What Is Online To Offline Commerce? What Are The Benefits Of O2O Commerce?
Yes, yes, the world is moving more toward an online marketplace. But people will still come to shop at the offline market. Some businesses thrive well thanks to the brick-and-mortar storefronts they have open in town. Thanks to online and offline businesses, they can bring potential leads to their storefront and drive sales. But why would a company want to sell offline when they are doing well online?
Well, the “Buy Now” button on your eCommerce platform is not the only thing that drives your sales. Keep reading to find out why.
Online to-offline commerce allows businesses to drive online traffic to their offline storefront. If you have a business and want to drive your business’s online visitors to your offline store, then this is a great strategy to follow. Go through this article to find out about online to offline commerce –
What Is Online To Offline?
Online to offline marketing or O2O commerce primarily deals with driving the online visitors of a business’s website or social media pages to their in-person or physical store. Many businesses follow This great marketing method to drive their online traffic to the storefront.
This not only involves selling products to online visitors through offline sellers. Sometimes, these online visitors buy products online and come to the stores in person to return the item they just bought.
But let’s not mistake online for offline marketing or O2O commerce with omnichannel marketing. In that case, the customers continuously move back and forth between online and offline shopping mediums.
On the other hand, online to offline marketing deals only with offline sales boosted by leveraging the online traffic of a brand. Basically, a brand turns its ecommerce customers into its in-store buyers.
Brands incorporate this online to offline commerce in three common ways.
- They let buyers purchase online and pick the products offline from the stories in person.
- They facilitate offline purchases of products when the visitors are at their stores in person.
- Brands also incorporate 020 commerce when they return products to the retailer at the store location.
While most of your buyers might review or check your products online, some would still refrain from buying them. But, if you have an offline store open, you can let them have that in-hand experience of a product before hitting the “Buy Now” button on the eCommerce platform. Study shows that 87% of online searchers are making a purchase after doing their online research for a brand. But not all of them end up purchasing something from the brand.
You can convert the online visitors who do not buy anything into purchasing customers. But you have to drive them to your storefront first. Online to offline commerce follows that process of driving in-store sales.
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How Does Online To Offline Commerce Work?
When customers need any item immediately, they will go to offline stores to buy it offline. Because online sales and shipping the products to the customers’ locations would take more time. But the offline or retail sellers already have the product in their hands and can sell it instantly.
According to the retail sellers, they have a disadvantage against Ecommerce stores because eCommerce has less operational cost and huge space. But in reality, 80% of buyers will go straight to the offline stores if they need to do anything instantly.
So offline stores can increase their offline sales by raising awareness about the products and the services they provide offline. In simple words, this type of business involves creating awareness online to increase offline sales.
Businesses use common O2O techniques such as –
- Providing home delivery
- Letting customers place their own orders.
- Curbside pickup
- And offline return of products purchased online.
Benefits Of Online To Offline Marketing
Now that you know what online to offline marketing is, read the benefits of this type of marketing here –
Customer Preferences
Online to offline brings the best of both worlds by bringing the online purchasing experience and physical retail space together. Some customers would love the experience of making a purchase online and picking them up from the offline store. Aside from providing this purchasing experience, people also enjoy different reward programs of a retail store done online.
Better Brand Awareness
A brand can increase its brand awareness using offline to online marketing strategies. Through online to offline marketing mode, a brand is equally using online and in-person marketing channels to boost its brand awareness.
When a brand is able to build its brand personality through a cohesive mix of both in-person and online marketing, then they have a better chance of building a stronger brand personality. Better brand awareness through consistent in-person and online representation of a brand’s personality works well in the long run.
Improving Audience Reach
Many shoppers love to buy offline after they have just visited the online store of a particular brand. When a company has a large online presence, it can use it to boost offline sales. Brands often motivate these online visitors to visit their stores offline through attractive features and in-store events. Retailers can analyze the data from the online customer base and visitors and run marketing campaigns based on their customer demographics.
Savings On Logistics
Allowing customers to buy online and pick up products in-store helps businesses save a lot of money on logistics. The ecommerce business becomes scalable and more cost-effective with customers having the opportunity to pick up products offline, which lets businesses save lots of costs.
Also, the retailers can regionalize the space of their inventory and keep a specific percentage of their store space for products that people sell online. Once a business adopts an in-store pickup option for online purchases, they do not have to completely keep relying on its logistics partners.
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Who Is Online To Offline Commerce For?
Companies of all sizes and types can use O2O commerce to boost their sales and their marketing initiatives. Most importantly, small businesses can use O2O commerce to get more in-store buyers from the online viewers they have. They can leverage the power of local SEO and drive their online store visitors to the offline storefront. Also, in today’s time, it is almost mandatory for a business to have its offline and online storefronts open for omnichannel sales and marketing.
Hopefully, this article provided you with the information you were looking for. However, if there are additional queries, let us know through the comment section.
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Shahnawaz Alam
Shahnawaz is a passionate and professional Content writer. He loves to read, write, draw and share his knowledge in different niches like Technology, Cryptocurrency, Travel,Social Media, Social Media Marketing, and Healthcare.
