touch screen monitors in brick and mortaar storess quotation

The 10-point multitouch PCAP technology enables plug and play multitouch gestures like pan, pinch & zoom. This is the same technology that is used in most smartphones, so visitors interact with it effortlessly

We offer a consistent form factor with extended product life cycles with no change to the exterior appearance and dimensions for 3 – 5 years. This is helpful if you are building them into joinery and want to be assured that any warranty replacements will still fit the display and future additions will match your initial touch screen installation

Touch screens are an emerging trend in retail stores as innovative technology that is being used to engage customers like never before. The experiences that customers are exposed to through the use of our interactive touch screen monitors is boosting engagement, sales and profitability. There are endless opportunities available for all types of retail stores, from grocery and clothing stores, to unique boutique stores, to incorporate touch screen monitors into their business. Read on to see how touch screen solutions can have a positive impact on your retail store.

Touch screens and touch screen kiosks can be used for so many applications in a retail environment, you are only limited by your imagination. Many touch screen solutions offer benefits for both staff and customers alike;

Grabbing attention – Grab your customer’s attention with engaging content to draw them deeper into your retail offering. Increasing customer engagement leads to increased customer satisfaction, that in turn leads to increased sales and repeat business.

Customer Service support – Touch screen kiosks can act as an additional Customer Service resource. Catalogues, product information, pricing schedules and FAQ information can be easily displayed allowing customers to access all this information and more at their fingertips. The added benefit of allowing customers to find answers to their own questions, is that it frees up staff time.

Opportunity to stand out from the crowd – Boost your own brand messaging through interactive touch screen solutions and provide a modern experience like no other. It can be seen as fun to use an interactive touch screen monitor as part of your in-store shopping experience and may just be the edge over your competitors that you need to close the sale.

Increasing sales – Engaging signage is a great sales tool to inform customers about other products they may be interested in. It only takes a few seconds to spark a customer’s interest and with the right approach, the initial interest could be converted into an impulse purchase right then and there.

Self-service – Self-service touch screen kiosk solutions have been shown to increase customer spending by allowing users to browse available products, choose their own preferred optional extras and see promotional material introducing them to new products. Self-service touch screen kiosks also reduce wait times through automated processes which in turn frees up staff time to focus on other Customer Service tasks.

Self-payment – Payment terminals can easily be added to most touch screen kiosks to allow customers to pay for their purchases themselves. This gives them the extra satisfaction of a ‘do-it-yourself’ experience, which leads to improved customer satisfaction.

Receiving feedback – Touch screen monitors can be used to seek customer feedback at the end of their experience. Questions like these all assist in continuing to help you improve your retail business. Did you enjoy your recent shopping experience? What, if anything could be done to improve it?

Collecting personal data – Touch screens can be used to promote competitions where users need to provide you with their name, email address and phone number. This in turn helps to build your database giving you the opportunity to reach more customers with the latest news and promotions through regular newsletters.

Save on printing costs – Information can be quickly and easily updated when using a digital solution which saves on printing costs whenever a product is updated or there is a price change. It’s a much more environmentally friendly option too.

Save on stock in-store – Touch screen solutions allow for endless aisle shopping experiences. This is where you can keep a sample of products in-store for a user to see, touch and try on, and once they have made their decision to buy, it can be conveniently purchased and delivered directly to their home. This means your retail store can have a smaller footprint, whilst still offering a large range of products.

Our touch screen and touch screen kiosks offer many features, and have the opportunity to add a range of peripherals to create the right touch screen solution for your retail business. We’re also proud to say that our product range is Australian designed, manufactured and supported so we are always here to support your Customer Service needs. Some of the best features of our product range include;

If we have sparked your interest in a touch screen solution for your retail business, read this article on why commercial touch screens are better for business or how to reach a wider audience using touch screen kiosks to learn even more.

There are endless opportunities available to engage with your customers via a touch screen solution, you are only limited by your imagination. When the benefits available for your staff, your customers and the profitability of your business, touch screen solutions really are worth the investment.

For ideas on how our interactive touch screen monitors make an impact on your growing retail business, from brand messaging to increasing sales, talk to our experienced sales team today on 1300 557 219 or email [email protected]

Tech Global helps retailers create an intuitive and highly engaging customer experience with unique touch screen options. Our solutions include ultra fast and accurate touch response which is critical for retail applications. All of our components are commercial grade; this means longer display life, unlimited touch activations and better clarity under hectic retail environments.

Touch Screen monitors come in many shapes and sizes. For the most part, a 15-inch screen will be plenty for retail and restaurant POS software. For other applications, such as informational kiosks, you may need a larger or smaller screen. The main concern when purchasing a touch screen monitor is what type of touch technology you will need: Resistive, Capacitive, or Infrared.

One of the more common and affordable touch technologies, resistive touch screens use two thin screens separated by a thin gap to identify cursor position. When you tap the screen, the screens identify the position of the tap and adjust accordingly. Resistive touch screens are great for restaurants and factories because the technology can be activated using anything- finger, credit card, pen cap, stylus, as long as it creates the connection it will activate the screen.

Most consumer smartphones use a capacitive touch screen. This touch technology uses an overlay of capacitive wires on top of the screen. Your body conducts electricity, and so when you touch a portion of the screen, the touch screen can identify a change in capacitance and know where you touched the screen. Capacitive touch screens tend to be brighter than resistive monitors, but you are limited in the ways to interact with the device. They"re often seen in gaming, customer service kiosks, and outdoor applications.

