and is growing at a rate of about 10% each year. About 80% of Internet users have purchased something online. This isn’t a fad.
As digital natives age, we’ll see these numbers continue to grow. If you’re a mom and pop merchant with little technical knowledge, how can you compete?
How Brick and Mortar Stores Can Remain Relevant in the Digital Landscape
Make the Experience Worth It
Give your customers a reason to come into the store. Some clothing stores offer tailoring, other stores create events around their goods or services such as craft nights or ask-an-expert hours. If you can provide an experience on top of the shopping, you’re more likely to see your customers.
Offer Freebies
Tastings, trials, and samplings are all ways to get people into your store. The beauty store Sephora does a huge in-store business partly do to it offering customers the ability to try on new looks with their makeup and skin care lines. The store employs makeup artists that can help people attain or master the latest style. If you plan on offering similar free opportunities, make sure you market them through all of the possible avenues, including social media. Enable and encourage word of mouth referrals.
Embracing Online Sales
There’s an old saying — if you can’t beat them, join them. The Internet is not going away. People will not be ditching the convenience of online purchases any time soon. If you are in retail, you should seriously consider making at least some of your goods available online. It’s not as hard as you think. If your site is built on WordPress, there are a lot of online store plug-ins to use. Here’s one solution.
The reason people shop online is because it offers almost a frictionless shopping experience — no finding a parking space, dealing with crowds, or getting your heart set on something only to have it sold out at the store where you’re shopping. To compete with that ease of shopping you need to offer an experience or service they don’t online. Be creative and you’ll find a way to reach your customers and bring them in.
However, you’ll also need to start thinking online opportunities as well. A good way to start transitioning into that is participating in a local currency program that allows online gift certificate purchases. From there you can transition into selling online.
Whatever you decide to do marketing is of the utmost importance. If people don’t know you’re doing it, your efforts won’t catch on.
