Want to Save Your High Street Business? Then Get Online…
There’s been plenty of talk about the demise of the High Street and how online shopping has wrought ruin on retailers. It’s something we touched upon in our blog last month while pointing out that value for money often lies in the real rather than the virtual world.
The Value of the High Street
High streets can offer better value for money and better service that the web: After all, talking to a human is always going to be better than talking to a machine pretending to be a human. That said there’s no denying the pain many shop owners are going through at the moment. Back in January the Guardian published research that showed that 1 in 12 shops have closed in the last 5 years and that in some towns the decline is a high as 1 in 5.
Such statistics make for depressing reading, but we believe – no, we know – there is a way to not only arrest this decline, but to actually reverse it. It’s called omnichannel retailing and using our own business, Coversure Insurance Services Poole, as an example, we’ll share some ways in which you can make your retail business buzz by embracing the ways of the online enemy…
What is Omnichannel Retailing?
Simply put, omnichannel retailing is the method of using all available routes to market so your customers can shop with you in a way that suits them. When the model emerged in the late 1990s it was known as ‘clicks and mortar’ retailing as it worked around a website and a physical presence. These days the range of channels has evolved and encompasses shop, site, mobile and even social media in a growing phenomenon called social shopping or s-commerce.
Omnichannel retailing has become the model for many big retailers – one thinks of Waitrose, Argos and Next – and it gives customers the chance to browse and buy online or collect in store. This level of choice is one of the keys to its success. A recent Google report listed three main reasons as to why a browser becomes a customer. These are:
1. Because someone has what they want at a price they like
2. Because they offer value for money
3. Because they make it easy
Point 3 is what omnichannel retail is really all about – that it makes it easy. If you want to people to buy your goods or come into your store you have to make it as easy as possible.
Is Omnichannel Retailing for Small Businesses?
The examples given above are all multi-million-pound organisations with the expertise and budgets to make this omnichannel approach work. But can it work for a small independent retailer? The answer to that is an emphatic ‘yes’. Let’s take our business, Coversure Insurance Services Poole, as an example.
So, we sell insurance. Our customers are mainly businesses – tradesman, taxi drivers, fleet owners and the like plus property owners, especially landlords. Three things unite our customers in terms of their needs from us:
1. They want to save as much as they can on their cover
2. They want the right protection
3. They want to spend the minimum amount of time getting it
In other words, we fit Google’s model to a T.
To facilitate this, we have a mobile-friendly website, we engage with our customers on social media by sharing information that will help them get the cover they need for less, and we run the office at 96 Ashley Road. In doing so we give our prospects and customers as many ways to deal with us as we can.
It’s a service-driven offering that has meant that since we opened in 2015, we have grown from a team of 1 to a team of 6 and have enjoyed fantastic growth – something that is rare in the insurance broking world these days.
Choose the Scale of Your Offering
What we don’t do is give people the chance to buy online – they have to contact us and talk to us. To many omnichannel retailers this looks like a fresh form of madness: E-commerce is at the heart of omnichannel. In our case, however, people like to have advice before they buy – something that is central to the whole point of retailing and which is, we believe, the thing that will save the high street; service.
Our omnichannel efforts then are tailored to driving footfall and calls. Through taking simple steps, by using all available channels, our expertise and the passion we have for what we do, we are growing our business in a cost-effective manner for the long-term.
So How can You go Omnichannel?
Your approach will depend on your business and its aims. As I’ve said, we don’t have a buy online facility for good business reasons, but that’s not to say that having an e-commerce function isn’t a great idea. To give you some help though, here are our top five tips for small business retail omnichannel operations:
1. Get online – everyone expects shops to have an online presence these days. If you doubt that just bear this in mind: 98% of all purchases now start with an online search. Shoppers will do their research online, viewing product reviews and talking to friends on social media about what they think before heading off to find where they can buy it. If you aren’t online you’ll miss this crucial first step in the purchase process. Getting online doesn’t have to be costly. You can use an eBay or Amazon store, but if you want to drive real footfall and brand awareness get yourself a decent website. With tools such as WordPress a basic site can be easy to create and don’t need to cost a fortune.
2. Be found – the web is a big place these days. When our marketing consultant began working online back in 1999 there were around 150,000 sites. Today that number has jumped to over 1,640,000,000. Being found has got a lot harder, but it’s far from impossible. The keys to it are:
• Fill your pages with engaging content – talk about yourself, your passion and your product and give browsers a reason to engage with you so they are more likely to buy online or come in and see you
• Make it look lovely and easy to use – the days of browsers putting up with hard to use sites are over so keep it simple
• Connect it to other sites – link it into your social media profiles, local business directories and ask other website owners for links to you
3. Be mobile-friendly – most sites these days are built using what is known as the ‘mobile-first’ approach. This simply means they work best on mobile, the dominant device for web browsing and Google’s preferred way of doing things. This is important for most businesses but for high street retailers it’s vital. According to Search Engine Land, 82% of shoppers undertake ‘near to me’ searches on their phone. They are looking to shop locally: make sure they can find you easily.
4. Use free tools – while billions are poured into online advertising each year, there are still plenty of free tools out there that can help you attract custom. Local business directory listings on sites such as Yelp, Cylex and Bing Business can all be of use. We find we get a lot of traffic and calls thanks to our Google Business Page. This is also free to set up and if you post regularly as we do, then Google will take note and will boost your search rankings locally.
5. Offer a flexible, attractive service in all channels – this is what it all boils down to. To make omnichannel fly you need to offer added value through each channel. This could be click and collect convenience, the offer of free advice and a cuppa if you come in to the shop or free delivery if you buy online (shoppers HATE paying for delivery). Whatever it is, just make using your business easy and painless.
The Future of the High Street: Two Worlds Collide
The trend towards omnichannel retailing has long since passed the point of no return. With 5G connectivity around the corner and the Internet of Things (the Internet of Everything?!) becoming a reality, the distinction between on and offline is only going to become narrower and more blurred.
Pure online retailers will have advantages in some respects – costs tend to be lower (though the whole business rates thing looks set to change), they can stock virtually anything virtually and they are open 24-7. But let’s not forget that real world retailers hold aces too. Personal service, advice, the ability to see goods at first hand and immediacy of purchases are not be taken lightly. Put the two together and the future for the high street could yet be bright.