ShopLocal: In-store sales up thanks to online efforts

At the fourth annual ShopLocal Summit, the company along with PointRoll pointed out a few trends that ecommerce providers should take heed off. The biggest trend is that in-store sales are still being largely impacted by online campaigns. Whether in the form of an online store giving item availability, discounts and coupons or product information, it seems that consumers are looking online before heading to their favorite stores.

by Kristina Knight

That said, there is still room to grow as far as the local aspect of ecommerce goes. According to the experts at the summit, etailers need to extend their circle of online influence. Advertising in online circulars, building a branded micro site without a social network or creating more dynamic content on existing websites are two ways of accomplishing this.

Another avenue that marketers need to consider is the targeting offered by the different advertising networks and agencies. Whatever type of targeting you choose or if you choose to use a sampling of all different targeting methods, marketers need to remember the localized aspect and begin more involved geographical targeting.

Finally, marketers need to spend more time researching and getting involved with multi-channel marketing. Whether that is pointing consumers to a website via a radio or newspaper ad, placing clickable ads in social networks or placing ads on content sites providing information about products carried in-store, marketers need to take advantage of everything offered online to beef up their in-store sales.

Tags: ecommerce, etailing, in-store shopping, online research, online shopping