For this reason, some businesses are finding it difficult to convert clients from brick-and-mortar locations into online stores.

With 2020 proving that e-commerce is an imperative component of a customer’s shopping experience, businesses are finding themselves in a situation, where even if they have high success in brick-and-mortar stores, they need to make sure e-commerce is an active part of their experience to remain in line with the times.

Why grow e-commerce?

In the State of Consumer Behavior 2021 report, it was found that 48% of customers have replaced products they typically buy in-store with online alternatives. The 2020 pandemic-era shopping became a catalyst in growing the number of the population that prefers to shop online. By 2025, it is projected that there will be 285 million online shoppers in the United States.

E-commerce is continuously growing, and as the internet continues to take up more and more of consumers’ time on a daily basis, it is important to make sure that your business is not lagging behind in the endless fight for customers’ attention.

Ways to grow your e-commerce presence:

Here are a few routes you can try with your brand, to incentivize your customers to try out your e-commerce options, and to make their experience better when they get there.

Improve your online website

This is real low-hanging fruit right here, but nonetheless, there are multitudes of businesses out there using outdated websites and technologies making their online shopping experience almost unbearable for their consumers. Perhaps right now these businesses are satisfied with their physical-heavy approach, but there will come a time when the engrained negative perception of your website will cause your consumers to switch to competitors, offering a better online shopping experience.

Introduce offers to get customers in

If your business is currently heavily relying on physical customer footfall, use your brick-and-mortar locations as advertising space to promote your online activity. With every purchase, offer coupons or offers to your customers to make the next purchase online. On top of that, make sure to have your customers leave their emails when shopping with you so that you can integrate them into your email marketing funnel and attract them consistently to your online store.

Try-before-you-buy and returns

One reason why customers continue to prefer visiting in-person locations is due to the ability to try items on and check them out in person. One way to make sure your customers can easily switch over to your e-commerce site is to offer try-before-you-buy schemes. The online luxury marketplace first introduced this scheme in 2019 under the name Style Trial where customers could order up to 30 pieces to be brought to their home by a courier, try them on, and then pay and leave only the items that they liked.

If try-before-you-buy is too complex for your business, you could offer a hassle-free returns experience when customers order from your site, so that clients do not feel scared making buying decisions online, as they will know that if something is not as perfect as they imagined, they can always return it.

Implement new technologies

To really stand out in the e-commerce game, invest in new technologies with your brand to make online shopping more interesting. AR, for example, is a great way to boost your mobile app functionality, where customers can have the opportunity to virtually try on any piece of clothing or apparel or to see how a given piece of furniture or decor will look within the walls of their home. Experiment, be bold, and your customers will reward you for it!

Incorporate loyalty programs

Once you’re able to introduce your customer to your e-commerce experience, it is important to make sure that they are incentivized to stay there. If you offer a one-time promotion in your brick-and-mortar store, you need to make sure that once customers try your online site, they want to continue using it. That’s where loyalty programs come in, to continuously reward your customers when making purchases and interacting with your brand online. You can use points, tiers, personalized accomplishments, referrals, and much more to keep your customer active around your online brand.

If you’re interested in exploring loyalty programs for your brand, schedule a 15-minute intro with our team, where we can show you how Bubblehouse can revamp your loyalty solution.

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