Leveraging Your Brick and Mortar Brand: Thoughts from Fellow Jeff Valles

Okay, we all are cooped up at home. Our normal workflow is gone and some of us are making busywork so we feel productive and to keep us from going bonkers.

Now that you have both a clear mind and time, let’s look into some new ways to grow your business. Have you ever thought to leverage your brick and mortar brand and go big time e-commerce? Have you thought about setting up or expanding your online store?

Why not? You know your business and your customers are already online purchasing and researching everything they can, and right now they are all stuck at home. By simply leveraging your day-to-day brick and mortar showroom business you can be THE player online.

Before building your online business plan, let’s dig deep to make sure your plan covers all affecting factors. Below are some questions that are not always included in online e-commerce business plans that are leveraging a successful brick and mortar showroom.

Please take a moment to review your target online customer and their unique needs. Keep in mind that your target customer in this instance is likely your current showroom customers, as they can’t access your showrooms right now. You may not even need to be fully e-commerce, but simply allow your clients to browse on your site and then receive a call or email from your showroom staff who may be working remotely.

1. Why are you adding an online purchase point to your retail showroom?
1. Make life easier for your current customers
2. Reach new customers that only shop for your core products online
3. Create a new online brand that focuses on a special niche of your product mix that you think offers an online opportunity
2. What special terms will your online customers be looking for that you might not be currently offering in your brick and mortar showrooms? 
1. Free freight
2. Expedited delivery
3. Free returns on all products
3. What factor will you use for marking up prices from your cost?
4. Will you have to increase your inventory to meet your online customer’s perceived needs?
5. What kind of customer service will they expect?
1. Email and text only
2. Personal telephone support
3. AI chatbot with personal chat support
4. Any mix of the above
6. Will you have to add any people?
7. What do your direct competitors offer?

I suggest you take the time to answer these questions. With this information you will be able to build a better selection site that will delight your customers. After all, if you build a go-to site you will have added another quality way for your customers to interact with brand.

P.S.: In the E-commerce world it is easier to start small with one profitable, underserved product niche. This path allows you and your team to market your E-store to a needy market and learn the unique challenges of the E-commerce game. Those that open their E-stores with thousands of SKUs covering many product categories can get quickly overwhelmed and damage the brand they worked so diligently to build.

Good Luck and keep sane...