10 Ways Your Retail Store Can Help Your E-commerce Website
If you look on the Internet, there are hundreds of thousands of articles that talk about how an e-commerce website can help boost footfall in a retail store. But, what if you’ve got a thriving retail business but an online store that doesn’t do very well?
You might not think it, but your retail store can help drive more people to your website. You can do things that will get people buying your goods and services online, share your website link with others, and make your brand name popular on social media.
With that in mind, what is the “secret sauce” needed to make that happen? Take a look at the following examples to learn more about how you can cross-promote your e-commerce website via your popular retail store:
1. Make Some Products Available Only Online
Have you ever noticed how some retail stores only make certain items available but offer an entire catalog of products to their online customers via their e-commerce websites?
One of the reasons for doing so is because they want to encourage more retail customers to purchase items online. Doing so means they don’t have to hire as many store clerks, resulting in higher profits and better prices overall for both retail and online customers.
For example, if you sold games consoles, you could offer a selection of popular titles in your retail store but a more comprehensive choice online.
2. Offer A Cross-Platform Loyalty Card
Loyalty programs undoubtedly help retain customers by incentivizing their purchases. Put simply, if they buy enough stuff from you, they’ll have a chance to get something for free or heavily discounted.
Many retail stores offer loyalty cards, but few provide cross-platform ones. You can capitalize on that by letting your customers know they can use their loyalty card both in-store and on your website.
Be sure to print your e-commerce website address on your loyalty card and make it easy for customers to connect their card numbers with their online accounts on your site.
3. Offer A Free Click And Collect Service
There are often times when customers know exactly what they want and seldom need to buy anything else. If your customers can buy goods online and collect them locally from your store, it offers them three advantages.
Firstly, they don’t have to worry about products being out of stock when visiting your retail store. Secondly, you could promote certain items to attract impulse buyers that have bought items online to collect.
Lastly, they don’t need to worry about packages not getting delivered because they aren’t at home; collecting their orders can be very convenient for some customers in that respect.
4. Give Retail Customers Online Coupon Codes
One surefire way to get more retail customers visiting your website and buying items online is when you give each retail customer a complimentary online coupon code to use. These could be coupon codes printed on leaflets or their checkout receipts.
For example, you could give each customer a coupon code to use at the checkout so they could get a 10% discount on their first online order. Another idea might be to offer free shipping from their first five orders.
5. Advertise Your URL Everywhere In-Store
Let’s face it: your retail customers won’t know you’ve got a website unless you tell them. With that in mind, it makes sense to advertise the URL of your e-commerce store everywhere in your retail store.
Getting plenty of website visits will help your ecommerce SEO (search engine optimization). Moreover, when you get retail customers visiting your site, they can promote your site by telling their friends and relatives about it, giving a much-needed boost to your organic SEO.
6. Put Up QR Codes In-Store
A QR or Quick Response code is a unique scannable code that people can scan with mobile devices like smartphones. Most modern mobile devices can scan QR codes through their camera apps or via dedicated QR scanner apps that are downloadable for free.
If you put up QR codes in your retail store, those codes can direct customers to your e-commerce website. You could create ones that go to your homepage or specific ones inviting customers to check out certain categories depending on which aisle they’re in.
7. Create Competitions That Involve Social Shares
You have probably seen online competitions that invite people to do something online, so they can be in with a chance of winning a prize, like a product or a discount coupon. Another popular concept is to have people share a social post online with their family and friends.
You could create competitions exclusively for retail customers where they could share a competition post on your Facebook or Twitter account with their fans or followers. That’s because some of your retail customers may not follow your social accounts online.
8. Direct Customers To Online User Guides
There are times where your retail customers might need some help with the products they buy from you. Having a good support setup is crucial for maintaining relationships with those customers, and part of that setup should involve giving access to online tutorials and videos.
You could give customers URLs or QR codes to scan in-store that demonstrate how to use specific products or inspire them on the different ways to use them.
9. Give Free Items With Each First Online Order
Let’s face it: everybody loves free stuff! With that in mind, you could incentivize a customer’s visit to your site by giving them a free product or item with their first online order. For example, you could give them a small low-value item with your branding on it.
10. Tell Customers At Checkout About Your Website
Last but not least, a simple way to get more retail customers to visit your site is by telling them about it whenever they buy something. You could have your staff ask customers if they know about your website, and if they don’t, give them a leaflet with the URL details on it.