Image credit: emeraldfrog.co.uk
“Two mistakes companies make, ‘I am not going to do any online’ or the other mistake is to go wholly online,” said renowned marketing guru Philip Kotler, who was in Chennai earlier this month. Of course, he was referring to marketing, but bringing in a semblance of balance makes sense in retailing too.
Walmart Stores Inc.,’s recent initiative of letting customers to order products online and later visit its stores offline for taking delivery, is a case in point. The logic offered: it could save time, as customers do not have to spend time interacting with front line sales staff.
Many Indian online retailers send online-ordered products home for customers to have a touch and feel of those products, be it a readymade garment (yebhi.com) or even a diamond necklace (caratlane.com), before confirming the purchase or making the payment. Some online retailers in the niche segment (like the US based Warby Parker, an online retailer of glasses) are also shipping different product designs for customers to try for a few days.
With all versatile Web 2.0 and social features, digital world is inching closer to becoming a real world. Even while conceiving digital retail platforms, retailers search for real world inspirations. Said Mr Jason Goldberg, CEO, Fab.com, a social commerce platform with about 7.5 million members: “We looked at it as, "How do we take the offline shopping experience and put it online?" You walk down the street in Soho or Brooklyn, and there's that experience of going shopping with your friends and having them point things out to you. How do you take that online? We needed to re-imagine it for the web, and that’s what the first iteration of our social feed is all about — how do you shop with friends and discover what they're buying, but also what they're liking or pinning? The feed is a great way to browse and discover, and from day one, we knew where we were going with social.”
Fab.com tries to build real-world-like features. For instance, its Feed lets customers discover what their friends and friends of friends are buying.
Customers can have a closer look of a product like car, using the enhanced online zooming technology, but when it comes to “kicking the tyre” – most prospective customers, auto retailers observe, have the "mindless gesture" of kicking car tyres while inspecting the new car, almost habitually or inadvertently – that can be done only in a real world outlet.
While designing their digital platforms and strategies, retailers could better identify the equivalents of 'kick-the-tyre' activities in their industry, and have customers happily perform them offline.
Walmart Stores Inc.,’s recent initiative of letting customers to order products online and later visit its stores offline for taking delivery, is a case in point. The logic offered: it could save time, as customers do not have to spend time interacting with front line sales staff.
Many Indian online retailers send online-ordered products home for customers to have a touch and feel of those products, be it a readymade garment (yebhi.com) or even a diamond necklace (caratlane.com), before confirming the purchase or making the payment. Some online retailers in the niche segment (like the US based Warby Parker, an online retailer of glasses) are also shipping different product designs for customers to try for a few days.
With all versatile Web 2.0 and social features, digital world is inching closer to becoming a real world. Even while conceiving digital retail platforms, retailers search for real world inspirations. Said Mr Jason Goldberg, CEO, Fab.com, a social commerce platform with about 7.5 million members: “We looked at it as, "How do we take the offline shopping experience and put it online?" You walk down the street in Soho or Brooklyn, and there's that experience of going shopping with your friends and having them point things out to you. How do you take that online? We needed to re-imagine it for the web, and that’s what the first iteration of our social feed is all about — how do you shop with friends and discover what they're buying, but also what they're liking or pinning? The feed is a great way to browse and discover, and from day one, we knew where we were going with social.”
Fab.com tries to build real-world-like features. For instance, its Feed lets customers discover what their friends and friends of friends are buying.
Customers can have a closer look of a product like car, using the enhanced online zooming technology, but when it comes to “kicking the tyre” – most prospective customers, auto retailers observe, have the "mindless gesture" of kicking car tyres while inspecting the new car, almost habitually or inadvertently – that can be done only in a real world outlet.
While designing their digital platforms and strategies, retailers could better identify the equivalents of 'kick-the-tyre' activities in their industry, and have customers happily perform them offline.