Infrared touch technology uses a grid of infrared light beams. When your finger, or a pen, or anything else breaks the plane of beams, the software identifies the location by which beams were broken. This technology provides some of the brightest colors, as there is no overlay whatsoever. It can also be sealed, making it more durable than capacitive or resistive touch screens. These monitors are great in harsh environments, such as automotive, food processing, hospital operating rooms, and ATMs.

There are other models available if you have specific needs, such as acoustic pulse touch screens or open-frame monitors. If you are having trouble finding the touch screen monitor right for your business, please call our sales team at 1-800-903-6571 and we will help you out.

To stay relevant in today’s competitive brick and mortar environment and compete against digital sales, it’s crucial to create a positive in-store experience that incentivizes customers to keep coming back. Thus, the need for point of sale touch screen monitors in retail to inform, entertain, educate, and influence is more crucial than ever to cultivate customer loyalty and create a positive and memorable in-store experience.

Digital signage can serve a multitude of purposes in retail environments. Overhead large displays can be used to inform or direct consumers, whereas point of sale touch screen monitor are proven to increase sales and make the in-store experience superior to shopping online. Retail touch screen monitors can also be utilized to customize experiences towards a customer’s unique and specialized needs, creating a personalized experience that makes their shopping easier and more efficient.

We’ve worked with a multitude of clients to achieve their goals while improving and enhancing their brick and mortar experiences for their customers. Whether it’s a consumer-facing display to verify purchases, pricing, or signature capture or a POP display to educate customers within the aisle end cap, or specialty selection, we have the retail touch screens and expertise to provide the right POStouch screen monitor system for any retail need.

The implementation of these colorful display screens, used to inform, incent and challenge a shopper, can not only increase footfall and boost your sales but also help you to educate your customer about what your company has to offer. This type of multi-media marketing can greatly enhance your shopper’s experience by:

· Offering a fun learning experience about your product or service that also helps them remember what you are all about long after they have left the store.

· Enabling customers to look at stock or inventory that you may not necessarily have on view on the floor but that they can order directly or later online (aka “endless aisle”)

· Providing remote consultation and quotes from experts using video, which is particularly useful for products or services that are customized or that require a bit of advice before using.

Remember that the customer who becomes engaged with your interactive screen is already a targeted prospect and more likely to contact you in the future to buy your product or service, even if they don’t actually purchase it on the spot.

· Running in-store-only promotions that both encourage visits to your brick-and-mortar stores as well as incent consideration of same day purchases.

· Giving them an opportunity to see the product or service used in a context that they would not normally consider, thus increasing their willingness to buy it.

Did you know that at one point in IntuiLab’s history, we focused entirely on retail? It’s true and that experience greatly influenced IntuiFace development. For example, our ability to integrate with third party APIs - everything from back office ERP applications to Web Services - was born out of a need to build such integrations for our retail clients.

According to researchersDr. L.D. Rosenblum, Dr. Harold Stolovitch and Dr. Erica Keeps, here is the breakdown of how our five sense processes information:

Clearly, human beings are highly visual in nature, and this is a fact that is particularly important when you’re running a physical store. One of the main reasons why people decide to shop offline is to see merchandise in person, and this is all the more reason to design winning retail displays.

The best way to make a lasting impression is to immerse your customers in a particular environment or setting. Check out the example below. The displays themselves are simple, and the retailer only makes use of a few simple racks and fixtures.

But because all the other elements of the store (i.e., the color of the walls, the cold-weather items, and the text “it’s cold outside”)  follow a unifying theme, the overall effect is quite powerful. It engulfs customers into the “cool” theme of the store, creating an immersive experience.

Keep this example in mind for your next display. Recognize that you don’t necessarily have to build something fancy. If you have a strong theme and ensure that all the components of your shop are in line with the story you want to tell, you can create a compelling and immersive experience using just a few simple products and fixtures.

In a survey by Ripen eCommerce, they found that the top reason people shop in brick and mortar stores instead of ecommerce is that physical retail enables shoppers to touch and feel items in person.

The key takeaway here? Create displays that encourage people to touch and feel for you products. If your items are sitting on a shelf or a table while still inside their respective boxes, you could be missing the chance to connect with your customers.

So, take your products out of their packaging and get shoppers to really experience your merchandise. Ulta Beauty, for example, does this with their hairdryers. While other stores keep the products in their boxes, Ulta has their hairdryers out for people to touch and feel them.

Need an easy and affordable way to breathe life into your visual merchandising? Use plants. Doing so doesn’t just make your displays more attractive, they can also create healthier and more pleasant shopping experiences.

In an interview with Retail Focus, Joey-Michelle Hutchinson, associate vice president at CallisonRTKL, said that having more greeneries in retail environments “makes them feel more inviting, which in turn decreases customer stress levels and increases their dwell time.”

Having more “green” displays clearly has some benefits, so consider incorporating plants into your designs.For inspiration, look no further than homeware retailer Harper & Grey House. Plants are a staple in their displays and the greens do a tremendous job in accentuating their merchandise.

Cross-merchandising is a subtle but effective way toincrease basket sizes and average order values. The practice promotes product discovery and entices shoppers to look at items that complement what they’re already buying.

There are a number of ways to implement cross-merchanding. One is to merchandise items that go together. You could, for example, create a display with a blouse, jacket, and matching purse.

Another idea? Display gift cards next to relevant products. Have a look at what Target is doing. The retailer has some baby-centric gift cards next to some toys in the store’s baby section to remind shoppers about their gift cards.

Speaking of little ones, have you considered creating kid-friendly displays? The practice can be quite effective particularly if you cater to Gen X and Millennial consumers.

Even the most creative displays will fall flat when they’re not well-lit. So invest, in the equipment to make sure that your products are displays in the best possible light.

