{"id":355315,"date":"2020-08-02T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.practicalecommerce.com\/?p=355315"},"modified":"2022-10-18T12:39:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T16:39:46","slug":"the-first-steps-in-adding-ecommerce-to-a-brick-and-mortar-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.practicalecommerce.com\/the-first-steps-in-adding-ecommerce-to-a-brick-and-mortar-store","title":{"rendered":"The First Steps in Adding Ecommerce to a Brick-and-mortar Store"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brick-and-mortar retail businesses are turning toward ecommerce to generate revenue \u2014 online and click-and-collect. As they make this digital transformation, those merchants will likely have questions about ecommerce platforms, themes, and design. While all of these are important, a company’s initial focus should be on products and marketing, in my experience.<\/p>\n

The act of merchandising and selling an item in a physical store is fundamentally different than promoting and selling the same product online.<\/p>\n

Brick-and-mortar<\/h3>\n

Consider the advantages of physical retailing. In a physical store, a shopper can handle a product before buying it. He can, for example, pick up a new kitchen knife, feel its weight, and gauge how it fits in his hand. In some stores, he could even chop a few carrots before making the buying decision.<\/p>\n

Similarly, a mother shopping for kids’ clothing can touch the fabric and have her child try on an outfit or two. For questions, a clerk is not far off.<\/p>\n

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A retail clerk can answer product questions in real-time and on a personal level. Photo: BBH Singapore.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

What’s more, a physical location can be its own form of marketing.<\/p>\n

An art supply store in a popular shopping center may have thousands of potential customers drive past it every day. Some of those passersby will see the store’s sign for years. When those folks need a sketchbook and art pencils for their children’s drawing class, the brick-and-mortar store could come to mind.<\/p>\n

Products<\/h3>\n

Conversely, selling a kitchen knife, children’s clothing, sketchbooks, or anything on the Internet is different. Product images, product descriptions, and inventory management are critical for ecommerce but may be challenging for brick-and-mortar businesses selling online for the first time.<\/p>\n

Images. <\/strong>To sell a product hanging on a hook at a physical store, a retailer simply needs the product and the hook. Online, however, a merchant requires at least one photograph to represent the item.<\/p>\n

A merchant can either photograph every product or, alternatively, acquire photos from the manufacturer or distributor. Both of these tasks more time-consuming than what one might imagine.<\/p>\n

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At one of Sur La Table’s physical stores, a shopper could handle this knife before spending $399 to buy it. But online, the knife is represented with an image.<\/p><\/div>\n

It is not uncommon for a store to have thousands of SKUs and dozens of vendors. If it decided to download product photos<\/a> from those vendors, a retail business would need someone to contact each vendor, gain access to the images, download and organize them, perhaps edit them, and upload them to the ecommerce site \u2014 repeated hundreds of times.<\/p>\n

But a methodical approach can help.<\/p>\n