Are you wondering what “BOPIS” or “clicks to bricks” mean? Are you looking for a reliable list of the top 100 retail terms?🤔
Success in retail today involves an increasing number of technologies and concepts. But who has the time to keep up with new terms when you’re busy running retail stores?
Don’t worry, TAKU Retail has got you covered. Whether you’re a long-time retailer or a new merchant, we’re here to make things easier for you. Don’t waste time looking at questionable resources online.
As former retailers themselves, our founders have prepared a list of the most used retail terms in a searchable, sortable retail glossary. Click below for the only retail dictionary you’ll ever need.
TAKU Retail continues to be the best go-to tool for your retail needs. Besides our retail glossary, check out our free blog resources to find other ways to improve your business. All of our blog posts are written for retail owners.
In addition to store pickup, merchants can also offer ship out fulfillment options. When we talk about ship out, we are talking about local delivery and third party shipping.
So, while it is definitely possible to sell online without offering delivery. If you’re able to add shipping to your operations, setting it up in your online store may be easier than you think.
Let’s take a look at both fulfillment options and review how they can provide added convenience for you and your shoppers.
Local delivery refers to fulfilling orders in the same area (same town, city or region) that your retail business is located in. How it works is simple. Customers buy your products online, and someone hand delivers the orders straight to their doorsteps.
With local delivery, a business can either choose to deliver the orders themselves or use an on-demand delivery service such as Uber. Local delivery is different from regular third-party shipping because it often does not require as much packing materials and the delivery time can be much faster. And, of course, the fees charged by on-demand delivery services are the highest.
Regardless of who is handling the local delivery, it’s important to remember that it needs to be done efficiently for it to be cost effective, as it can be expensive if you’re hand delivering products even using your own staff.
Local delivery has been particularly popular since the pandemic started as merchants have been able to keep existing store staff on payroll by assigning them to make nearby deliveries when store traffic is down.
How to set up in-house local delivery.
From your TAKU eCommerce control panel, click on “Shipping & Pickup”.
Click “Set Up Local Delivery”.
Choose which rates you would like to set up. Decide on your preferences for:
Free delivery
Conditional free delivery
Flat rate
Custom Rates
Enter the name for this delivery option as well as a description for your customers. This is the name that will be visible to shoppers during checkout in your online store. If you choose to add a flat or custom rate, set up your rates.
If needed, you can limit availability to only store operating hours in order to make this delivery option available on certain business days or hours of the week.
You can click on “Limit Availability by order subtotal” to specify a minimum order subtotal to make sure that you only offer local delivery on orders over a certain dollar value.
Click on “Set delivery zone” and choose “zone on map” or “advanced settings” to make sure you aren’t offering local delivery beyond a certain area.
Add an order fulfillment time. This will be how much time you need to prepare the online orders you receive. For example, 1 business day or a daily cut-off time for next day delivery.
Since the start of the pandemic, local delivery has been in high demand with shoppers. But if you’re managing local delivery yourself, you want to be efficient with how you manage your deliveries. It is costly for any store to deliver to local shoppers everywhere at the same time.
This is why we offer the option for stores to ask shoppers for both, delivery dates and times at checkout if they choose to use store pickup. You can now offer delivery time slots during the specific times you will be delivering in a given area. For example, you can offer free delivery to addresses within 1km and offer delivery to areas outside of this free zone only on specific days. This way, you and your staff are only delivering orders area by area which is both more cost effective and sets the right expectation for shoppers.
Many retailers going online for the first time often think that shipping out is the only way to sell online. However, many successful online merchants will pick and choose the products they offer for shipping. They also use shipping strategies to increase their profitability and stand out from competitors.
Carriers such as FedEx, UPS and USPC calculate shipping costs based on weight or dimensional weight of products. This is something you want to think about before selling a product online. With TAKU eCommerce, it’s possible for you to specify the shipping method for every product. This means that you can offer only store pickup and exclude ship out options for products that are too fragile or costly to deliver.
Shipping costs will vary depending on destination. For example, if you offer shipping to remote locations or internationally, shipping fees will naturally be higher.