Is your store on the small side? Consider using portable displays so you can make better use of your space. Such displays are easier to move so you can quickly re-merchandise your shop or make room for other things if necessary.

Portable displays can also help in keeping your visual merchandising focused and on-point. Since you have limited space, you’re forced to only display the most important and most high-impact products.

The following cookware display at Crate & Barrel does exactly that. The top part of the display has images of the items for sale along with a quick description of what each product is and what it does.

Colors can make or break your retail displays, which is why it’s essential to select the right color scheme. A big part of this will be driven by the colors of your products. If most of your items are come in pastel shades for instance, then those colors will be quite common in your displays.

That being said, how those products are displayed together matters a great deal. There are various ways to mix and match colors, so have a think about how you’ll do it in your displays.

The folks at Live By The Sword salon did an amazing job merchandising their shelf of Amika products, which come in a variety of colors.By really leaning into the colorful nature of Amika’s items, they were able to set up a vibrant display that pops.

Take this example from The LifeStyled Company. The team created a display featuring Babe Australia’s products, most of which come with predominantly white boxes and labels.

Timely displays are sure to grab the attention of your customers. Keep a close eye on your retail calendar and make sure that your visual merchandising coincides with relevant shopping events and seasons.

For instance, during last year’s back-to-school season, Target dedicated an entire corner to school supplies and relevant merchandise. The area of the store was filled with large, back-to-school displays that were impossible to miss.

If you’re running multiple stores, make sure your displays reflect the tastes and preferences of each location. Pay attention to local trends and popular products in the area and ensure they’re front and center in your displays.

You can shed light on these insights using your POS reporting and retail analytics. Identify the top categories or items in different cities and use the data to inform your merchandising decisions.

It also helps to call out the name of each town or city. For instance, the homeware retail chain Home Goods has a sign that reads, “Happy to Be in Cerritos” in its Cerritos branch.

Got a bunch of quotable quotes up your sleeve? See if you can incorporate them into your retail displays. When done right, a bit of text can complement your products and encourage shoppers to take a closer look.

And as a bonus, walls or displays with quotable quotes are a magnet for Instagram users. With the right display, you’re bound to gain a bunch of social shares and tags along the way.

If you’re looking for ways to showcase your full product lines without cramming your shelves and racks with too much merchandise, then see if you can use technology to “extend” your displays.

Case in point: when the online retailerShowpolaunched their pop-up store in Los Angeles, they chose to display a small selection of products in the shop.

Showpo even took things a step further and used another table to capture customers’ details in-store. To encourage people to provide their email, they threw a 15% discount that can be redeemed online.

In retail, space conveys value. The more space there is in a store or display, the higher the perceived value of the merchandise. This why many luxury retailers display items in standalone cases while discount stores overstuff their shelves with merchandise.

The right amount of space to use in your store depends on how you want to be perceived. But one thing is clear: if don’t want people to think that your products are cheap, then you’ll want to use fewer items in your display.

Take a look at this window fromSaks Fifth Avenue. The display features a single mannequin and table on which there’s just one pair of shoes. Aside from the paintings on the right, there aren’t a lot of details to distract people from the products.

Upcycling — the practice of using old or discarded materials to create something new — can help you build out-of-the-box retail displays. In the example below, we can see that the retailer used old chairs to create racks on which to hang their merchandise.

Now, don’t get us wrong: traditional racks and fixtures are still essential. But hopefully, this example encourages you to reimagine the use of old items. You never know — that old chair, box, or frame could be just the thing that would get your display to stand out.

If you’re celebrating a special holiday or occasion in your store, use your shop displays to show your festive side. Materials like balloons, tassels, garlands and other party supplies could help your displays pop.

With retail being more competitive than ever, there’s just no room for uninspired and mediocre retail displays. Now, more than ever, you need to constantly cook up in-store visuals can stop people in their tracks and encourage them to buy, share, and come back.

And remember that no matter what kind of display you have, it won’t be effective if it doesn’t showcase merchandise that your customers want to buy. That’s why it’s important to make data-backed decisions when it comes to merchandising. Use your POS or inventory management system to generate sales and product reports that will inform your decisions around what items to show off in your store.

Francesca Nicasio is Vend"s Retail Expert and Content Strategist. She writes about trends, tips, and other cool things that enable retailers to increase sales, serve customers better, and be more awesome overall. She"s also the author of Retail Survival of the Fittest, a free eBook to help retailers future-proof their stores. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Google+.

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Point-of-purchase (POP) retail displays offer a revenue boost for brands and brick-and-mortar businesses. POP displays can be placed throughout the store, not just at the register. Customers get a second chance to see a product, away from crowded shelves where they get lost among other items. POP displays encourage customers to try a product they might not usually buy.

Even with the growth of e-commerce shopping reducing traffic in brick-and-mortar stores before and during the pandemic, one of the key reasons people still choose shopping in-person is to see, touch, and feel the items they purchase up close. For many shoppers, it’s an experience they can’t get online and one they don’t want to give up in the purchase process.

POP displays have had to change with the times, too. Advertisements bombard consumers in their interactions online, who are getting more adept at tuning out the messages delivered to their computers and devices. So, getting creative is vital, and helping your product stand out in-store with a retail display is one way to do that.

When you’re developing your point-of-purchase display ideas, keep the consumer front and center. That means using creative ideas to help gain interest from consumers. Simply organizing your merchandise isn’t enough. The display itself needs to offer some value or interest. Based on our decades of experience designing, building, delivering, and installing displays for products in animal health, telecommunications, sporting goods, cannabis, and clothing, check out our top six tips to boost your POP display’s performance.

