MYSTORE RETAILER'S GUIDE VOL. 10.2: OMNICHANNEL A P U B L I C AT I O N O F S P O N S O R E D BY The Voice of Independent Retail in Canada AT HOME ONLINE Tips to leverage an online store BY ROBERT PRICE Leveraging additional channels allows independent retailers to extend their reach and increase sales. T ravel in a time machine to 1998 and log onto the "Internet" and what will you find? The answer is an online retail landscape ruled by purely online retailers and a few big boxes. Only the giants had the resources to custom-make Web stores at that time. Life is different today. Independent retailers who want to extend their brick-and-mortar stores into a brick-and-click format have options. E-commerce technologies are easy-to-use and affordable. More and more, retailers have to come up with reasons not to go online. The reasons for selling online are too many to count. This Retailer's Guide looks at tips for taking a store into a second and third channel-namely, e-commerce and mobile. www.retailcouncil.org/training/retailersguides Tip: Test ideas E-commerce platforms have reached a critical mass: the technologies are cheap and intuitive enough to make running an online store relatively simple and efficient. The investment is low and so is the risk. This gives retailers something they haven't had before-the opportunity to try lots of new ideas online quickly without gambling the store. * Experiment with new promotions. Most ecommerce platforms allow retailers to change pricing immediately, meaning retailers can quickly follow trends, enact new promotions and change shipping and return policies. Promotions that don't work in the store might work online. Similarly, promotions that work online www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer | spring 2014 | canadian retailer | 27http://www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer http://www.retailcouncil.org/training/retailersguides