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Photo by NickiMM via Photopin
5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
Sylvia Garner
January 2014
DragonPoint, Inc.
877-542-0657
www.dragonpoint.com
Overwhelmed by all
there is to know about
doing business on the
web?
Focus on these 5 keys
and create a winning
e-commerce site
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1 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
Executive Summary
You’re already running a
successful brick and mortar
store, and you’re considering
selling online.
Discover the 5 ways brick
and mortar stores and e-
stores are different, and use
this information to ensure
your e-commerce site meets
your online business needs
and grows your company.
Don’t wait to launch your e-Commerce website! Online
sales in the US are expected to grow by an average of
more than 13% per year, with projected sales of $370 to
$430 billion in 2017.
How much of that $400+ billion will your e-business earn?
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2 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
Contents
Executive Summary....................................................................................... 1
Contents ....................................................................................................... 2
What do you already know? ......................................................................... 3
What don’t you know?.................................................................................. 4
1. Free from physical limitations of locations and business hours................. 5
2. You don’t have to hire any more salespeople ........................................... 6
3. Product delivery changes .......................................................................... 7
4. Change the way you satisfy customers ...................................................... 8
5. Virtual store navigation. .......................................................................... 11
The right team for your e-store................................................................... 14
You’re an online shopper . . . ...................................................................... 14
About DragonPoint ...................................................................... 15
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3 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
What do you
already know?
The knowledge you’ve
gained from running a
successful business
still applies, and it puts
you far ahead of start-
up e-companies that
have never run a
physical store. Here’s
why:
1. You understand your products, shoppers, sales cycle, and market.
2. You’ve already invested in marketing and advertising.
3. You have a clear vision of the problem that your product solves.
4. You’ve developed your sales value proposition.
5. You’ve identified your competition and know why you’re better.
6. You know how to manage inventory.
7. You have accounting and other back office systems in place.
Photo by Paolo Margari via Photopin
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4 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
What don’t you know?
A lot of what you already know will be applicable to your e-store, and you’ll
also need some new knowledge. But don’t worry. The new information
you need isn’t as complex or extensive as you might think. In fact, we’ve
identified five simple principles that a business owner needs to know
about creating an e-commerce site. Understanding these will help you
develop a plan for an e-store that achieves the tremendous potential that a
web presence offers.
Stores open 24/7 all over the world
No more salespeople
Can't bag purchases at the store
Satisfy customers you'll never meet
Navigate a virtual store
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5 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
1. Free from physical limitations of locations and business hours
You’ll be doing business around the world 24/7, and you don’t have to hire sales associates, turn on the lights, or heat and cool the store to do it. Your shoppers no longer travel to your physical store but browse from home during breakfast and place orders from smart phones on their train ride home from work.
Sales from smart phones and other mobile devices are the fastest growing subset of the e-commerce world. In fact, many experts track growth of desktop and mobile e-commerce separately, with the mobile online buying now called “m-commerce.”
What does this mean for you? Your website is your store, and shoppers
expect the doors to be open all the time, which means the server on
which your site runs needs to be available all the time and updates to
the site need to be applied without disrupting shoppers. If the site has
to be down (the store has to close), it should be well publicized and for
the shortest time possible.
Make it fit your business: before you launch your e-store, ask your
shoppers whether they buy online before breakfast, at lunch, before
dinner, or late at night. After your store launches, analyze times during
which orders are placed. Use this information to plan system upgrades
that require “closing your store” during the time that your shoppers are
least likely to be online.
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6 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
2. You don’t have to hire any more salespeople
No more worrying about
minimum wage and raises.
No more teaching salespeople
how to answer questions,
deal with angry shoppers, or
upsell.
What does this mean for
you? Your website will help
shoppers find the right
products by providing logical
navigational categories, well-
indexed search functions, outstanding photographs, and words that
paint pictures. Balance will be critical: you want high quality photos,
but you need for pages to load quickly. You want to give shoppers
enough information to understand your products, but you need to make
pages easy to read and avoid putting too much text on a page.
You’ll create new ways to interact with shoppers, such as offering a Chat
window for immediate, personal help, and providing opportunities for
shoppers to rate products and submit feedback.
You may use popup windows that provide more details about frequently
asked questions such as shipping methods and policies on returns.
Instead of hiring many salespeople, hire a few web-savvy experts to
photograph your products and write text that will turn shoppers into
buyers.
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7 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
Make it fit your business: ask your salespeople about the kinds of
questions they answer every day and then identify creative ways to
proactively answer these questions for web shoppers. For example,
shoppers in a retail clothing store may ask about care instructions for
products, so you include this information on each page that displays
details about an item. If the sales team provides you with many
different types of questions (and answers), you may want to create an
easy-to-search Frequently Asked Questions page for your e-store.
