Author: Curtis McHale / Source: Practical Ecommerce
Many brick-and-mortar stores have found success in migrating online. But the trend has reversed somewhat. Pure-play ecommerce companies are finding success with physical stores. We addressed the topic last month, in “Ecommerce Merchants Embrace Brick-and-mortar.” We cited the example of Warby Parker, which found that having locations for customers to try on glasses led to higher conversions.
In this post, I’ll review three offline sales tips.
Cash on Delivery
The rise of mobile payments makes cash on delivery much easier. Columnist Richard Stubbings reviewed potential scenarios for this. Using a mobile payment platform, merchants can offer cash on delivery at checkout and allow shoppers to return — i.e., not accept — a product right at their door. This is better than traditional delivery, wherein customers have to initiate a return.
Merchants can take it a step further by allowing customers to choose their delivery date while they order. Many ecommerce platforms, including WooCommerce, have plugins for this.
I created a cash-on-delivery functionality for a local meat supplier that had no physical retail space. It allowed the supplier to combine orders and make it worthwhile to drive a few hours for, say, 50 deliveries.
Cash on delivery is much easier, administratively, if merchants can integrate online and offline sales in a single accounting, inventory, and payment system. Inventory management…
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