Where you put your display is as important as how it looks. Make sure that the area of the store is the right place for your products. If your POP display isn"t performing well, it might simply be in the wrong place. Remember to consider the target audience for your product when you choose the placement. For example, a display of boxed chocolates might do very well in the flower section of a grocery store, but not as well near the health food or diet supplements.

Digital and non-digital experience displays can give the consumer an exciting and interactive encounter. Displays that have quizzes or lead the customer through purchasing decisions earn a lot of attention. They bring value to the customer, increasing brand recognition, which works well for brands with several offerings. For instance, a cannabis brand could use a touchscreen digital display to quiz customers and direct them to the best products for the experience desired.

Sampling a product from a tester increases the likelihood your customer will become more familiar with the product. Perfumes, lotions, and colognes are all about the fragrance. It"s easier for customers to commit to a scent when they can smell it.

Enticing customers to buy is the point of a display. Keeping it fully stocked and neat is more appealing to the eye, and it also means the customer will have a full range of choices. When a display gets a lot of attention, customers tend to shift the product out of its ideal place. If there are options to test products, like makeup, stains or spills are possible, requiring employees to maintain the display during store hours.

To ward off brand fatigue, change your POP displays often. One way to add a fresh take to your displays is to make them seasonal. Different products suit customers" needs for holidays, vacations, graduation, or any number of occasions. When planning your displays, consider the season because it may impact your customers" purchasing decisions.

How many of your customers share posts on social media? Probably a lot of them. Building a display that offers cool graphics or something interesting that your shoppers love to post online is a fantastic marketing idea for the store and the brand.

Brands that design their retail POP displays with any of the above tips are more likely to increase revenue. POP displays encourage impulse purchases and give you another channel to develop a relationship with your target customer. They offer prime marketing space for businesses and brands. When done well, they give you another way to engage your consumer to build conversion and loyalty.

With the upcoming holidays 2016, I’m sure like many other offline retail business owners you are all set to pep up your stores to ensure an overall excellent consumer shopping experience and make the best out of the busiest selling days of the year.

It’s nothing new that traditional store owners pressurized by the online sellers. This may be due to many reasons that include pricing strategy, wider product offerings, and offering product delivery at customer’s convenience. However, considering a report from comScore.com focusing on the 2015 Holiday Season Sales For Total Commerce, brick-and-mortar resulted to 2.0 % growth points compared to online that recorded with 1.9%.

I’m sure the above can boost confidence among start-ups and growing brick-and-mortar store owners, however, not focusing on the consumer’s ever-changing needs can lose you many potential opportunities, especially during holiday season.

Technology has come a long way that it is helping retailers with multiple opportunities to attract, as well as, engage consumers; however not many are still taking an advantage of it.

To make it easy, below are effective tips and tricks that can allow brick-and-mortar store owners to enhance consumer’s experience even after Holiday Season 2016.

Online stores owners can surely be your major rivalry, however, with increasing number of departmental stores how can you attract consumers towards your offline stores.

The environment of your store is the foremost thing that can attract and retain consumers towards your brand. Therefore, being loud about the happy moments in-store can give an idea about consumer’s shopping experience with your brand, who in turn, may not mind trying your offline brand for their holiday and future purchases.

Trick: Social media sites like “Facebook,” “Instagram” and “Pinterest” being influential platforms for making purchase decisions, sharing images of your happy customers can automatically help you increase awareness about your brand among potential consumers with time.

Targeting your existing customers can be helpful to maintain sales flow, as well as, consider being a direct voice for your brand. Therefore, with the help of a contact management software understanding your favorite customer’s purchase preferences and targeting them with special offers can make stick with offline store over your competitor’s deals including online stores too.

Trick: Email marketing can be an effective approach for your loyalty promotional programs; therefore, targeting your best customers with special discounts on purchase of products they would like will automatically keep your brand alive in their mind for making future purchases too.

Whether you own a single store or a chain of stores, having an ability to connect with passersby can be an effective tactic to attract potential consumers on-the-go. Therefore, instead of blindly targeting your consumer’s why not attract them with an offer they would not want to miss.

Trick: As per Pew Research Center, 74% of adult smartphone owners ages 18 and older said they use their phone to get directions or information based on their current location. Location-based mobile marketing will allow you be a part of the larger audience who daily use their mobile devices to look-up for nearest areas and location they wish to make product purchases.

For instance, considering this holiday season many shoppers would be strolling around shopping zones trying to spot the best deals and offers. Therefore, taking an advantage of location-based marketing you can instantly target passersby with discounts and messages that make sense to them and relate their preferred locations too.

With the increasing flexibility of allowing consumers to look up for product and purchase-related information online, is making it difficult for brick-and-mortar store owners to attract consumers to their brand. However, by adopting technology can help offline store owners fill the gap between their brand and modern consumer’s experience.

As an offline store owner, you may try multiple tactics to make consumers enter your store, especially during the upcoming holiday season 2016. However, if you still think displaying big banners and attractive shop name will do the game, may not be the case today.

Trick: Allowing consumers an ability to connect with your brand without having a need to enter your store can save them time and offer them a unique shopping experience. Therefore, adopting technology like digital window display (maybe at the windows of your shop or even at the entrance area) will bring curiosity among passersby and encourage many to interact with your products and brand at their own convenience.

With popular search engines making it easy to allow consumers make informed decisions, it can be helpful to have your brick-and-mortar store presence online. This can give you an added advantage over competitors who overlook the potential of all those consumers who always refer online to make their offline purchase decisions.

Trick: Having your offline store presence in relevant online directories can make your brand visible to local consumers who frequently look-up for stores in their area. For instance, if you are selling handmade products and consumers look up for “handmade shops in your (city) your brand is more likely to show up in their search results.

