by Sharon Jones
With the constant battle between an ecommerce business and a store that exists in the real world, for those people who are exclusively trading online, it must enter into their heads on occasion, should they set up a retail store to go with the online web? This is a very simple way to build upon a business, but as there are numerous concerns that can rear their heads with a real store, should extending the number of platforms you are on actually improve your business?
The Problems With Modern Employees
Because there are many, younger staff members that are used to dealing with customers online, this can prove to be a difficult transition in terms of a real store. This means that if you are to set up a real store to bridge the gap between business and customer, you've got to have workers that are able to do this with ease. This could mean additional training, but this could also require a lot more savviness in terms of customer and employee dynamics. They need to know how to interact with the customer depending on the type of person that they are. This can be very difficult for many modern employees.
The Development Of Local Interest
This is very good for local support when you're setting up a real brick and mortar store, but not only this, there are numerous components that work online as well. The various incarnations of local SEO techniques highlight this. And for any business that's exclusively trading online, setting up a real retail store can add a lot more tangible interest on a local level.
The In Store Feeling
This is something that cannot be overestimated. Setting up a physical store to go with our online one can help bridge the gap between our online image and how we present ourselves in the real world. That sense of display that provides the items on offer, but in a manner that pleases customers is easier to achieve in person rather than online. You go online and you've got items displayed and it's the customer’s responsibility to click down further and further, ad nausea. But instead, we can incorporate used Gondola shelving, put our customers on a journey throughout the store, and use subtle psychological tricks to help guide our customers towards specific products. Because the online component relies on the customer looking for what they want, the art of guiding a customer towards a product is lost. This is something that can be achieved in a retail store.
The Continuity Between Platforms
As businesses that trade exclusively online will demand feedback from customers by an email, or sometimes a phone call, when you've got the real retail experience, if you have this as an extension of your online presence, this can result in a greater continuity. Making the leap from an online store to a real one can result in a few sticking points. And this can be a very difficult thing to recover from. But if you are looking to challenge the online status quo, or if you want to expand your business, you've got to set up a retail store to go with your online one, purely for the fact that you need to compete with the other online businesses with an extra string to your bow.