Use your brick & mortar store to get more sales online

If you have a brick & mortar store and an online shop, you’re able to capitalize on the best of both worlds.

In this video, you’ll learn a few tips for how to leverage your brick & mortar store to get more sales online:

Grow your email list by signing customers up while they’re in-store.
Promote your online store with postcards in every bag.
Create interest by having a Shipping Area in your store, effectively showing off your online store.
Offer free shipping over a certain price point, and remind customers about the policy.

Hey there I'm Lucy Martin. I'm a digital marketer photographer and co-owner of The Wardrobe, Clothing Store. Now we've found having a brick and mortar storefront and being online provides the opportunity to capitalize on the best of both worlds. Of course you shouldn't ever think about them as two separate businesses. There are plenty of ways to leverage your brick and mortar store to boost your online sales.

First grow your email list with in-store customers. It sounds simple but signing up existing in-person customers for your web mailing list is essential. We know email is one of the best converting marketing tools out there. So, it should be a priority for you to grow your email list. When a customer is standing right in front of you in the store, it's just easy to ask them for their email.

We like to keep sign-up cards right at the checkout and encourage customers to fill them out, as we ring them up at the till. Now it's important to offer a value proposition. What's their incentive for signing up. We like to offer things like a heads up on exclusive deals, first look at promotions and advance access to our digital lookbooks. Next promote your online shop even after the customer leaves the store.

It's important to think about the many different times that you can actually promote your online store. We put fun postcards into every bag that directs our customers back to our online store. This works really well as when you find when customers get home and actually start using whatever the product is that they bought and they purchased, their excitement is really at an all time high.

Giving them an Avenue to immediately check out your online store without having to search it out, can turn it into a really quick followup sale. We've also found that once they've left the store is when people start showing off their new purchase to friends and family, who then might also want to buy one of their own. Having the postcard right there allows them to pass that on to others, leading to future customers.

And of course, more sales. It's also important to build interest in your online alternative while customers are actually in your physical store. Getting a customer asking you questions is an effective selling tactic. It shows that they're interested and curious and it doesn't feel like you're coming on too strong with a sales pitch. Now, we do this by having a dedicated shipping area near a checkout. This is where we pack up all of our shipments for the day we hold items that are about to go out the door.

To our surprise, it has generated a lot of excitement in the store. Everyone is asking all the time, what are all these boxes? What are these shipping bags? And it's just a great conversation piece. And we can instantly and casually start chatting about our online store. This is especially valuable for customers that might be coming from out of town. We're in a tourist location, so then we can give them a personalized explanation of our shipping policies, right in person.

Finally. Yes, everyone loves something free. Letting your customers know that you offer free shipping is important. Remind them in store or remind them on the postcards. Remind them as they check out. Sure, some folks like the experience of shopping at a brick and mortar store but some people also just think it's more cost-effective. Shipping costs are one of the biggest deterrents for online sales, perhaps that's why e-commerce can see a 75% cart abandonment rate.

We make an effort to tell our customers upfront, while they're in the store, all about our policy of offering free shipping on orders over a hundred dollars. It's a tactic to ease people's qualms about shopping in the digital world and remove that potential objection before they even get online. When you're able to take the best aspects of both your brick and mortar store and your online stores and merge them together, you can really start boosting your potential for sales.