When you're a business competing in the retail industry, taking advantage of all the opportunities available to you is important. Innovating means that you have a competitive advantage over other companies in the field and make the most of your potential revenue. Understanding what webrooming is is one of these significant advantages.
In this article, we discuss what is webrooming and some of the ways it can set an enterprise apart from the rest of the competition.
What is webrooming?
Webrooming is where customers complete thorough research into a product online, including price and availability, before going in-store to buy.
Whereas showrooming is the direct opposite. Showrooming is a system of purchase in which customers look at products in a bricks-and-mortar store and then making a purchase online, often at a cheaper price.
And as changing consumer purchasing habits have emerged, often with consumers researching via their phones, these ways of shopping are not at all uncommon and is now, quite the norm.
According to Retail Perceptions 76% of consumers will ‘showroom’, that is visit a physical store to feel the product and then go online to purchase it, and 88% of online shoppers regularly research their products online first before going in-store to buy.
Retailers can benefit from webrooming customers
This shows the importance of offering the best of both worlds to the customer, having not just an excellent retail shop for customers to come in, browse and buy, but to also have the online product catalogue that backs up your brand and in-store promotions.
There are several benefits of webrooming, all of which affect different companies in different ways.
Learn more about some of the key benefits of webrooming below:-
1 - Customer satisfaction and confidence in the product
With webrooming the customer will have already researched their chosen product online, compared the prices and the stock availability before coming in-store to buy.
According to ScienceDirect webrooming provides consumers with a high degree of confidence that they are making the right purchase. It allows them to feel in control, increases customer satisfaction and they consider themselves to be a 'smart' shopper.
Not only does that make for a happy customer but it can also have a direct impact on your returns, as the chances of them returning the product is substantially lower as they will have already researched the products suitability before making the purchase.
2 - Convenience, immediate access to products
An increasing trend for modern customers is the focus on quick gratification. If a customer can get their product as soon as possible and at a time that suits, they are more likely to be pleased with the service.
Webrooming means that customers will have researched stock levels and shop opening times before coming into buy, either whilst at home, at work or by their smartphone whilst already shopping.
This process is far more convenient for the customer and increases the chances of them coming back in the future.
3 - Potential for upselling
In a range of different industries, modern products interact with one another, and upselling has a lot of potential in a webrooming setting.
Not only can you create links between products on your website, increasing the chance of customers buying both products but also sales staff at the premises themselves can also promote associated products.
So webrooming has the potential to turn a single small purchase into a bigger sales opportunity for a company.
4 - Limit retail space
Another benefit of webrooming is the potential cost savings it can provide. When a company uses showrooming, this entails having a large space in which every individual product is visible to the consumer.
Whilst this is a good idea in theory, the amount of space necessary for this can make rent very expensive.
Webrooming limits the necessary front-facing retail space, which means that companies only pay for the rent on a smaller shop and the business warehouse. This is ideal for small companies and can help provide significant savings.
Make customers happy with a multichannel shopping experience
There is no doubt that customers like the visual, touch and feel aspect when purchasing products, but the journey we now often use to shop has changed, and developing a multichannel shopping experience, by fully integrating in-store with online, has never been so important for retailers.
If you're considering making full use of webrooming, ShopTill-e is the ideal opportunity for you.
This flexible all-in-one retail platform provides everything from real-time stock levels, centralised inventory to Click and Collect services, incorporating an ePOS system with an ecommerce platform, making the webroom setup process easy and far simpler.
Why not book a personalised demo today of ShopTill-e or you can try free for 14 days (no credit card needed and no obligation) to see if ShopTill-e can help your retail business deliver a multichannel channel shopping experience that can make your customers happy.
"We were looking for a ePOS and eCommerce service that would allow us to have live stock updates between our instore stock and online sales. The options from our previous provider to be able to achieve this were very expensive.... ShopTill-e provided everything we needed in 1 package that was good value for money... Best value multi-platform integration we could find." Keith H - Managing Director.
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