It’s now time to get back to basics – for the first time!  Internet-integrated retailing is no longer limited to early-adopter enthusiasts.  Today’s online consumer is exactly the same consumer you will meet at the local mall or the local Wal-Mart.  Women e-shoppers significantly out number men shopping online.  Kids of all ages are now all over the Internet - hanging out in chat rooms, visiting cool product/brand sites, sharing the buzz with their friends.  And kids continue to be the number one product/brand influencer in the family.

Does your online presentation cater to the mainstream consumer?  Or are you struggling to compete catering to an increasingly less significant early-adopter clientele?  Do you know that only 35% of households visit your webstore over a broadband connection and 65% are still using a dial-up connection?  Do you know that your average online consumer spends more than 10 hours a week logged on?   And what her favorite online activities are?

What are the basics?  In this VIEWPOINT, we are going to look at five practical considerations – five basics – that every e-retailer must incorporate in his integrated retail strategy.

Mail-order catalog.  With a few specific exceptions, the Internet is and will continue to be the 21st century’s high-tech version of the mail-order catalog.  Delivering a world of exotic treasures, intriguing novelties, premium fare and well-priced necessities for consumers to browse through.  The direct-mail and catalog industry has a wealth of generally available information on which to draw in planning and executing your online retail strategy.  For example, limit major overhauls of your webstore to twice or three-times a year.  This corresponds with major seasonal direct-mail catalog mailings.  Between major overhauls, add seasonal sections, offer clearance sales or promote best-selling items as frequently as you want.  These targeted webstore updates directly correspond to the abridged "pony" catalogs distributed by direct-mail marketers between major catalogs.  Your customers will recognize and appreciate this familiar pattern of product presentation and shopping convenience.

Through a straw, not a fire hose.  As mentioned earlier, the majority of your e-customers are connecting to your webstore over a dial-up connection.  Simply put, this means that slick animated presentations will take many minutes, if not hours, to download to your customer’s computer screen.  Data-overloaded web pages may download incompletely.  Test every page of your webstore on a variety of computers across a variety of connections.  Is your webstore as quick and easy to shop on your neighbor’s dial-up connection as it is on the broadband connection in your office?  If it’s not, you are at risk that the majority of online shoppers are going to take their business to more accessible, shop-able competitors.

Excuse me, where’s the …?  E-retailers have come to realize just how easy and inexpensive it is to add new products, reposition products in a webstore and change product prices and product information.  Be careful.  Online shoppers are just like in-store shoppers.  They expect product to be displayed in logical arrangements.  They expect pricing to generally be the same from one visit to the next.  They look for daily or weekly specials, but don’t expect the entire store to move from one pricing strategy to another with every visit.  Manage your product placement, pricing and promotion activities within an annual or seasonal strategy.  Give your online customers a consistent and enjoyable experience every time they visit your webstore.

Taking it today, or can we deliver it for you?  Internet-integrated retailing offers the opportunity for you to provide the full menu of customer service features to all your customers, whether online, on the phone or in-store.  Local online customers want to be able to buy online and pick-up or exchange their online purchase in your real-world store.  In-store customers need to know that item they see in your real-world store will be the same item, at the same price, when they see it at your webstore.  And most importantly, your customer expects to be recognized as the same customer, whether online, on the phone or in-store.  Integrate your customer information records and integrate your online and in-store customer service procedures without delay.

Junk mail.  Unfortunately, sending a promotional e-mail to hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting online consumers costs less than mailing twenty copies of a printed message through the post office.  Your consumers are now dumping promotional e-mail directly into recycling just like the proverbial trashcan under the mail slot at the front door.  Do not add to this useless, wasteful clutter.  If your customers are interested in receiving news of your latest specials or features, invite them to register with your company online or offline, giving you permission to send them news of interest to them.  Advise your registered customers of the From, To and Subject lines that you will be using in your promotional message.  If your e-mail marketing looks like junk mail, it will be discarded like junk mail.

These are only five basics of smart and successful Internet-integrated retailing. Visit www.bricksNclicksPROFITS.com regularly during 2004 to get more "Winning Internet Integration Strategies for Today’s Retailer."

Happy retailing,

Peter

To contact Peter, click here

For an Adobe Easy Print version of this article, click here