3. Product delivery changes
Your sales associates won’t be putting purchases into bags, so you need new ways to reliably deliver products. Shoppers can no longer walk into the store to return items, so you also need new ways for your buyers to easily return products and explain why (not ordered, didn’t fit, didn’t like, etc.).
What does this mean for you? You’ll evaluate options like free and flat
rate shipping; pros and cons of various carriers; and whether to allow
your shoppers to choose a specific shipper (UPS vs. FedEx) or just a
delivery speed (next day, 2-days, 7 days, etc.).
Even the best shipper sometimes loses or damages products during
transit, so you’ll have to factor lost and damaged goods into product
pricing and shipping
charges.
Do you want to provide a
tracking number for each
online purchase? If so,
you’ll need technical experts
to integrate your e-store
with your shippers.
Will you include return
labels and instructions when you Miskan via photopin.com
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8 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
ship products? Or will shoppers call to get authorization for a return?
These decisions impact shipping processes and information that is
displayed on your site.
You’ll want to capture information about why buyers are returning
products so you can analyze the data and correct shortcomings of the
site (or the products). For example, if many clients return clothing
because it didn’t fit, perhaps your web store needs a quick way for
shoppers to check sizes based on body measurements.
Make it fit your business: Gather input from your customer service
team about challenges they face with product returns. Meet with
shippers to discuss potential shipping volumes and pricing options. Ask
your shoppers to tell you about their best and worst experiences with
shipping and returning products purchased online. Analyze historical
data about in-store product returns. Use all of this information to create
cost-effective, satisfying shipping and return policies.
4. Change the way you satisfy customers
If you’re really proud of the fantastic team you’ve assembled in customer care, I have bad news for you: you can no longer depend on them to keep your customers happy.
Or maybe you’re thrilled that you won’t have to worry that your best
customer care rep’s morning included oversleeping, getting stuck in a
traffic jam, and spilling coffee all over his pants and car before the first
irate shopper walks in – without a receipt.
Whether you love your customer service department or lose sleep over
it, it’s one of the most critical parts of your business because it’s often
your last opportunity to turn an unhappy shopper into a satisfied one.
Why is this important? Shoppers in online and traditional retail stores
have always told friends about their favorite shopping experiences and,
more often, shared their shopping nightmares. All of those “Share This”
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buttons you see on web pages allow shoppers to spread the word about
your great products (or awful ones), and studies show that more than
50% of shoppers use these recommendations to make buying decisions
(http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-shopping_b48287).
Think that your shoppers are only using Twitter and Facebook? Think
again after you take a look below at the opportunities for “sharing.”
birgerking via photopin
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10 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
What does this mean for you? In a brick and mortar store, you carefully
select customer service representatives who can calm unhappy
shoppers. The same care should be used to choose the people who will
talk to web shoppers. Your customer service reps who meet face to face
with shoppers have the authority to make decisions to fix customer
complaints; the same type of authority needs to be available to reps
working with web shoppers.
In addition to providing great customer service by phone, the web
provides other ways to satisfy shoppers. Many sites use a messaging
tool to allow visitors to immediately have a conversation with a
representative (“chat”). Consider creative solutions; maybe you want
to expand from “chatting” to “Skyping” so that your unhappy shoppers
can show problems to your reps instead of being limited to using words
to describe them.
Promises such as “100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back”
are a great way to encourage first time buyers to try your products;
even if the buyer don’t like the product, immediately refunding money is
likely to ensure the shopper doesn’t take to the social airways with
complaints and criticisms.
Make it fit your business: ask your best customer service
representatives questions like “What’s the most frequent problem
reported by angry shoppers?” and “What is the best way to satisfy an
unhappy buyer?” Use the information to build a site that attempts to
avoid problems so you can minimize time correcting them. Interview
shoppers who have worked with your customer service team to find out
whether they were happy with the resolution (or not) and why. Use the
information to build your site, empower your customer service reps, and
maybe to improve your brick and mortar store’s customer satisfaction
ratings, too.
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11 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
5. Virtual store navigation
When a shopper walks into your brick and mortar store, they can see product displays, sale signs, and a floor plan diagram directing them to each department. If a shopper can’t find what they’re looking for, they’re likely to ask a sales associate for help, and you have a good chance of keeping them in your store while they browse.
When a web visitor
opens your store,
they need the
ability to navigate it
as easily as
shoppers navigate
your physical store.
If an online shopper
can’t find what they
want very quickly
(in seconds), they
go to the next entry in
the results list, or they type your competitor’s web address into their
browser’s search bar.
Don’t forget about m-commerce. Consider a mobile version of your
shopping site, too. Even if you start with a site that is optimized for full
sized monitors, test it on your smart phone to be sure that shoppers can
navigate the site and make purchases successfully.
RickChung.com via photopin
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12 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
What does this mean for you? Your website should be built to address
your shoppers’ behavior and to provide them with easy access to all the
information they need to make a buying decision.
