If you have one or more retail stores and you don't use e-mail to increase store traffic, you may be missing a huge opportunity. According to the USC Annenberg's 'Surveying the Digital Future: Year Four,' 75 percent of Internet purchasers say they shop online, then buy in retail stores.

Think about that.

Three of every four consumers go online, search for products or services, then visit a retail store to actually buy it. Instead of ordering quickly and easily online, they spend time and money to travel to a store and endure checkout lines. At first glance, this seems puzzling in an era when people are buying online in record numbers.
If you think about it, there are many reasons why consumers would research online, then purchase offline:
They need the item today, not tomorrow.

They want to feel the product before buying it.
They want the item gift-wrapped, which not all online merchants do.
They're buying other items in the same store or at the same mall, making it convenient to pick up what they found online.
They're not sure of the size and want to try it on.
It's impractical to buy the product online.

What you don't want is for the user to research a product on your site, then buy it at a competitor's offline store. Make sure someone researching a product online comes to your place of business, not theirs. How can you encourage online-to-store traffic?

Use E-Mail to Boost Offline Retail Sales Posted by: DTB at 9:20 PM  |  Permalink