A Window to the Future of Retail Shopping & Online Shopping
It’s hard to work out what retail shopping will look like in a few years, but I think this article is a good crystal ball on where online merchants will take things to garner more marketshare in the short term. Have a think about what you do in your “downtime” each night. Quite a bit of my time is spent on the couch half watching the TV, part surfing social media, part looking at products
It’s hard to work out what retail shopping will look like in a few years, but I think this article is a good crystal ball on where online merchants will take things to garner more marketshare in the short term.
Have a think about what you do in your “downtime” each night. Quite a bit of my time is spent on the couch half watching the TV, part surfing social media, part looking at products like surfboards which is one of my passions.
A lot of the reason I am looking at surfboards is because it gives me nearly as much satisfaction looking at boards – new and old, looking for fins, learning about the history of the sport – as it does actually buying a new one.
That’s right, good old-fashioned “window shopping”.
The Australian economy has a lot of work to do to get back to pre-GFC levels, and household budgets are no doubt tight, but we’ve all become accustomed to getting that warm inner glow of material things we buy.
I think more and more people will turn to surfing online to study their hobbies more in depth in their downtime (God knows there’s nothing worth watching on TV at night these days, so it makes sense) and do a lot more window shopping via the web.
The web statistics are already showing a huge migration to mobile devises like iPad and iPhone. Some of the sites we look after are very close to a 50/50 split desktop to mobile. The conversion to purchases is lower, however.
For mine, there are two main possibilities for this: 1. It’s just a bit too hard to order from a mobile, or 2. The majority of people on mobile are – you guessed it – window shopping.
So how do you attract people to your website when they aren’t quite ready to buy but want to ensure they return when they do? As this article points out – “become an Editor”.
You should strive to have articles that complement the products you sell. Talk about the things people will do with that product, how it will enrich their lives through their passion (or through material possessions, but hey, there’s no judgements here!).
This type of approach with “rich content” will help bolster your image and will help emerging shopfronts be seen as “experienced and knowledgeable” which in turn drives reputation, referral and a “value add” to the actual purchase.
Visitors to your store may surf for an hour, read an article or two, and then only buy a $5 product, but next time they buy a bigger item it will more than likely be with the people who provide them with the contentment of the best window shopping experience.
What's next, Kook?
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