Brick-and-Mortar vs. Online: Where Are Your Customers Shopping?

[sacredheart926]

As a small retail business owner with both a physical store and an online presence, I’m curious about what other retailers are experiencing.

Are most of your sales still happening in-store, or has online shopping become a larger part of your business? Do customers browse online before visiting your store, or do your in-store customers prefer the personal experience without shopping online?

For my business, the personal connection and customer service we provide in-store are incredibly important—but maintaining an online store can help us reach customers beyond our local area.

How do you balance the time and cost of running both? Which side of your business is growing, and where are you focusing your energy right now?

[rtfulk]

@sacredheart926 We just closed our online store and converted it to a lifestyle/information site.  We travel the country and work state fairs. We like the interaction with people and they can touch and see our clothing in person. In to span of 11 days the fairs we work have an attendance between 1 million and 2.2 million people. Not everyone of those people walk by our booth, but a vast majority does. 

We were starting to see if you didn't pump a lot of advertising money to promote your website, traffic would be decent, but not overwhelmingly busy, and to be honest since we've shutdown our website 3 months ago, life has been a little easier. We have also seen an increase in sales at the fairs when we tell them we do not sell online, they make their purchase there.

[David-BG]

My experience is more in-store, but that is because of strong repeat visits and local word of mouth and strong, competitive product selection. Before the pandemic, online was stronger, but needed to be rebuilt because of fulfillment labor limitations.

I rely on a fulfillment service for most online orders. I have separate inventory for the store and warehouse. Most of the store online are local pickup, but am in the process of growing the in-store shipped orders. Those get fulfilled at start or end of day. Local customers do check availability online or place pickup orders.

[JTPets]

We dont invest in advertising our online aside from bag staffers for our existing customers advertising our local fulfillment serice. About 1/3 of our business is generated through our website or invoicing and growing with a large service area and organic discovery.

[Starshinedesign]

I also have a small shop and sell on Etsy and Ebay (which I already had a presence on).  I have only had my brick and mortar shop for almost a year.  When I opened last October, my focus was mostly in-store to get that up and running, with posting items for sale on-line here and there. In January, when in-store customer became rare, I spent most of my time listing on line. I have an antique/vintage shop so every item has to be listed separately which takes time. Honestly, during those slower months, selling online made a difference in being able to cover my bills.  My goal over the last few months has been to build up my on-line inventory so that my on-line sales are strong going into the 4th quarter.  As in store traffic picks up over the next few months, I anticipate being able to spend less time listing on-line (and hopefully will be very busy packing and shipping items!)  Right now my ultimate goal would be to have my on-line sales about 1/2 of my in-store sales and have both sales streams grow next year.  

[schaefferjosh]

We travel to different shows and festivals, and all our sales come from that. Because of how we produce our items, I wasn't allowed to sell online until just a few months ago. Since then, we have not been actively pushing it, but we do get some sales on it, and I think I could get it to a point where it accounts for at least 25%