Trophex Newsletter June 2019 JUNE TEN 2019 NEWSLETTER | Page 14
PRACTICOLOGY
Nine things to consider
before setting up online
Before building your first website, retail expert
Martin Newman of Practicology outlines the
key things you need to consider to ensure you
win your share of business.
It is important to let customers choose how they shop with you, which
is why it’s key to have a website alongside your store as a channel for
customers to engage with you. It also represents an opportunity for
you to extend your reach to more customers over a broader
geographical area than you can do with your local store business.
What’s the customer value proposition?
You might also think of this in terms of what’s your USP? What will
make your retail business stand out and why will customers want to
buy from you? What’s the value to them in doing so? And how will
you price in relation to your competitors?
You also have to think about what the customer convenience
proposition will be.
From an online perspective, you need a clear convenience proposition.
What delivery and returns options will you offer? Will you charge for
these or offer them free? Much will depend upon what you sell, what
your average order values are and what your competitors do.
Will you offer click and collect?
There are advantages to doing so if you already have a bricks and
mortar store. You’ll convert more online sales customers to in-store
customers as they will meet you in person and physically see your
products, and you’ll be able to sell them more products when they
come in to pick up their online orders.
Site design
There is a saying that you shouldn’t get your creative (site design)
from technology companies (those who build your platform). You will
need someone to design the front end of the website and build out
your ecommerce proposition.
You also need to ensure that your site is fully optimised for mobile
devices (That includes smartphones and tablets) as that is where
you will reach most of your customers moving forward.
Hosting and domain name
The website needs to be hosted somewhere. Your web development
provider, sometimes known as a web development agency or system
integrator, will be able to help with this.
When you’re coming up with a name for your retail business, make
sure you check the domain name availability for your website at the
same time. There’s no point in coming up with a name for your store
that isn’t also available for your brand online. You can acquire this
from a vast number of domain name registration companies online.
Content and VM
You will need to produce content for your website. This is also known
as visual and product merchandising. Of course, you’ll also have to
produce visual merchandising, also known as point of sale material
for the store.
Product range Customer acquisition
You’re only as good as the products you sell. However the web also
provides the opportunity to offer a slightly different product range.
Unlike in your store, you’re not limited by physical space therefore
you can potentially offer a broader range of products online.
Giving you the edge over your competition. Customers can just walk into your physical store, but the same may
not be true for your website. First of all you need to ensure that the
website is search engine optimized (SEO). You will need your agency
to advice you on this, but in essence the site should be populated with
content and meta data that enables the search engine to crawl and
index your site.
Supply chain
Continuity of supply is absolutely crucial. So whatever you sell
you need to know that you can replenish stock in a timely fashion,
otherwise you risk disappointing customers.
Technology
If you’re going online, you need a web platform. This is the
technology that sits behind the front-end customer experience
and drives the functionality of the website.
It’s the same as when thinking about the technology needs of the
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store: an electronic point of sale (EPOS), and how all the systems you
use will talk to each other, as they will need to do so if you want to
offer click and collect. There are potentially other systems you might
need including systems to manage finance, stock, product information
and content.
JUNE 2019
This will also include relevant keywords that relate to what you sell,
a good site map that can be successfully crawled by search engines,
the meta tags that tell the search engine and web users what your
site is about and alt tags for images that provide a brief description
of the image.
If you are considering adding an online store to your
current retail business then call Practicology and find
out how they can help you.
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7323 0539
Email: [email protected]
Visit: www.practicology.com
twitter / facebook / instagram: @trophexlive