Retail Hero: In many ways from which two most important is electronic communications and e-Commerce. Using fast Internet communications for card processing, for example, delivers the best shopping experience in-store. On the other hand, electronic commerce is here to stay. We all starting to believe the dream we were once promised. The philosophy that the customer must "see it, touch it and feel it" has been shattered with surprising results. For every customer who says "I would never buy a dress or a car online" there are 10 people who will. Selling merchandise online is just a beginning. Retailers, even if they don't sell from a web site, have an appreciation and a clearer vision of electronic future. The daring and dazzling days of the digital age are here to stay. The time is now to rethink the value of electronic commerce to your business and be open to the possibilities.
Some of the retailers may not be able to sell a lot online - for example, no one buys an expensive piece of electronics online from a retailer if they can drive two blocks down the road, get to the store and "feel and touch it" before buying. But still, when a customer makes a preliminary research on that piece of equipment sitting at home in front of their computer, he/she looks up competing Web stores, compares prices, checks the item availability and then drives two blocks to the store which has exactly what he/she wants. No bitter surprises, no wasted time - the online Web store has accomplished its mission by delivering the information about the product, availability and price in order to help bringing the customer into the store and make them to buy this item anyway.
Another example is a specialty retailer. With their unique selling proposition their audience can now be worldwide. With their deep expertise in a particular field (hobby stores, specialty sporting goods, accessories, health products etc. ), these retailers are not omnipresent like big-box stores, but the can offer something what big box stores cannot - therefore their appeal on the Internet has potential for world-wide reach.
A third type of e-commerce stores reflects the early stages of the coming reality of a fully-online world where your intelligent fridge will automatically contact the nearby grocery store to send in some more vegetables and fruits the morning after your kids have been hosting a vegan party. It is "shop online, get delivered" service where you order your groceries online and it gets delivered to your door within an hour - very appealing to elderly people who are advantageous enough to venture into the Internet, but in ten years or so will become very appealing to baby-boomers too. Of course, as usually the retailers-early adopters of the technology will be among the winners in ten years from now.
Whether or not one of these categories applies to your business, let's assess where you stand about using the Internet today. Your system must:
- Use Internet communication capabilities such as credit card processing, vendor ordering, customer contact, vendor catalogues etc
- If you have multiple stores you should exchange data over the Internet and collect information about all your stores in central location
- If you have multiple stores you must be able to check availability of the item in other stores in real time without phoning them
- Your business must expand its use of Internet and Web
- If you have a online virtual store it must be able to do connect to your retail brick-and-mortar store and do the following :
- Inventory synchronization
- Customer profile synchronization
- Payment synchronization
- Order synchronization
- Precise order shipping estimation by various services
- Online order tracking
- Buying pattern analytics for cross-sell ("customers who bought this also bought that and that")
- Content management system so you can change the content of your web site without calling the programmer
It is time to wake up. We are living in an electronic world. You are on the other side of the great digital divide. The Internet is about convenience and convenience is the most powerful of all buying motivations. The days of having to touch, feel and hold are over. Being a retailer today means that you are selling from store, online and a catalogue. You could be missing a major opportunity.
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