From “Brick and Mortar” to “Click and Mortar”

Posted in: Blog, E-Commerce by admin on March 31, 2011 | No Comments

Is your business ready to take the plunge from “Brick and Mortar” to “Click and Mortar”?  Bringing your products online to a Nationwide audience can be the best way to leverage average local sales and allow your business to grow exponentially.  Over the years we’ve had the privilege of bringing many local business on to the national sales playing field and have worked together with them to bring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local area.  Before you make your move, there are some key questions you should ask yourself to be sure your business is ready for the influx of sales.

1. Is the infrastructure of your business prepared to handle the customer service and the additional increase in orders? If you don’t have the manpower to handle lost packages, questions about products and other customer service issues, then you should consider expanding your team to handle the additional inquiries.   We can’t stress how important it is to dedicate an individual to customer service and not expect one employee to wear multiple hats for your business by answering phones, shipping products and managing inventory.  Your customer service department is your lifeline in the online world.   All it takes is one phone call not answered for a customer to get on a national review website and knock down your hard earned reputation.
2. Who is going to handle marketing your website? The world of  search engine optimization is a complicated and confusing one.  The technology is constantly changing and there’s always another company that can come up out of nowhere and dethrone you from your top search engine placement.  Without a doubt, the strongest search engine optimization tool a company has is in the mind of the business owner who knows and loves his/her product.   Taking a little bit of time every week to review a new product offering or educate the customer about the various uses for your products, resonates extremely well with both search engines and the customers who will be visiting your website.  If you’re fortunate enough to have employees that are dedicated and excited about your products, then you have the advantage over your competitors by having multiple opinions and reviewers on your website. It’s extremely important to personally take the time to nurture and grow your web presence by delivering unique articles and reviews to your website every week. This is what will grow your business from a $40,000/year company into a $1 million/year company.
3. How is your inventory? Nothing is worse than having to tell a customer you’re out of stock on an item, especially after you’ve already collected their money.  Imagine a customer is in your brick and mortar store, have already checked out and you grab their bag of goods and tell them “Sorry, you can’t have that, but here’s your money back”.  Make sure your inventory can keep up with demand.  If you’re unsure, speak with your distributors about temporarily drop-shipping items until you can get the items back in stock.
4. Internet Pricing vs. In-Store Pricing Let’s be honest, the internet can be a very competitive market place.   Most online retailers are able to undercut their competition by as much as 40% because they are able to cut out extra employees needed to man their brick and mortar stores, plus the cost associated with keeping a physical storefront business running smoothly is eliminated.  How are you going to respond when a customer comes in your store and says “I found product XYZ on your online store for $19.95 and I see you’re charging $24.95 here in your store.  Will you honor your online price?” It’s not an easy thing to explain to your customer the supply and demand chain and the complexities of being competitive in a demanding online marketplace.   Many clients we’ve worked with have chosen to set up their businesses online under a different name to avoid this dilemma.
5. Are you Patient? Many times business owners expect a “If you build it – they will come” mentality to creating an e-commerce store.  Unfortunately this doesn’t happen.  Although much can be done to increase sales quickly after a launch, you most likely won’t start seeing impressive numbers until 6 months to a year from the initial design.  You need to look at your online store as an investment for you business much like the stock market is for the personal investor.  With time and by nurturing your store along when it’s young, you’ll see exponential growth over the following 2-3 years.   We currently have e-commerce sites that are doubling in growth every year even after 3 years of being live.  These sites have seen a return on investment unlike any other business decision the companies have made in the past.

Taking the plunge into bringing your business onto a national playing field is an exciting time of growth for your business.   If you can get the above questions answered, you can enter this arena ahead of your competition and save your business the time and aggravation associated with unplanned growing pains. If you’re interested in talking with us about this transition, call us today (607) 821-0456 or fill out our online request form and let us know a little about your business.