Renting a short-term sales space- whether at a mall, local events, or even busy streets, can help you attract new opportunities. And, with holiday season coming up adopting this strategy can be an added advantage to boost overall revenue for your retail business.

Trick: Frequently creating up pop-up shops can help you increase awareness among more and more shoppers in the localities you organize. This way, you can also test new markets and confidently increase the number of stores with time.

Many consumers still prefer to shop offline due to an ability to feel and touch the product before making their purchase decisions. However, with the increasing number of offline stores offering same product line, allowing consumers a flexible in-store shopping experience may encourage consumers to stick with your offline brand over online stores.

Consumers mostly take away their purchase orders while shopping offline, however, allowing flexibility in accepting their purchase can help you enhance their shopping experience each time they’ll shop from your brick-and-mortar store.

Trick: Offering consumers an ability to opt for purchase order delivery at their own convenience can allow them a next level in-store experience. For instance, considering the upcoming holidays season allowing consumers with an ability to purchase in-store while accepting their product delivery at their own convenience can encourage them to shop more, as well as, send gifts to their loved ones.

Most of the brick-and-mortar store owners may overlook the importance of offering a security to a consumer’s purchase, as they are allowed to try before they buy. However, consumers will always prefer to shop from brands that offer a safety to ensure they don’t end up having to keep the product that is of no use to them.

Trick: Having a returns and exchange policy for products you sell in your brick-and-mortar store, can make consumers think twice of shopping online to avail the benefits. Once you have a returns policy in place, don’t forget to be loud about it to attract more and more online consumers to your offline store.

Consumers shopping behavior has been changing with time and as a brick-and-mortar store owner, it’s important to keep up with the evolving trends and technology. The above can surely help you adopt the most innovative tactics for your brick-and-mortar store, however, if you are also looking for the simplest solution to manage back-end process, contact Orderhivefor gaining expert tips and advice for your multiple retail stores.

If you’ve ever bought or sold a home, you’re familiar with the concept of “curb appeal.” A home with curb appeal looks inviting from the street, with fresh paint, attractive landscaping and a well-maintained appearance making you want to go inside. The same concept applies to your retail store and with eCommerce growing by leaps and bounds, curb appeal is more important than ever in attracting customers to a brick-and-mortar location.

But too many small retailers neglect the concept of curb appeal from the get-go. Others let their once-sparkling storefronts disintegrate through lack of maintenance.

Drive to your store. Is the signage easy to see? If you had never been to the store before, would you be able to find it? Does getting to the parking lot involve a life-threatening left turn across six lanes of traffic, or is there an easy way to get in? Is the parking lot well-lighted and safe, or scary and dark? Are there plenty of parking spaces?

Recently, I saw a new cupcake shop with a cute logo and yummy cupcakes in the window, but the whole effect was ruined by an overflowing trash can and disgusting food trash right outside. I didn’t go in. (The shop has since gone out of business…surprise, surprise.)

Last month I saw a new business with a great graphic displaying its name, “The Joint.” That’s a clever name for a medical marijuana dispensary, I thought. Then I got closer and realized it was actually a chiropractor’s office.

Do your store’s window displays draw you in? Do they convey the “brand” of your business (old-fashioned, chic, streamlined, modern, fun, creative)? Are your hours of operation easily visible to someone driving by?

Use signage, lighting and open or closed doors to tell people whether you’re open or not so they don’t waste time parking and get out only to be disappointed.

When people enter your store are they greeted immediately? Does someone look up and smile at them, or do clerks continue their conversations or shoot them daggers for interrupting their day?

Depending on what you sell, you may want to add background music, scented potpourri or other sensory attributes to make customers relax, stay a while – and spend more money.

In-store layout and signage are a science unto themselves. Paco Underhill is a retail expert whose books offer fascinating tips about increasing your retail sales through layout. One of his tips: Most people are right-handed and naturally go to the right when entering a store. Put your high-margin items there to get customers touching them.

Speaking of touching, did you know customers are more likely to buy something if they touch it? Those “Please don’t touch” signs near your breakable items might be a mistake.

Inside your store, can customers easily find what they need? Are sections of the store marked so they can see where to go? Is in-store signage, such as prices and sale items, clear and easy to read?

When a hot new gourmet grocery opened in my area, I was excited to try it. But the prices on the shelves were in such tiny type, I couldn’t easily compare and I never shopped there again.

Last, but not least, how enjoyable is the checkout experience? Is the line to wait clearly marked so shoppers don’t waste time? Do clerks acknowledge people waiting in line? (Just quick eye contact and a smiling, “Thanks for your patience. We’ll be right with you” can make all the difference). Do you place tempting impulse buys near the register to entertain customers and make more sales?

It’s no secret that e-commerce has taken the retail world by storm. With online sales projected to reach nearly $500 billion by 2018, it’s pretty obvious that consumers are increasingly doing their shopping online.

If you’re a brick-and-mortar store, you may be a little spooked by this fact, and feel like online shops will negatively affect your business. We’re here to tell you that this doesn’t have to be the case. Rather than being threatened by e-commerce, retailers should embrace it. Setting up shop online allows you to reach wider audiences, be open 24/7, and have more sales opportunities.

Fortunately, moving your brick-and-mortar store online isn’t as difficult as you may think. There are plenty of affordable and user-friendly options in the market; you just need to take some time figuring out the right one for you and implement the solution in your business.

To move your brick-and-mortar store online, you first need to decide which e-commerce platform is right for you. Depending on what you’re selling (and who you’re selling to), you can opt for a full-fledged e-commerce store, get a seller’s account through an online marketplace, or sell via social media.

