Having a physical store can give you a serious edge over your online-only competitors. The store can be used for pick-ups, returns, and even purchases. While nobody bats an eye about buying 20-dollar novelty mugs online, customers are a little more reluctant when it comes to subjective purchases (clothing, makeup, etc) or big ticket items.  

Take perfume as an example. Unless a customer is familiar with a brand, they’ll be very reluctant about purchasing a fragrance they’ve never used before. In physical stores, they let you smell a sample before taking home the whole bottle but unless engineers figure out a way to transmit smells over the internet, that particular convenience will remain beyond the domain of online shopping. Ordering the wrong fragrance would either leave you stuck with a product you despise or having to go through the entire hassle of returning the perfume.

High value items are another category where a subset of customers are only comfortable handing out their money once they’ve seen the product in person. If Jonah wants to buy a $1,500 refrigerator, he’ll use the online site to check the product specifications and compare it with others but he may want to see it and hear it run before forking over his money.

 

Add an in-store filter

Due to some customers’ desire to see a number of products in person, an in-store filter allows them to see which products are available in your store. If you have multiple stores, then you ought to show customers the store(s) closest to them. You can either prompt them to enter their zip codes or have mobile app users share their location with you.