Recently, we have witnessed a trend whereby high-street shops
have expanded their sales channels to include online sales, whilst online
shops have opened branches or physical stores. The reason is clear in both cases: to increase
sales, reach a wider audience, and introduce potential customers to
their products.
Unfortunately, in these cases, retailers
treat the individual sales channels as completely separate. They divide their sales
activities rather than combining and interlinking them. They are therefore failing to
exploit the potential available to them. What are the benefits of such integration?
A customer considering a purchase
decision gathers information from multiple sources. The old approach,
where the customer sees an advert, goes to a shop (physical or online) and buys
the goods, no longer applies. In today’s world, customers now search through a multitude of different sources
before reaching a purchasing decision. These sources can include online
shops, price comparison sites, blogs and discussion forums, tests and reviews, social
media, videos and, where applicable, physical shops. This allows the customer to gather a wealth of
information and become very well-informed about the features of a given product. It is therefore
clear that the internet significantly influences the customer’s purchasing decision.
What does this mean? That nowadays,
retailers must consistently integrate their online and offline business activities
and spread their offering across the entire internet. Only in this way is it possible to capture
potential interest from shoppers in good time and introduce them to one’s own product or
goods, entice them and guide them towards a purchasing decision. An example of this
is a client operating an e-shop alongside a high-street shop. On the e-shop, apart from
the goods, there is only brief information stating that there is a physical
shop somewhere. But why doesn’t the e-shop owner dedicate an entire page to showcasing the shop?
Why not highlight the interesting interior, the display of goods, and entice
customers into the shop? After all, such website modifications and the inclusion of photographs represent
a minimal investment. Perhaps they simply haven’t realised that customers like to conduct
online market research before heading to a physical shop. It may sound trivial, but
there are countless such simple examples.
A lack of interest on the part of clients in linking the online and
offline environments is evidence of a failure to grasp the internet’s potential. For minimal
cost, you can multiply your activities in both the digital and real worlds,
interlink them and boost sales effectiveness. You’ll see that it pays off!
Author: Michal Vaníček