Do buyers come to your store with a specific item in mind, or are they
looking for a category of products such as men’s or women’s clothing or
shoes? Are technical details important? Are your products impulse
buys or well-researched purchases? Do sales fluctuate seasonally?
Here are two examples of how this type of information impacts the way
you build your website.
Example 1: Mary types “2003 Toyota Camry Headlight Assembly
Drivers’ Side” into her browser. She clicks on the link to ABC Auto Parts’
website, which opens to their home page. She thinks about retyping her
part description into a search field, but she doesn’t see one, so she
decides to try the next record in the results list, ZYX Lowest Priced Auto
Parts website. The site opens directly to a page that has a great picture
of the part, text that confirms the part is in perfect working order, and a
“buy now” button. Testimonials from people who have purchased parts
from ZYX fill the page below the information about the part, and the
shoppers’ 9 (out of 10) rating is prominently displayed. Mary skims the
text and presses Buy Now.
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13 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
Example 2: John loves a great deal. He schedules his trips to physical
stores around their advertised sales, and once inside, he heads directly
for the big red SALE signs. On the web, John goes directly to his favorite
stores’ websites to check for new items on sale. His most frequently
visited web stores include a
home page link to products
on sale. On the Sales page,
he can choose to shop by
type of product, discount
percent or amount, and
other categories. His
favorite sites allow him to
see a list of all sale products
sorted by date the sale
began; he visits so
frequently that he only
cares about the products
added to the sale since his last visit. He also likes to sort products by the
date the sale ends so he can be sure not to miss something.
It’s easy to see in these examples that a buyer’s shopping patterns
impact your site. In big and small ways, everything you know about how
your shoppers make purchasing decisions should be incorporated into
your site’s design.
Make it fit your business: how much do sales increase when you display
a SALE sign on your store marquee? When you send an email blast to
your shoppers? Is there any relationship between the number of sales
and the size and type of signage you use in a store? Incorporate these
lessons and everything else you know about your buyers into your e-
store.
Photo via photopin by the justified sinner
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14 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
The right team for your e-store
You are responsible for bringing the knowledge about your business to
the team creating your new e-commerce site. Your team also needs to
include:
Web designers who can translate information about your products
and buyers into site design, navigation standards, product display
pages, a shopping cart, and a checkout page.
Experts who optimize your site so that it will appear high in the
search engines’ results list and teach your team how to add new
product information in a manner that drives sales.
Technical experts who understand how to write software that
creates a website that is fast, reliable, and achieves your business
objectives.
Creating the right framework for your e-store significantly increases
your chance of converting visitors to buyers!
You’re an online shopper . . .
You drive a car, but that doesn’t mean you can design and build one. You shop
on the web, but that doesn’t mean you should design and build your e-store.
Your e-commerce website may be the only impression a shopper has of you
and your brand; studies show that within 10 seconds, site visitors decide
whether to stay. Designing an e-commerce site is a balance of art and science.
Hire experts, or if you’re working with a tight budget, use templates developed
by experts and provided by many of the sites that offer a framework for your
e-store.
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15 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
Don’t wait!
Don’t wait to launch your e-Commerce website! Christmas 2012 online
U.S. sales exceeded traditional stores
and were more than 16% higher than
2011’s e-commerce sales dollars for
the same period. Experts are
projecting e-sales in the US to
continue to grow by more than 13%
per year, with projections of $370 to
$434 billion in 2017. The mobile
marketplace, m-commerce, is
expected to continue to be the
fastest-growing source of e-sales.
If you’re not already doing e-business, start now to be sure you get the
biggest possible piece of the $400+ billion online shopping pie!
Sources:
Internet Retailer, “U.S. e-commerce sales, 2012-2017.” April, 2013.
http://www.internetretailer.com/trends/sales/
Forbes, “US Online Retail Sales to Reach $270B by 2017.” March 14, 2013
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2013/03/14/us-online-retail-sales-to-reach-370b-by-2017-e191b-
in-europe/
Mashable – Business. “Forrester: U.S. Online Retail Sales to Hit $370 Billion by 2017.” March 13, 2013.
http://mashable.com/2013/03/12/forrester-u-s-ecommerce-forecast-2017/
Investeors.com. “Online Sales Growth this Holiday Beats Offline Retail.” December 26, 2013
http://news.investors.com/122613-684255-online-retail-sales-largely-on-track-this-
holiday.htm?ven=djcp&src=aurlabo
Shopping cart photo by Polycart via photopin
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16 5 Keys for Brick & Mortar Companies Building e-Stores
This document is for information purposes only. DragonPoint makes no warranties, express, implied or statutory as to the
information in this document. The information in this paper may be reused and re-transmitted provided DragonPoint, Inc. is cited as
the original owners.
About DragonPoint
DragonPoint has more than 25 years of experience designing,
developing, and enhancing custom software systems for
businesses.
Call DragonPoint today at 877-542-0657 to talk about your
software needs and get expert assistance the right e-commerce
solution for your business!