5 reasons to open an online store alongside your retail store

Owning a retail store is simply not enough in this day and age, particularly with the globalisation of almost every good or service available today. For retailers to compete they need to start selling online as well as having (or perhaps not having) a physical retail store.

You can market online for offline and online success

Because marketing can encompass an instore and online component it makes it much easier to have a much greater reach. For example, if you were to offer a promotion to get a cheap deal on Groupon relating to your business you could entice people not only from your local area, but also for a much wider audience throughout the internet. This will mean that you can potentially sell to many more people and improve your profit.

Low starting costs

Starting an online store alongside your retail store requires very little in the way of costs for starting up. You only really need an e-commerce platform to begin and can continue to store stock in the same place as before. Retailers are now following the trend of moving a lot of their business online because they do not have to cover costs like rent and other overheads that come with operating a retail store.

More sales and greater profit

What business doesn’t want more sales, well offering your goods or services online is the best way to improve your sales by reaching more people without the high costs mentioned above. This will translate to greater profit and a happier you.

Customer information

When somebody walks into your store, there is always a natural temptation to speak to the person, but what about those people that walk in and buy something and then walk straight out without saying a word? You know very little about these people and what has motivated them to go into your store in the first place. You know nothing about their interests, contact details and how they came to find your store. The beautiful thing about online stores is that you can track this information about your customers and use it to help improve your sales. For example, if you know that someone heard about your store in a local magazine and this happens with many other people, you can easily target this audience more and spend more money on marketing and advertising in this local magazine to improve your sales.