How webrooming benefits brick and mortar stores

Webrooming is an approach in shopping that’s grown a lot recently in the retail space. Webrooming is when a customer browses online to get an idea of the products they would like to buy, which leads them to coming in-store to make a purchase.

The opposite of the showrooming trend, webrooming allows the customer, once inside a physical store, to touch, feel, and try the products before they make their purchase. 

Webrooming holds particular importance for brick and mortar retailers because they have the opportunity to leverage virtual shopping to drive in-store foot traffic. By understanding the interactions of webrooming, retail stores can adapt their strategies to capitalize on these trends and create a more seamless experience for their customers. 

How can webrooming benefit brick and mortar stores?

Positioned as a bridge between online and offline channels of shopping, webrooming allows customers to transition from virtual browsing to in-person purchasing decisions. For traditional retailers, encouraging this trend can bring certain advantages in bringing online shoppers to physical locations. 

Webrooming also brings in higher conversion rates. According to a report from Visual Objects, 76% of consumers research products and a company's online presence before visiting their physical location to make an informed buying decision. Additionally, webrooming shopping habits provide opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, enabling retail stores to maximize revenue and deepen customer engagement. 

Let’s dive into these advantages a little further.

Three advantages to webrooming

1. Hands-on experience

Webrooming allows customers to read product reviews before making their actual purchase. If webrooming customers interact with a brand through digital channels to look for competitive prices, they’re more likely to come to see the product availability and features in person.

Experiencing products in person with a physical retailer allows customers to assess quality, fit, and other features that may not be apparent through online channels, as well as receive expert advice from associates. After all, nobody can really know how the fabric of a coat will feel until its in their hands, or how a ring will look on their finger until they’ve slipped it on. 

A hands-on experience for customers offers immediate gratification as they take home their desired items immediately—no waiting for shipping required! 

2.Reduced risk

Customers reduce the risk of purchasing items that may not meet their expectations, when they can physically inspect the selection of products before buying. This leads to fewer returns and exchanges. 

An online shopper may research a product for an extended period of time, purchase it to ship to their residence, only to find it’s not going to work out. Whether it’s an issue with sizing, quality perception, or any degree of dissatisfaction, shopping online brings challenges which in-peron shopping can solve. 

Shopping and buying in a physical retail environment allows customers to see exactly what product they’re choosing to take home, reducing the risk of return and increasing the chances for customer satisfaction. 

3. Opportunities for upselling

When customers visit a physical store, the opportunities for upselling and cross-selling are a lot easier. Your sales associates can encourage the customer to purchase additional products or accessories that match what they’re already buying. 

What’s more, once the customer has started engaging with a detailed product online, retail stores can come back with competitive pricing. Physical retailers can combat any other online purchases by making an informed in-person buying decision look more attractive to the modern consumer. 

How you can use webrooming to your advantage

Now that we’ve covered the benefit webrooming can bring to your retail store, let's talk about leveraging a strategy for encouraging this shopping trend among consumer behaviors and shopping preferences.

In order to encourage online shoppers to come into your store, brick and mortar retailers can lead online shoppers in-store with exclusive discounts or promotions. Utilizing social media platforms and online websites for advertising in-store events, launches, and offers to the online audience will drive foot traffic into your physical store. 

Additionally, you’ll want to make the in-store experience a special, value-added service to attract webrooming customers by elevating their in-store shopping journey. First and foremost, find what your store serves best. Then, secondly, do your best to bridge the gap between online browsing and offline shopping behavior. As you do, you'll be able to boost sales and gain more happy customers. 

Creating seamless omnichannel experiences

If you're planning on taking advantage of webrooming with your customers, you'll want to make sure their online experience is as seamless as it can be, crafting an omnichannel experience. Offline retailers can provide a cohesive shopping journey as they integrate the online and offline channels for customers. So, how exactly can you do that? 

Brick and mortar stores can implement online options for physical pickup services, which makes shopping easier for the webrooming customer base. Implementing more technology solutions like data analytics also allows retailers to see valuable insights about customer behavior.

With these valuable insights, you can better strategize the personal shopping experience to be more efficient and effective for webroomers. Start by making the customer experience satisfactory and implementing technological solutions to improve the overall shopping experience. As the customer journey is elevated, you'll bring more customers into the store.  

How Clientbook can help you harness webroomers 

To navigate the terrain of physical retail stores and take advantage of webroomers, Clientbook stands as a powerful tool to enhance these strategies and capitalize on this trend. To capitalize on meaningful interactions, Clientbook has advanced technology to enable you as a retailer to make each interaction a sale and lifelong client. 

Clientbook is a user-friendly customer management system built specifically for retail business owners. By harnessing Clientbook's customer management tools, retailers can integrate webroomers practices. Utilize Clientbook’s real-time data analytics features, automations, and messaging devices to have meaningful, productive interactions with customers. 

All in all Clientbook's strong capabilities allow you to be more effective in improving connections, sales, and customer loyalty in your webrooming strategies. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are numerous benefits of webrooming from increased foot traffic to boosted conversion rates. By embracing this trend as an invaluable tool in your omnichannel strategy, you can strengthen your online channel and in-person presence. Ultimately, this will launch your growth and profitability for more sustained and fulfilled success 

It's essential to recognize the potential that comes in webrooming and to take proactive, and actionable steps in integrating it into marketing and sales efforts. Clientbook can be an integral part of these steps in order to position yourself to thrive in the retail landscape. 

All in all, include these strategies for webrooming in your business model, and try booking a demo with Clientbook today in order to test the game-changing analytics, management, and messaging tools for your business today.