Achieving Retail Success Online: How 3 Brands Have Done It

Long gone are the days when your only retail competition were the other shops around town. Thanks to the online shopping boom, you now have to compete with retailers all around the world. But that doesn’t make success impossible, it just requires a little creativity and a lot of strategy – especially when you know you are up against big box stores.

Below, discover how a few established brands have gone on to thrive thanks to e-commerce. But don’t just review their success and move no. Instead, consider how you may be able to learn from others – even your competition.

Staples

Office supplies guru Staples has enjoyed years of success online, regularly singled out as one of the top e-commerce brands with giants like Amazon and Zappos. However, given that Staples’ roots are in brick and mortar retail, this is all the more remarkable.

Staples was an early adopter of ecommerce, entering the online shopping market back in 1998. This head start in the market has given Staples’ website time to evolve with the trends and find what works best for their customers. Marketing campaigns have a heavy focus on the web experience, with the latest campaign highlighting their new buy online, pickup in-store option (BOPIS), in which orders are ready for pickup within one hour (or less). Customer awareness has played a key role in the brand’s online success, but customer loyalty and streamlined online ordering systems have earned a lot of credit too.

While you may not be able to turn back time and become an early adopter like Staples, you can adopt their strategies of customer awareness and brand loyalty. Highlight your online presence as much as possible to your customers. Put your website on all marketing materials and inspire brand loyalty by creating a loyalty program that rewards customers.

Ray-Ban

Since the brand’s inception back in 1937, Ray-Ban has long been the go-to in the sunglasses market. With classic, well-designed, high-quality shades and eyewear frames, the company has earned a cult following among fashionable devotees.

While brand loyalty has played a role in Ray-Ban’s success, social media has helped to boost sales in recent years as well. Ray-Ban clearly understands the power and influence that social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter hold. Their most recent campaign #ITTAKESCOURAGE, is an homage to the fact that it takes courage to be yourself. Showing Ray-Ban wearers in their natural element surfing, running and boxing, among other things, this campaign also illustrates that the brand’s sunglasses are not just a fashionable accessory, but also great outdoor performance wear as well. Harness the power of social media by coming up with a campaign that conveys your brand’s core values and promote it in marketing materials, as well as on your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Another way Ray-Ban attracts customers to their website is by offering a vast assortment of all of their products as well as customization that customers cannot find in stores. Take a lesson from Ray-Ban and offer your customers customizable products on your website.

Callaway

The golf giant has found great success online which can mostly be attributed to the site’s dialed in design. Every element of the site has been rigorously tested and fine tuned, with the goal of providing every possible bit of information that a customer needs to make a purchasing decision.

Robust product pages are packed with detailed descriptions, high-resolution images from every angle, videos, podcasts and even a 3-D model of the product so you can examine your new driver just as you would in a store. There is also plenty of user-generated content, including a feed from Instagram, a Twitter link and customer reviews, so you can see what other customers think about the product. Take notes from Callaway and bolster your own product pages to include everything a customer could want to know before making a purchasing decision.

Callaway goes to show that more is more when it comes to making a purchasing decision online. Responsive design is another key element in the site’s web design, and it looks just as sleek and polished on mobile devices as it does on desktops.

Finally, when you consider how other brands and merchants have found success, consider what you are doing to find your own. Learning from others can help you along the way.

Photo Credit: Image provided by Social Monsters with permission to use.