Brick-and-mortar retail stores respond to online-only competitors
Posted by joe
The growth in online retailing presents a very real threat to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Traditional stores have some clear advantages including a physical presence that allows customers to touch/hold/see/try on something before they buy or to be able to get what they buy now. Multichannel retailers offer multiple ways for consumer to shop — for example a physical store and an online store. Unfortunately, most retailers that offer multichannel options do a poor job integrating those experiences. Mitch Joel’s post, “Endless Aisles” (Six Pixels of Separation – The Blog, February 9, 2012) and an article in USA Today “Touch-screens create online shopping experiences at stores,” (February 7, 2012) offer a starting point. The image at the right shows a Kohl’s in-store kiosk which connects to Kohls.com.
What else could brick-and-mortar stores do to better compete against online-only competition?
Tags: multichannel
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Place, Retailing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I feel that this is really a very prominent issue for the physical stores. These new ideas to keep people going to the physical locations are great and I feel like this is why the whole “shopping mall” experience exists. One way that I think stores can stay competitive is with a loyalty program that is only available at the store and not the website. In today’s economy, everyone is doing his or her best to save money.
February 17th, 2012 at 11:01 pmThe advantage that physical stores have over online stores is the customer’s ability to pick up and inspect or try on the merchandise. If you could integrate the online shop’s vast, instantly viewable inventory with the physical store it would be the best of both worlds. Imagine a clothing store with a “virtual dressing room” in which a customer could put on special green screen clothing and view themselves on a large, live feed video monitor wearing any article of clothing they select on the online catalog. This would be a very unique shopping experience that’s doable with today’s technology (however this would require a significant investment of time and money to create and maintain).
February 19th, 2012 at 8:07 pmOnline retailing store is a threat to traditional physical store. However, the traditional physical store can’t be replaced by online retail store. Traditional physical store provides an actual product that customers can touch or try. Traditional physical store should develop a better website for customers to shop. Integrate online and physical store shopping experience to attract customers who shop online. Physical store should always have their product’s price online for shoppers compare price.
February 19th, 2012 at 8:50 pmWhile online stores do have some clear advantages (not leaving the house for starters) I do no think that an online store will ever put a physical store out of business. As someone who enjoys shopping, the physical presence of the goods, trying them on and such, will always be an advantage. However, I do think all stores should have online websites. I really like the idea Khols had. If you like a piece of clothing, for example, and they were out of it in the store, then having somewhere to order it immediately would be very convenient. Stores could also have discounts that you could only get in the store to attract customers. These discounts could be advertised online so online shoppers could view them.
February 20th, 2012 at 8:22 pmOnline stores are quickly becoming more of a convenience for consumers. Look at all the bookstores that are quickly going out of business. iPads and Amazon Kindles are completely destroying the bookstore industry and putting small mom and pop stores as well as major chains (Borders) out of business.
Consumers feel that they can do all of their shopping and browsing online and order items at their convenience. If they go to the store, there’s a chance that they can’t locate the items they are looking for. Online, they can.
Brick and mortar stores are going to have to implement discount and award plans with their consumers that is only available in store. Also, as someone mentioned earlier clothing stores have an advantage because consumers can see the clothing in person and try it on whereas online a consumer does not know what it actually looks like in person (size, color can all vary from online pictures).
The biggest drive for consumers in todays economy is time and money. Online shopping can reduce a consumers time, so stores need to implement better pricing or “special discounts” to customers who come into the store.
February 21st, 2012 at 12:49 pmI do not like the idea of touch screens in the store. That would just be another way of having less human interaction while shopping. In many stores if they are out of your size, they will order your size for you and let you know when it will be available, or they will let you know when their next shipment is. Although stores are trying to enhance the customer experience, I don’t see it going over well. The lines for the touch screens could get long and annoy the customers who physically want to shop. If the customer wanted to shop online and have their product so bad, they could choose overnight shipping. What needs to be kept in mind is that things go out of stock online as well. Leave the online shopping to the household and not in the physical store.
February 21st, 2012 at 1:29 pmI believe that the one thing that will help a brick and mortar is exceptional customer service. By this I do not mean being pushy or commission based, I mean having employees that are extremely knowledgable about their product and what works best for the specific and unique customer. I work at both chase bank and dicks sporting goods. What I like about chase bank is that there are many brick and mortar branches but we also use our great online website as a supplement. Even though customers have the ability to do everything online, we tell all our customers that we are more than happy to help them with their online banking. By doing that more customers will still come into the branch during business hours and do online banking when we are not open. At dicks sporting goods we have a kiosk to make sure that the customer gets the item they need even if it’s not in our physical store inventory. Online options should always be an added supplement to brick and mortar store fronts, never a replacement.
