How To Optimize Both Your Physical And Online Store Together

Consider All The Angles

Today’s market predicates online and physical shopping solutions. If you don’t have both, you are going to leave “money on the table”, as the saying goes. However, if you institute these options when you’re not ready, you’ll spend assets unnecessarily and could put your business at risk.
Every business makes mistakes. But some are avoidable. For example, if you’re not selling enough through your online store to branch out into a physical location, then renting a space and purchasing large amounts of merchandise could be a poor decision. Likewise, if you expand to the web too soon, you could undermine your influence going forward.
What you’re looking for is dual optimization that is simultaneously obtained. What you want to do is consider ways the one can buff up the performance of the other. If you’ve got some product that needs to be moved, but shipping it out is too expensive, offer a requisite discount for purchasing the product in-store.
If that doesn’t move things as quick as you’d like, then offer it at a discount online where the buyer has to pay the shipping themselves. You see the thinking, here? You want to use your physical and online store together, as a cohesive unit, rather than operating them as totally separate entities. Allow the crossover that naturally exists, and exploit it.

Online Advertising

Online marketing is also a great way to advertise both your physical store, and get people to land on your sales page. Content marketing that utilizes SEO is ideal for this, though it can be a bit of a “slow roller”.
Expect good results within a year, though perhaps sooner if you’re working with the right agency. That said, it is possible to see continuous returns through investment in the right marketing.
There are a number of different ways you can market online. Keeping a blog is a great idea, and having blog posts which are circulated through guest blogs is also advisable.

 

Credit Card Considerations

Now whether you’re chiefly an online business or a physical store, you’re going to need to have credit card processing solutions, and those can be expensive. You can pay anywhere from pennies on the dollar to dollars per transaction. You want to go with solutions that will process credit cards at the least expensive rate possible.
That said, you also want to be sure that you have the ability to process the right kinds of credit cards. If you can, you want to process every credit card out there; but sometimes that’s just not feasible. You’ll want to do a statistical analysis to ensure that you’ve got the proper spread. That said, one big-ticket purchase from an obscure card holder can cover the cost of processing fees for a year or more.
Check out this infographic by ExpertSure to get an idea of the credit cards used by the rich and famous; according to the site: “Business owners who take payments using a cred card machine…occasionally look up to…the face of a famous celebrity, film star, or political powerhouse.” If you have a limit of processing ability, you may miss a big-ticket sale.

Organic Developments

Next, you don’t want to force anything without some strategy surfeiting your efforts. If you just try things because it seems like they may work, don’t be surprised if they blow up in your face. There’s an old saying that is appropriate here: you get out what you put in. If you just put in theory and random efforts, don’t be surprised if you get random results.
However, if you take a strategic approach using some of the tips presented here, you’re more likely to see success in your efforts. One final consideration: look at your peers, and figure out what the successful ones are doing. You’ve likely got a few competitors. Take the things which work, and reject those which don’t.
There are a lot of ways to make both your physical and digital stores profit. In the end, what works best for you may differ from those around you. So don’t just go with the first option. Do your homework, and find something that is strategically effective, maximizing both stores through acknowledgement and capitalization of their areas of crossover.