The Reason Why Mom-And-Pop Stores Need To Go Online?

Mom and Pop stores had a continuous threat from large format stores and the rise of eCommerce in recent times. In addition, the increase in mobile technology raised the threat to level high, and these mom-and-pop stores had to adapt to the trends and innovations to attract customer attention.

Small business navigating online is not avoidable. However, to sustain themselves in the market, you must adopt eCommerce and sell online through various marketplaces or social media channels.

These mom-and-pop stores need to makeover themselves as an omnichannel retail store to survive in the market. Mom and Pop stores are primarily physical stores, and these stores start their online presence through BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In-Store) method or by creating a small WhatsApp group with their customer base. Open to reach to their customers on multiple touch points generates more revenue that helps them to grow faster.

Being an owner of a mom-and-pop store or a brick-and-mortar store, they are still determining whether they need to venture online or not. However, there are many reasons that you need to consider going online. 

Easy Scalable Option

Going online is an easy and cost-effective option as it is more budget-friendly than opening a physical store to expand your geography. There are no deposits, rentals, salaries and other overheads. With minimal investments, you can scale your business to the next level and expand your horizon to the whole city, state, or country. 

Ready-to-use eCommerce platforms like Shopify help any mom-and-pop store to go live online in a day or two. In addition, there are many eCommerce freelancing developers available at affordable costs. The choice is yours. 

Going to Horizonless Increase Your Brand Value

As a mom-and-pop store, you might have a small customer base and be online; you increase your borders and get ready to serve customers beyond your reach through physical stores. As an online shopper, you can help local and online resident customers. Creating a brand awareness program with excellent customer testimony and implementing SEO strategies are crucial to getting traffic to the eCommerce website.

Breaking The Border

Being Online, you are open to business across the globe and not limiting yourself to any physical location. As a result, you gain broad access to new and existing customers across the area you serve. You have an excellent opportunity for cross-selling and upselling to a higher-value product if you can position yourself well with outstanding sales and marketing strategies. 

You can easily automate this process and focus on high-value leads to gain high ticket value. 

Open 24/7

As a brick-and-mortar store, you miss most opportunities as you need to rely on timezone and people to serve more or extended service from your physical store. As an online store, you are open 24/7 and free yourself from standard operating hours. The best part is that you don’t need to hire extra people to run the store. With the proper online platform infrastructure and an existing sales team, you can make your store online and gain more profit with a well-planned sales strategy. 

More Engagement, More Business

Unlike your physical store, you are open to serving additional customers through various touch points of your business. Creating more touch points and engaging your potential customers will increase your conversion. Customer engagement makes your customers come back to your store online and physically located. 

Capturing the customer data will enhance your marketing strategy to more personal and focused promotional and engagement activity. For example, personalised email, Live Chat, WhatsApp interaction and personalised wishes on their birthday and anniversary make them more loyal to your brand. 

Being Customer First will increase your chance of sales conversion, resulting in customer satisfaction. Keep your brand more visible in all your communication and engagement that keep customers more connected with your brand more often.

Why are you waiting? It is time to go online. If you need more personalised information, comment below.