February 21st, 2012 at 1:47 pmWhile online shopping may be more convenient, there are still factors that give brick and mortar stores an advantage. For most shoppers, it is much more beneficial to see the product at a store before making a purchase. Also, many products purchased online are often returned to the brick and mortar store itself and in turn exchanged for something from the store. Online retailers do not offer a customer experience that traditional stores offer, and if the traditional stores can keep improving service it will keep customers from turning to online shopping. Another potential problem with traditional retail is product availability. When a customer walks into a store to make a purchase, they expect the product to be there. Online shopping, for the most part, offers products that are generally in stock or can be shipped in a matter of days. To conclude, if brick and mortar stores can improve their customer service and product availability they will be better able to compete against online retailers.
February 21st, 2012 at 3:11 pmIn a world today where online companies have taken over many markets, traditional stores have a hard time trying to compete. One way that these stores beat out the online competition is in the time between purchase and enjoyment of a product. A traditional store could offer a feature where aomeone can order a product online and pick it up at the nearby store the next day. This significantly cuts the wait time for a product as well as the shipping cost. This way, stores save money by shipping in large quantities to their stores and customers save money in shipping cost as well as have reduced waiting time for their product.
February 27th, 2012 at 10:37 amThe previous comment made was by me, Alejandro Martinez.
February 27th, 2012 at 10:40 amThis reminds me of the struggles Blockbuster is going through. The once very popular brick and mortar stores quickly became old news as consumers were made aware of different channels through which to watch the movies/play the games they desire. Blockbuster was slow to respond to this new threat, which ultimately was a huge contributor to the corporation declaring bankruptcy. For brick and mortar stores to stay competitive with these retailers who offer products through a more convenient channel, I think it is imperitive that they offer both choices to their consumers. As mentioned in this article, companies typically do not do very well at integrating these services, which to me is just a sign that they need to focus more of their resources towards a better integration. I think that a nicely integrated retailer that offers their products through both mediums will be much more competitive than those who only offer one way. Some consumers prefer the convenience and low-pressure of online shopping, while some like to personally see, touch and interact with a product before they buy it. I think offering both would also appeal to customers that just like to do their product research online but prefer to do their purchase online. A key to survival for any business is adapting to the external market environment and taking advantages of new opportunities that reflect consumer value.
February 28th, 2012 at 9:42 amI work in a brick and mortar ski shop. To successfully compete, we emphasize the one area that the online competition can’t offer: individualized customer service. We are professionals in the industry, and customers appreciate our expertise and our ability to handle their specific needs. We have found through the years that when customers buy specialized equipment such as ski boots online they are more likely to encounter issues.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:42 pmWhile convenience is certainly one advantage that online retailers have over “brick-and-mortar” stores, I believe the main advantage is that oftentimes the online retailer can offer the exact same product for a significantly lower price. This can present a serious problem to the physical stores because customers can come in and check out or inspect a product, and then actually go to Amazon, eBay or another online retailer to purchase the item. For example, if someone is looking for a new car stereo, they could potentially go to Car Toys and look at the stereo and ask any questions they may have, but when it comes to actually buying the item, they could find it for half-price online. This may seem like a cheap way to go about the purchasing process, but in the current economic environment, price has become even more important to most customers and many will go to great lengths to save some cash. Having said all of this, I think that the most vital aspect in competing with online retailers will be for the “brick-and-mortar” stores to find a way to offer their products at competitive prices, while still trying to maintain their “physical presence” with high levels of customer service. Unfortunately, easier said than done…
February 29th, 2012 at 11:23 pmBrick and Mortar stores definitely need to integrate some of these kiosks and automated support features. When I shop at stores many times I feel like a sales representative is constantly looking over my shoulder, which is why I sometimes prefer to shop online. I do like to go into stores to get information about certain products that I feel like I need or want to see in person. I think each store’s strategy will and should vary based on their product line. Josh mentioned Blockbuster for example, they offer a product(movies) that people don’t need to see in person to know what they’re getting, which I feel was part of their downfall. So company’s stores need to put a heavier emphasis on their products that people want to see and touch in person, to bring people into their stores.
February 29th, 2012 at 11:26 pmJust like news papers are becoming less and less popular, the physical location store is also going to the way of the past. Personally I use online shopping more to do research. It is easy to shop around, read reviews and find exactly what I want sitting at home. But I also still do most of my purchasing in the store because I like to hold/see what im buying in person. While this is the way that I do things I understand that times are changing and shopping online will become more and more popular for items that don’t need checked on up-close or taken home right as they are paid for, like groceries.
March 19th, 2012 at 7:43 pm