Translating Online Shopping into In-Store Purchases
PSFK sits down with Brickwork CEO David Munczinski to discuss why consumers won't separate web, mobile, and in-store channels anymore
ADRIANA KRASNIANSKY
Bought something in-store recently? Chances are, your purchase path began online. Today, almost 80 percent of shoppers who buy in-store start their path to purchase on web or mobile. Multi-channel shopping habits provide a new set of challenges for retailers—mainly, how to convert online browsing into an in-store purchase.
How can companies build and promote a seamless shopping experience? To gain some understanding, PSFK spoke to David Munczinki, founder and CEO ofBrickwork, a software company that is looking to blend these two channels by empowering local store teams with new digital marketing and customer service tools for clients.
PSFK sat down with David to ask his opinion about the current customer retail experience, and his visions for merging digital and physical retail channels.
PSFK: Brickwork describes itself as “the world’s first path between online and in-store shopping.” Could you tell us about the current link between the two experiences? Where is the opportunity?
David: Today, 90 percent of retail sales occur offline in physical stores. Yet, between 60-80 percent of consumers who buy in stores start their path-to-purchase online. For the vast majority of customers, there is a canyon between browsing online and arriving in-store to purchase. This disconnect results from physical stores having little to no connection to the retailers’ online presence. In most cases, the single-page, unoptimized “store locator” is the sole representation of physical stores online.
Retailers spend millions per location on leasing, build-out, staffing, and training, and given the way customers shop today, the first impression of that store is four lines of text on a store locator. In the specialty, apparel and luxury verticals, the unique assets of physical retail—from associates to dressing rooms to in-store services to store inventory–are mostly hidden.
The opportunity for retailers is in integrating their physical stores more deeply and robustly into their online presence. By giving new digital identity to local stores and integrating calls-to-action into the e-commerce experience, retailers can create a seamless path between the channels and effectively extend the front door of the store to the consumer’s computer or smartphone.
PSFK: What are some consumer pain points that you’ve identified, both online and in-store? Can you provide any best-in-class examples of retailers overcoming these challenges?
David: The pain points that we’ve identified are around customer experience and the byzantine workflows between online and store teams in this realm.
In a very simple example, customers want to know the correct store hours during holiday periods. Because of the effort in collecting and publishing this information online, many, many retailers surrender and fail to update, placing the burden on the customer by asking them to “call store for holiday hours.” The answer to this and many pain points lie in a CMS to power dynamic store content, which doesn’t require ongoing engineering, design and IT resources.
The leader in seamless experiences in the specialty and luxury space is indisputably Apple. They’ve leveraged intuitive appointment booking to invite their customer in from web and mobile to their Genius Bar when the customer most needs help.
PSFK: Though consumers browse for merchandise online, they are more likely to purchase in a physical store. Is it time for us to rethink what ‘conversion’ means in terms of engagement online? What are some ways brands can translate online activity into in-store engagement?
David: At Brickwork, we think it is really limiting for retailers to have only one call-to-action on web and mobile, which for the vast majority, is “add to bag” or “check out”. The result is conversion around 3-5 percent. A large part of the 95-97 percent of other customers have intent to go to a local store. So there is a huge opportunity to open entirely new conversion funnels with new calls-to-action to deliver customers from your site into physical stores. These new actions include “reserve a product in-store”, “book a shopping / styling appointment, ” and “RSVP to an exclusive product launch or event.”
With Brickwork’s appointment management platform, retailers introduce a new call-to-action online, enabling customers to share browsing and shopping info directly to an associate in-store matched to them based on their expertise. Customers enter the store primed-to-purchase and associates are better prepared for the sale.
PSFK: What does the future of shopping look like, for both channels?
David: We’re rapidly heading toward a post-channel world when we think about shopping. Consumers do not see web, mobile and in-store as independent channels where they buy, they see multiple touchpoints along one path-to-purchase. The retailers who win will meet the customers’ collective expectation of high service and product availability across each of these new touch points on their path.
