With numerous digital platforms available, it is easier than ever for individuals and groups to begin a retail business online. Social media also makes it easier for young businesses to establish themselves, cultivating a dedicated audience and offering precise data regarding the demographics of customers. Once established, online retail brands can easily find great and ongoing success. However, many then seek to bring their brand to the high street.
While this transition from e-commerce to brick-and-mortar retail may seem simple, especially for those with a well-established online presence, the factors that form success aren’t the same. While these differences can be challenging to navigate at first, they shouldn’t prevent retailers from attempting to find their place on the high street. In fact, online success can be a great advantage when starting out.
Product Trials
Before taking on an entire shopfront, retail brands can test the water for their demand by offering products to already established retailers. By placing products with certain types of retailers, as well as in specific geographical locations, online retailers can learn about where and how their products might be most in demand.
By collaborating with certain brands, online retailers can even boost their own reputation, finding great opportunities to work with established names. Such retailers can then also offer feedback on how products perform, helping online brands to understand how to move forward on the high street in future.
Shared Retail Space
Some may have noticed a new trend among retailers, with many shops beginning to share their retail spaces. Cafes, health and beauty brands, as well as barbers, might each appear within clothing stores, offering complementary services within the same physical venue.
There are a number of advantages to this, with brands able to share potentially expensive overhead costs while simultaneously supporting each other’s sales. Promising that shop designs work together, with modular and optimised fittings, such as slatwall, shop aesthetics can even blend together to form an improved concept.
The concept of shared retail space isn’t as niche as it may seem either, and brands such as Argos and WH Smith have found success by coupling their retail space with complementary retailers.
Pop-Up Store
One of the most common first steps for online retailers, certainly before committing to an entire shopfront of their own, is to host a pop-up event. These temporary events allow retailers to bring their brand and products to the high street without a long-term commitment, gauging customer interest while also generating hype around certain products.
Pop-up events can be an opportunity to host an exciting experience for customers, even catching the attention of local media and online buzz. However, they also offer a practical learning experience for retailers, demonstrating what time of equipment and experience might be needed for a more permanent space.
If, following the excitement of it all, online brands still wish to move forward and establish a high street store, then this experience will be invaluable, helping first-time retailers to better understand the operation of brick-and-mortar retail.