Comments on: Search Online, Buy Offline Has a Long Way To Go

By: rhaden

rhaden — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:27:02 +0000

Todd, the website came that way. We use a catalog site from the same folks who do our stock catalog (that’s the norm in our industry). However, our customers can’t tell that they have that option till they check out, so it’s not much of a lure. I would say that only people whom we’ve told about it offline use the feature. It’s much more common for people to print out pages from our website and walk into the store carrying it, or to call while looking at our webpage and ask if it’s on hand at the store.
We’ve been including the information in our email newsletter and so on, and people respond very well to it, but it would be more effective if it were obvious from their first contact with the website.

By: Pay Per Click Advertising Roundup for Wednesday 2/20/2008 | semvironment

Pay Per Click Advertising Roundup for Wednesday 2/20/2008 | semvironment — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:08:54 +0000

[...] Search Online, Buy Offline Has a Long Way To Go - I didn’t realize that so few e-retailers do not readily offer an in-store pick up option to something purchased via the web…a thought provoking post! [...]

By: Matt McGee

Matt McGee — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:03:08 +0000

Welcome back, Miriam. 24-minute guarantee — if you buy something online at Circuit City, they promise to have it ready at the store within 24 minutes. If not, they give you $24 or something like that. I don’t recall all the details. But it’s a neat gimmick, I think.

By: Miriam

Miriam — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:57:06 +0000

Ah, Matt, clearing the cache worked I’m a happy camper.

This is a great article, but I must ask, what is a 24 minute guarantee?

Miriam

By: Matt McGee

Matt McGee — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:51:34 +0000

@rhaden - was it an expensive thing to implement into your shopping cart system on the site? How many shoppers do the in-store pickup thing?

@Todd - whoops. Looks like I left out a zero. Thanks. I’ll go fix that.

By: Todd Mintz

Todd Mintz — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:21:01 +0000

Uh Matt, 43 out of 500 is 8.6%, not less than 1%. I though sportscasters had to be good at basic math :.)

By: rhaden

rhaden — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:44:57 +0000

The store I work for, The Education Station (http://www.educationstationteachers.com) does this. We tell people in the physical store that they can do this “and avoid paying shipping and handling.” I’m not sure that it’s obvious at our website that people have that option, though. Obviously, that’s something we need to correct.