Why an Ecommerce Strategy Benefits Your Online AND Brick-and-Mortar Business
For the home furnishings industry, ecommerce is still a somewhat young concept. Furniture and furnishings have been sold primarily through stores and showrooms for decades, and those deep roots have created somewhat of an either-or mentality between online and offline sales.
While that thinking is shifting, particularly with the change in shopping behaviors that have been accelerated by the pandemic, ecommerce is often still deprioritized as a component of a manufacturer’s overall business. It’s usually a smaller slice of the business—but it’s also a larger opportunity for growth.
“Investing in ecommerce isn’t about taking slices from other sales channels,” said Luke Schonely, Director of Sales at BrandJump. “It’s about making the whole pie bigger.”
Making that investment doesn’t mean de-emphasizing your brand’s brick-and-mortar business, but ensuring that the online business has equal support to fully embrace the potential for growth.
Online Business Supports Brick-and-Mortar Business
Simply put, the business you’re doing online shouldn’t compete with the business you’re doing offline. Ecommerce can actually enhance your brick-and-mortar channel in a few ways:
1. By creating visibility for your brand. Being online is a form of marketing in itself, and all online marketing fosters awareness for your brand. An active ecommerce presence means more exposure on retailers’ sites and allows customers to learn and remember what your brand is about.
2. By providing your customers with research. According to a study by GE Capital Retail Bank, 81% of retail shoppers conduct online research before buying. And a Harvard Business Review study reported that 73% of consumers use multiple channels to shop. It’s where your customer is starting their shopping journey, and you want to be there.
3. By meeting your customer where they’re at. Just as people are researching online and buying in-store, others are researching in-store and buying online. Others stay strictly offline, others strictly online. Making sure you have every option available gives you a greater chance of securing a sale from any type of consumer.
How to Make the Most of ‘Click-and-Mortar’ Synergy
“There will always be a place in the world for both ecommerce and brick-and-mortar,” Schoenly. “But each has their own special, unique differences, and responding to those correctly will boost both.”
That means making the most of the opportunities unique to each channel. For ecommerce, that includes:
Develop product content for ecommerce. Shopping online will never be the same as shopping in person. But ensuring your product content delivers an experience that matches customer expectations will drive more online sales. That means detailed product imagery so the customer can see multiple angles, finishes or functionality, plus rich product details that can’t be showcased through imagery alone.
Partner with your ecommerce partners as deeply as your brick-and-mortar partners. Your online channels are a key part of your business, and it’s important to leverage these partnerships beyond the imagery and data it takes to get your product online. Make sure you’re engaged with your category managers or buyers, use the data they can provide, and be willing to work with them to try things that will drive your business.
Leaning into a different customer base. The online shopper tends to focus more on price point or product type. Some manufacturers have created a product line specifically tailored to this audience, so it doesn’t disrupt the brick-and-mortar business.
Tell your brand story. Whether through social media channels, your website, the design community or your retail partners, the digital world offers many opportunities for brands to showcase themselves to online shoppers. Creating brand affinity, not just awareness, will support every single channel.
“In the end, it doesn’t matter what channel the sale comes from,” Wilkinson said. “The bottom line is that, as a manufacturer, you still want the sale.”