Retailers who choose this route often do it through an e-commerce platform. These platforms enable you to build online stores and start selling with just a few clicks.

Alternatively, merchants who already have existing websites can immediately set up shop using Ecwid. Just copy and paste your Ecwid’s integration code into your site’s source code, and your store will immediately appear on your website. This process is even easier if you’re using a popular Content Management System such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, thanks to Ecwid’s ready-made modules.

ProsYou can fully customize your store– Most e-commerce solutions offer a variety of design tools such as themes or CSS editors that allow you to tweak the look and feel of your website. This ensures that your site is on-brand and that it looks exactly the way you want it to.

You can access customer information — Having your own site enables you to collect customer information (i.e. name and contact details) so you can get to know shoppers better and keep in touch with them even after they’ve completed a purchase.

You can offer richer customer experiences — Running a full-fledged e-commerce site gives you the ability to add more bells and whistles to your store. Many e-commerce solutions support loyalty programs, coupons, or even gift cards. All these extras give customers a richer shopping experience and contribute to higher conversions.

ConsRunning an e-commerce store takes more work– Compared to merchants selling on marketplaces and social networks, retailers running their own e-commerce sites typically have more tasks on their plates. You’re in charge of the entire customer experience, so you’ll have to handle everything, including site design and maintenance, customer acquisition, marketing, shipping, payments, customer service and more.

Marketing and advertising costs can run high– Customer acquisition can be a big challenge for many e-commerce sites (especially those that aren’t established yet). You may need to set aside a sizeable budget to drive awareness and traffic to your online store.

Online marketplaces include sites such as Amazon and eBay. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages you can expect from selling on these sites:

ProsIt’s relatively easier to set-up and maintain your store– Getting up and running is quite easy, and usually only involves you entering your store information and uploading your products. The process is straightforward, and you won’t have to bother too much with the layout, features, widgets, etc.

You’re able to tap into a wide user base– Popular marketplaces already have millions of users. They can put you in front of people who are already searching for your products, thus lowering your customer acquisition costs.

Some online marketplaces market and advertise your products for you– Online marketplaces work hard to drive traffic to their websites, and this, in turn, gets more eyeballs on your products.

Take, for instance, Amazon and eBay. As you can see in the screenshots above, these sites spend money on SEO and search ads so they (and their sellers) can get in front of users looking for relevant products.

ConsYou have little control over branding, design, and features– Online marketplaces give you very little control over the elements of your store. When you’re selling on their turf, you need to follow their site layout and design. This limits your ability to show off your brand’s personality and standing out can be challenging.

Their rules and restrictions may be too stringent for some merchants– You may not have the freedom to sell all your items on online marketplaces. These websites have some rules when it comes what products you can sell, and how you should sell them. Some items even require approval before they can be listed.

You won’t have access to customer information– It’s important to remember that the people shopping on these sites technically aren’t *your* customers. They belong to the marketplace that you’re selling on. This means you won’t have access to their contact information and your ability to communicate and build relationships with shoppers will be very limited.

ProsIt’s easy to start selling– Getting the ball rolling on social commerce is often just a matter of integrating your social account with a third party solution.

For instance, on Instagram, some merchants are setting up shop with the help of companies like Soldsie, a solution that lets retailers sell through comments. Meanwhile, other merchants (such as Nordstrom) are creating shoppable galleries from Instagram using solutions such as Like2Buy.

You can access buyer information– Most social selling tools enable you to access your customers’ contact details, so you can continue to keep in touch with shoppers.

ConsThe social shopping experience can be cumbersome– This particular disadvantage applies mostly to Instagram. There currently isn’t a way for customers complete transactions right from Instagram itself, which means shoppers have to leave the app in order to make a purchase. This adds friction to the shopping experience and can lead to lost sales.

You have limited branding and customization capabilities– Just like with online marketplaces, social networks offer very limited tools for customization.

Think about your goals and purposes for selling online. Do you simply want to sell more merchandise or do you want to build relationships with customers? Do you have time to build and maintain a full-fledged e-commerce site or would you rather hand over the reigns to a third party? These are just some of the questions you should ask when making your decision.

Also, do research on your customers. Do they shop at online marketplaces? Are they following you on social media? Strike up a conversation in-store or chat them up at the checkout counter and see if you can get insights into their online shopping habits.

There’s no rule against selling on multiple digital channels, so if you have the time and resources, why not try two or even three of the options above? Doing so will not only allow you to test each platform, but it can enable you to get in front of more people and potentially make more sales.

An easy way to start selling on multiple channels is to use a tool like Ecwid. Instead of having to re-create your product lists, you can simply embed your Ecwid store into your chosen sales channels (i.e. brick-and-mortar with POS systems like Clover, Square, and Vend, on marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, or on Facebook).

From there, Ecwid syncs product and order information from multiple channels in real-time, so you won’t have to worry about going back and forth between different websites and tools. This is great news because in addition to saving time in store management, running multiple shops from one platform helps keep your storefronts consistent across channels. This improves the customer experience, and let’s face it–it helps keep you sane.

Check out what Aeropostale is doing. In addition to its brick-and-mortar and e-commerce stores, the apparel retailer also has a strong presence on online marketplaces and social media. Not only does Aero sell on Amazon, but it also uses Like2Buy to gain sales from Instagram.

One thing to keep in mind when designing your digital shop is consistency. You want your customers to have a similar experience whether they’re browsing products in your brick-and-mortar shop or your online store.

