Before starting Samson Media in late 2005 I had owned and operated an online pet store named Lucy The Wonder Dog for 10 years. While I grew that business to the point where I eventually sold it, I felt at the time that I needed to have a brick and mortar presence in order in order to take that retail business to the next level.
Not wanting to go the brick and mortar route for all the lifestyle reasons that owning a physical store entails, I opted instead to sell the web-only business, which is now owned by a brick and mortar pet supply distributor.
The reason?
There were many, including low profit margins, undercapitalization and fierce competition due to low barriers to entry, but I believed then, as I do now, that the click and mortar combination was where the business had to evolve if it was really going to grow.
That’s why a recent story in the New York Times caught my eye about the successful melding of online and offline inventory from such traditional retailers such as Nordstrom, Walmart and Target.
Nordstrom of all places, and what retailer makes you think gee-whiz ecommerce more than Nordstrom ;-), has significantly increased overall sales by linking their retail store inventory seamlessly with their online inventory, allowing shoppers to seamlessly access products from either source by using shared warehouses and online databases accessible at the point of purchase.
While some web-only behemoths like Amazon.com have proved that online-only is ok, I think that the one-two combination of online retailing and a physical store is the recipe for retailing success.
What has been your experience with online-only or click and mortar combos?
Well Gene as you know, I am running a business called Schmutzerland as a side business to our branding and design company.
In the last few months we have seen a rise in our online sales. Our approach to the brick & mortar is to sell wholesale to independent shop owners. We have noticed that they feel no competition from our website, in fact several link to our site from there blogs. They feel the walk in customer buys on impulse and doesn’t want to wait for us to ship. We, of course, list all of our stores on our website as well. At this point we seem to have found a happy medium. So the more locations we have on our site, hopefully directs folks to a local store to get an immediate Schmutzerland fix. Plus, if a store does not carry one our items then the customer can buy direct from us. But we’re hoping our clicks lead to their bricks.
Hi,
I started my fair trade business on-line and then opened a bricks and mortar shop 10 months later – it wasn’t necessarily intentional to do it this way I just figured on-line was an easier way to start a new business while I figured out what the next step was.
In retrospect I’m very pleased I did it this way around as it is really difficult to find the time to maintain a website once I opened my shop so I can see that this side of things would have been neglected – and in this day and age an on-line presence is essential.
I think having an on-line store and bricks and mortar is a great combination – I get lots of customers in store who have found me on-line and it gives on-line customers an added sense of security knowing you have a physical presence.