ONLINE CHALLENGE THE DO’S AND DON’TS TO HELP NEW RETAILERS SURVIVE AND SUCCEED
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THE ONLINE CHALLENGE Just in case you didn’t know, the internet is shaking up retailing. But does it affect even your new, one-shop business. Yes, says retail expert, Martin Newman, and sets out what you need to do to ensure you win your share of business. Are you thinking of starting an independent retail business? If you are, then you also need to consider the requirement and the opportunity to have a website to support your store business. It is important to let customers choose how they shop with you, which is why it’s key to have a website as an alternative channel for customers to engage with you. It also represents an opportunity for you to extend your reach as you can potentially reach out to more customers over a broader geographical area than you can do with your local store business. WHAT’S THE CUSTOMER VALUE PROPOSITION? You might also think of this in terms of what’s your USP? What will make your retail business stand out and why will customers want to buy from you? What’s the value to them in doing so? And how will you price in relation to your competitors?
Martin Newman is founder and CEO of specialist retail consultancy Practicology. He brings years of experience as head of ecommerce for retailers such as Ted Baker. He is also currently a Non Executive Director for White Stuff and Conviviality plc.
You also have to think about what the customer convenience proposition will be. From an online perspective, you need a clear convenience proposition. What delivery and returns options will you offer? Will you charge for these or offer them free? Much will depend upon what you sell, what your average order values are and what your competitors do.
“ A WEBSITE IS AN ALTERNATIVE CHANNEL FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS TO ENGAGE WITH YOU”
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“ IT’S CHEAPER TO RETAIN CUSTOMERS THAN ACQUIRE NEW ONES, YET MOST RETAILERS FOCUS ON THE LATTER” WILL YOU OFFER CLICK AND COLLECT? There are advantages to doing so. You’ll convert more customers, and you’ll be able to sell them more products when they come into your store to pick up. PRODUCT RANGE You’re only as good as the product you sell. Are there any gaps in your local retail environment that you could fill with an independent retail store? The web also provides the opportunity to offer a slightly different product range. Unlike in your store, you’re not limited by physical space therefore you can potentially offer a broader range of products online. SUPPLY CHAIN Continuity of supply is absolutely crucial. So whatever, you sell, you need to know that you can replenish stock in a timely fashion, otherwise you risk disappointing customers. TECHNOLOGY If you’re going online, you need a web platform. This is the technology that sits behind the front-end customer experience and drives the functionality of the website. When you start your retail business, you also need to think about the store. You’ll need electronic point of sale (EPOS), and when you’re planning the selection of your technology, you need to think about how all of these systems will talk to each other, as they will need to do so if you want to offer click and collect. There are potentially other systems you might need including systems to manage finance, stock, product information and content.
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SITE DESIGN There is a saying that you shouldn’t get your creative (Site design) from technology companies (Who build your platform). You will need someone to design the front end of the website and build out your ecommerce proposition. You also need to ensure that your site is fully optimized for mobile devices (That includes smartphones and tablets) as that is where you will reach most of your customers moving forward. HOSTING AND DOMAIN NAME The website needs to be hosted somewhere. Your web development provider, sometimes known as a web development agency or system integrator, will be able to help with this. When you’re coming up with a name for your retail business, make sure you check the domain name availability for your website at the same time. There’s no point in coming up with a name for your store that isn’t also available for your brand online. You can acquire this from a vast number of domain name registration companies online. CONTENT AND VM You will need to produce content for your website. This is also known as visual and product merchandising. Of course, you’ll also have to produce visual merchandising, also known as point of sale material for the store. CUSTOMER ACQUISITION Customers can just walk into your physical store, but the same may not be true for your website. First of all you need to ensure that the website is search engine optimized (SEO). You will need your agency to advice you on this, but in essence the site should be populated with content and meta data that enables the search engine to crawl and index your site. This will also include relevant keywords that relate to what you sell, a good site map that can be successfully crawled by search engines, the meta tags that tell the search engine and web users what your site is about and alt tags for images that provide a brief description of the image.
THE WEB CONTENT YOU’LL REQUIRE WILL INCLUDE: • Product images You will also need to consider how else to market your website. You can promote it in the windows of your store as well as on all packaging. You will also need to promote it online through search engine marketing (SEM). This is where you pay or bid to acquire traffic when someone keys in a relevant keyword for your business such as black dress, cheap flights, gifts, washing machines etc. The other marketing opportunities include retargeting; this is where the user has been on your site, goes elsewhere but sees an advert for your business. The other key channel is affiliates. This is where other publishers send traffic to your website and get a commission on any sales made. CUSTOMER RETENTION It’s cheaper to retain customers than acquire new ones, yet most retailers focus on the later. You should think about how you can build a lasting relationship with your customers so that you enjoy multiple purchases from them over the course of the year.
• Lifestyle, or brand related images • Product descriptions • Static, customer service related content including terms and conditions, frequently asked questions etc. • You will also need to think about how the content will influence your natural search engine ranking
ORDER FULFILLMENT You need to think about how you’ll fulfill customer’s orders. To begin with, you’re likely to fulfill from store stock. But as your web business scales, you may need to think about having stock in a warehouse. You can do this with a third party logistics provider. CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Some web customers will want to call you before and after making a purchase. So you need to be prepared for the potential of getting a lot more calls into your business that will take time to deal with. You can outsource this to a call centre, but this is not a profitable route to go down in the early stages. CUSTOMER FIRST: The most important thing to think about is the customer. What can you do to optimize everything you do to meet customer needs? A key element is to ensure that the mobile experience is customer centric.
Click and collect allows you to convert more customers
Finally, you need to think about how you’re going to resource all of the above. You might want to consider outsourcing elements where you lack the appropriate skills in your business such as acquisition and retention marketing.
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