"Strolling the Agora..." the blog posts of Murray Shor, Shopping Center Digest

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Online Retailers Starting to Appreciate Value of Brick and Mortar Stores

Posted by Techvibes Newsdesk
This article was written by Glen Korstrom and originally published in Business in Vancouver.

E-commerce ventures and traditional retailers are rapidly fusing sales strategies and creating a hybrid model that includes online and in-store purchases.

As street-front retailers reduce store size, opt for kiosk-style outlets within stores and increase marketing budgets for online sales, e-commerce ventures are opening more pop-up stores that last weeks or months instead of days.

Vancouver-based online suit-seller Indochino launched its first pop-up store in Vancouver in November 2011 and has since had seven other pop-up stores in cities such as San Francisco, New York and Chicago.

CEO Kyle Vucko told Business in Vancouver that his company has increased pop-up store opening times to several weeks for the one currently in Boston. Its first pop-up store lasted four days and offered customers the opportunity to book sessions for Indochino staff to take their measurements.
Vucko’s company continues to more than double its revenue each year and recently moved its 40 Vancouver staff to a larger office in Vancouver’s Railtown neighbourhood, east of the downtown eastside.

Vancouver’s other major e-commerce venture, Coastal Contacts, is also scouting around for potential pop-up stores.

It opened a new 1,000-square-foot store under its Clearly Contacts brand on Robson Street between Burrard and Thurlow streets on March 21.

CEO Roger Hardy refers to the store as a “pop-up”; its lease is rumoured to be six months.
Hardy would not disclose the length of the store’s lease, but he said it’s shorter than leases that most retailers sign and that he is simply testing out the location.

Coastal Contacts’ Lensway subsidiary operates six street-front locations in Sweden, and Hardy said the stores have helped boost e-commerce sales in that Scandinavian country.

“There’s evidence that hybrid models of retail are going to be the most successful.”

FUTURE OF RETAIL

Indochino and Coastal Contacts’ moves come as another successful e-commerce retailer, U.S.-based Bonobos, is taking pop-up stores one step further by opening Bonobos Guideshops.

1 comment:

  1. Do you want to own a business of your own? or own a house of your choice?Pedro Jerome loan offer 2% rate with a flexible loan repayment to suit individual and entitle loans internationally, My loan was granted with an blick of an eye when I applied for $800,000.00 for expand my clothing business so I will advice anyone here looking for a financial help to contact pedroloanss@gmail.com or whatsapp his number on +18632310632.  I wish you goodluck.

    ReplyDelete