So have a look around your existing locations and pay attention to any themes or design elements that you can bring online. Admittedly, implementing certain elements would be a little harder in marketplaces and social networks, but there are still steps you can take to incorporate your brand into these selling channels. (More on this below.)

E-commerce solutions usually give you a couple of options to customize the look and feel of your site. You can either use a ready-made theme or create your own design.

The former is obviously easier because all you need to do is browse available templates and select something that embodies your brand. E-commerce solutions often have their own theme marketplaces, though some platforms allow third parties to sell themes on external websites.

Prefer to design your site from scratch? That’s all well and good, as long as you find the right balance between showing off your brand’s personality and sticking to design best practices. While you should certainly find ways to be unique and memorable, don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

Remember, people are accustomed to browsing websites a certain way, so if you do something crazy like using a weird font or placing the navigation bar on the right instead of left-hand part of the page (where users are more used to seeing it) you’ll end up confusing people and driving them away.

The best thing to do is create basic layout–or skeleton–for your website. Use something that’s tried, tested, and easy to understand. Once you have that, you can work on filling it with elements that showcase your brand’s unique voice and personality.

They may not be as extensive as e-commerce platforms, but online marketplaces do give sellers a bit of freedom for customization. Design and personalization tools will vary, from one marketplace to the next.

Amazon, for instance, has Amazon Pages, which lets merchants (who are selling their own branded products) create rich seller pages that showcase their story and merchandise.

Meanwhile, sellers on eBay can sign up for eBay Stores, an e-commerce solution that gives merchants access to advanced marketing tools and customization features. Sellers using eBay Stores can create branded profiles where they can add a billboard image, profile picture, larger photos, and more.

Take the time to explore their tools and use them to your advantage. Upload your logo, display an attractive billboard image, feature the right products, and write an engaging company description. In doing so, you’ll instantly set yourself apart from the majority of sellers who don’t have the commitment to make their profiles the best that they can be.

Social networks have very limited (if any) tools for sellers to customize their stores. If you’re selling via social, it’s best to talk to your social commerce solution provider to discuss how you can personalize your store.

The main challenge here is making people feel at ease about buying your products online. Unlike in a brick-and-mortar store, where shoppers can touch and feel merchandise, online customers rely on product photos, descriptions, and reviews to determine if they should buy an item.

Here are a few considerations to help you produce killer product photos:Angles / Number of photos – Be sure to showcase various angles of each item. Let customers see what a product looks like from the side, from behind, and from the bottom. Also, include close-up or detail shots if necessary.

Remember, people won’t be able to examine your merchandise in person, so having product images showing a variety of angles can help bridge that “touch-feel” gap that people feel when shopping online.

Zappos does an excellent job at this. The e-tailer makes it a point to photograph merchandise in multiple angles so customers can really see what each item looks like from different perspectives.

Context– Is it better use a plain white backdrop or showcase your products in richer environments? Should you hire someone to model your merchandise? The answers to these questions depend on what you’re selling, where you’re selling them, and who you’re selling to.

Images with plain white backgrounds, for instance, may work better in e-commerce sites or marketplaces but wouldn’t fare as well when you’re selling via social. Certain products look better when someone’s modeling them, but others would be fine as is.

Equipment– Each store is different so there aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to the specific equipment you should invest in. But here are some general guidelines:

Lighting– If you can make your products look great in natural light, then you may not need to buy special equipment. Otherwise, you can go the DIY route and use poster boards to manipulate lighting.

Format– The best format for titles is brand-model-product type. So if you’re selling a pair of Asphalt boots from Chuck Taylor, your product title should be written as follows: Chuck Taylor All Star Asphalt Boot.

Consider the following when writing product descriptions.Length / Format– Like most things, the ideal length and format for product descriptions will vary from one e-tailer to the next. The key is to adequately describe an item without rambling on and on about it.

For best results, use bullet points to list product attributes, and be sure to talk about details that aren’t evident in photos. If your product descriptions are quite lengthy, cut them into smaller paragraphs (about 4-6 lines max). Avoid “walls of text” as this can intimidate online users.

Check out this great example by Nasty Gal. In addition to talking about details that aren’t obvious in the photos (ex. “super soft white terry cloth”), important product details are listed as bullet points for easy viewing.

Voice / Tone — Again, this will depend on your products or customers. The best thing to do is to stick to what makes sense for your your brand and adopt a voice that resonates with your target audience.

Keywords — Include words that your customers would actually use or search for. For example, if you’re selling a yellow sweater, it’s best to just stick with word “yellow” rather than using the word “canary”.

Social proof (ratings, reviews, customer photos) can do wonders for your conversion, so aim to incorporate these elements into your product pages.Reviews– Research has shown that “nearly all (94%) shoppers consult reviews during their browsing and buying journey, and 86% believe reviews are an essential part of the decision-making process.”

Try to get reviews on your product pages by prompting customers to rate and review your products. Touch base with them after they’ve made a purchase and invite them to leave a review or even post photos.

If you’re an Ecwid user, you can take those reviews and easily insert them in your product descriptions. Just use the built-in Quote tool, and you’ll be good to go.

Comments– If you’re selling on social networks like Facebook or Instagram, you may not be able to set up a good review system. However, you can encourage people to leave comments on your page or posts. Talk to your best customers and see if they’d like to share their positive brand or product experiences with the community.

Photos– Encourage customers to post photos of them using your product. If they’re on Instagram, assign a special hashtag for such images, so you can find and then publish them on your site.

Apparel retailer BlackMilk does this really well. BlackMilk assigns product-specific hashtags that customers can include in their Instagram posts, and the e-tailer takes those photos and showcases them on their product pages.

