Brick and Mortar Survival Guide in Digital Era

Are you expecting information from this blog regarding your brick and mortar store or to gain general information? Don’t worry, after reading this blog you will get the necessary information for your store but imagine, instead of reading this blog, you were having face to face conversations with me. It would have added personal experience to your learning.

Yes! The first point is to understand the difference of personal experience vs digital experience in shopping.  

Experience not just Sales:

One of the biggest advantage brick and mortar stores have against the online e-commerce stores is the personal experience. Receiving customers with a smile, a firm handshake and educating customers regarding products and services. It all matters if done rightly. In the digital era, everyone is moving fast and time is a rare commodity. So, respect this rare commodity by giving benefits to your customers, for example, give coupons, serve tea or coffee, educate clients by giving workshops about products or services like Apple does for their customers. 

Instore events:

Most of the brick and mortar store owners think of doing activities regarding their products or services, for example, Lululemon an athletic brand based in Vancouver regularly organizes yoga events for their community. Yoga experience coincides with their business, and they market themselves by giving pleasant experience to their customers. You can also organize:

• Launch party for your new product or service meets up
• Classes and workshops

These events can boost your sales. A factual support of this argument is the result of research by Event Marketing Institute in which they found out that 87 percent of customers most likely purchase the product after visiting the event of that store. Instore events also provide you the opportunity to target your customers on digital media. 

Social Media Presence:

By organizing an In-store event, you can target your customers on social media too. Create an event on Facebook, Instagram, and also send email invitations to your existing and potential customers. During the event, create photo and video posts on your store’s social media page. And after the event, ask for feedback or experience regarding the event from your event attendees. Capitalize on your positive feedback and improve on your negative feedback.  

Pop-ups:

Another very creative and smart method to sell your product is to have pop-ups. These pop-ups can be for one day, temporary for a few days or permanent. For example, Taco Bell recently opened their hotel, The Bell, for five days to provide immersive and pleasant experience to their fans. Now, this is a smart strategy to market your business through a temporary pop-up. Another interesting example of being a pop-up to permanent space business is Allbirds. Starting as a pop-up store to permanent space business in two years, Allbirds is valued at around $1.4 billion now. Which is a huge figure for any business to achieve in two years span

The digital era is challenging for brick and mortar. Almost every day, we hear news about the closure of brick and mortar stores. But surviving the digital era is not impossible. Just sit back and think of the above-mentioned methods to apply for your brick and mortar stores. Do what is best for your business and don’t wait around, as I have already mentioned above that in the digital era, time is a rare commodity.  

References: 

• https://www.apple.com/today/
• https://info.lululemon.com/about/our-story/lululemon-yoga
• https://cdn.eventmarketer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/EventTrack2015_Consumer.pdf
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/micheleherrmann/2019/05/16/taco-bell-to-open-hotel/#4a40fee83f61
• https://www.inc.com/cameron-albert-deitch/allbirds-2018-company-of-the-year-nominee.html