Having both a brick-and-mortar and online store is good, but making those channels work together is even better. Modern customers love it when retailers allow them to shop across multiple channels, so linking your physical and digital stores will result in better shopping experiences and happier customers.

As its name clearly states, a “buy online, pickup in-store” program gives shoppers the ability to make purchases on your e-commerce site, then swing by your physical store to pick them up instead of paying (and waiting) for shipping.

It’s a convenient service that helps shoppers save time and money. What’s more, these initiatives can also increase sales for retailers. Research has found that 45% of shoppers who opt for in-store pickup end up buying additional items during the trip.

Endless aisles let shoppers browse a retailer’s full inventory so they can view items that aren’t available in a particular location. Customers can use kiosks or tablets to check out what’s in stock online or in other locations, and they can place orders on the spot.

One company that does this well is Nike. The retailer has large touch-screen displays in some of its locations to let customers browse products that aren’t available in that store.

Now, you don’t have to install fancy kiosks or touch-screens to implement endless aisles. You can offer the service by arming your store associates with devices (such as tablets), which would let them access your full inventory. The staff can then assist your customers when they need to find products that aren’t in stock at your physical locations, and they can even place orders for them.

Tip: Are you an Ecwid user? You’ll be happy to know that Ecwid implements responsive design so it works perfectly on any device or screen–including laptops, tablets, smartphones, and smartwatches. Be sure to have Ecwid in your in-store devices, and have your associates use them to assist customers.

The key to successfully carrying out programs like endless aisles and in-store pickup is to have a single-view inventory system. To accomplish this, you need to sync your inventory across different channels so you’ll have an accurate and real-time view of what’s available in-store and online.

If you’re using Ecwid, syncing your brick-and-mortar and online inventories is easily achievable. Ecwid connects with programs such as Vend and Square (works in US, Canada, Australia, UK, Japan), and can sync stock and order information across your online and offline stores. This gives you a single-view system, so you won’t have to go back and forth between programs when checking what you have in stock.

To learn more about the ways of connecting your brick and mortar and online stores read our article about our payment integration with PayPal Here. It is the opposite thing when you want to move online to brick and mortar. It helps you to bring your online store to the real world.

Congrats! You’ve successfully moved your brick-and-mortar store online. The next step is to make sure your store performs well. To do this, you need to keep an eye on metrics such as your sales and conversion rate. These numbers can help you gauge the performance of your store, so you can react accordingly.

The metrics available to you depends on the selling channel that you’re on. If you have an e-commerce site and are running Google Analytics, then you’ll have access to a host of numbers that paint a clear picture of how your store is doing. If you’re selling through social or online marketplaces though, then your metrics will be limited to what they allow you to see.

Sales– Tracking sales is a no-brainer, as it enables you to measure a host of things including ROI, store performance, marketing efforts, and more. Additionally, segmenting your sales according to certain parameters (i.e. sales per channel, location, demographics, etc.) lets you see where revenue is coming from.

For example, if you look at sales coming from brick-and-mortar versus online, then you’ll know which channel is generating the most revenue. You can then use that insight to make smarter decisions about your selling channels.

Conversion rate– This is the percentage of shoppers who made a purchase, versus the total number of visitors. You can find this by dividing the number of successful transactions by gross traffic, then multiplying that number by 100.

Where visitors are coming from– Tracking the number of visitors coming in from different channels or locations will help improve your marketing and advertising efforts. For instance, if you find that most of your visitors are coming in from organic search, then you know that your SEO efforts are working.

On the other hand, looking at the geographic location of your customers can provide valuable insights into how you should communicate and present information. Let’s say you’re getting a lot of customers from the UK. You can use that information to make your site more UK-friendly, by say, giving people the option to view prices in British Pounds.

Best (and worst) sellers– Tracking your most and least popular products will allow you to make better inventory decisions. These numbers will tell you what you need to stock up on and what you need to sell more of to avoid having too much capital tied up in inventory.

Cart abandonment — Be sure to look at the number of people who are adding products to their shopping carts but aren’t completing the purchase. It’s also important to identify the specific “abandonment point” in the checkout process

For instance, did the shopper leave after seeing shipping costs? Did they abandon their cart when asked to enter their credit card information? The answers to these questions can give you some insights to help you improve the checkout experience.

Setting up shop online may take a bit of work, but when implemented correctly, the rewards (increased sales and customer satisfaction) are well-worth it. If you haven’t done so yet, start exploring ways in which you can move your brick-and-mortar store online. Do your research on the selling channels we mentioned above, weigh your options, and start selling.

This article is about the e-commerce concept. For brick and mortar construction, see Brickwork. For other uses, see Brick and mortar (disambiguation).

Brick and mortar (also bricks and mortar or B&M) refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term brick-and-mortar business is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases retail shops, factory production facilities, or warehouses for its operations.e-commerce businesses in the 2000s, brick-and-mortar businesses are companies that have a physical presence (e.g., a retail shop in a building) and offer face-to-face customer experiences.

This term is usually used to contrast with a transitory business or an Internet-only presence, such as fully online shops, which have no physical presence for shoppers to visit, talk with staff in person, touch and handle products and buy from the firm in person. However, such online businesses normally have non-public physical facilities from which they either run business operations (e.g., the company headquarters and back office facilities), and/or warehouses for storing and distributing products.storefront visibility, and appealing interior design apply to brick-and-mortar businesses rather than online ones. An online-only business needs to have an attractive, well-designed website, a reliable e-commerce system for payment, a good delivery or shipping service and effective online marketing tactics to drive web traffic to the site. Governments are also adopting e-government approaches, which is the use of online services for citizens to enable them to fill in government forms, pay ta