Some shoppers may want to pay for expedited shipping for faster delivery. This option is usually calculated and offered automatically by the carrier you choose to use based on availability for the destination.
If your products are of high quality or higher value you may want to insure your shipments which will again increase your shipping costs.
While shoppers always prefer flat shipping fees (where free shipping isn’t available), TAKU eCommerce also gives you the option to charge shoppers the actual cost including things such as insurance if you use the integrated shippers in the system.
Shipping fees are the number one reason behind abandoned shopping carts. If you can afford it, consider offering free shipping to increase sales on your online store. It’s best to offer free shipping on products where you make more profit but do not often require extra packaging or handling. You can also offer free shipping only on products that are being shipped locally, as the cost for local orders will not be as high.
To make up for shipping costs, you can increase the price of your products slightly or you can set a minimum order size to ensure that the orders are worth accepting.
Retailers using mainstream shipping services for example USPS, FedEx, UPS or Canada post, can charge shoppers the actual cost that they’re being charged by these carriers. E-commerce platforms such as TAKE eCommerce allow merchants to receive automatic online shipping rates from carriers directly during checkout. Depending on the shipper, it may be possible to add additional features such as Signature Required, Proof of Age Required, etc.
If you need more complex calculations for shipping costs, consider using tiered rates that you can base off of order subtotals or order weights.
Remember that you also have the option of manually adding the carrier’s shipping rate for various order weight ranges if you’re using a carrier that is not already integrated with TAKU.
Flat rate shipping is best for retailers who deliver products themselves, or sell products of similar weight or size. For example, merchants can charge 10$ for every local delivery from their store. Many merchants will use flat rate shipping even when their shipping costs aren’t the same to make it simpler for shoppers. In cases like this, the idea is that you may not always cover the cost of your shipping. But on average, it should even out as you will get larger orders and smaller orders that will cost you less.
Many stores consider shipping costs to be an indirect cost of business now. This is similar to how you would think of marketing to sell online.
We hope that you have enjoyed our blog post and video series. For more information on how you can take leverage your physical store to sell online easily, please visit our blog or follow us on social media.
Happy retailing!
Take a look at our other steps by clicking one of the chapters below!
Step 1 – Be found onlineStep 2 – Online product showcaseStep 3 – Online storeStep 4 – Store pickupStep 5 – Local delivery or shipment
Now that you have successfully taken payments and orders online, the next step will be offering store pickup for your online orders. Step 4 focuses on why setting up store pickup is more cost-effective for retailers offering e-commerce.
In this blog post, we’ll cover how you can offer store pickup as an easy way for your local customer to get the products they order online quickly, and at a lower cost to you.
Benefits of offering pickup, to both retailers and customers.
Store pickup gives customers the option to buy the products online and stop by your store to pick up their order. With store pickup, staff place prepared orders in a specific store pickup area or place them right into customers cars outside.
Compared to in-store shopping, store pickup allows retailers to continue selling even when people aren’t allowed in the store. During the pandemic, this allowed stores to reduce contact, making it a safer option at the time.
Some people might ask, “Why offer store pickup when shipping is available?” but there are some major benefits to both retailers and customers including:
As a retailer, you save on the shipping and packing costs including both materials and the time for staff to pack orders when you offer store pickup. This helps to keep costs down for shoppers since you don’t need to buy packing materials, charge delivery fees to cover your costs or offer free shipping, and shoppers don’t need to deal with all the waste created by shipping cartons, etc.
Shoppers expect free shipping today with online shopping, but stores can only cover the cost of it when orders are above a certain size. Yet having a minimum for free shipping makes shoppers more likely to not complete checkout online. Pickup allows you to reduce, or get rid of online order size minimums. This will increase the chance that every shopper buys something. Similarly, customers that pick up in store are more likely to buy other things when they are already in the store.
More than half (50.1%) of BOPIS consumers state that they have made an additional, impulse purchase in a store where they were picking up already-purchased items. (Source)
Even if a store sells mainly large or delicate products that are not suitable for delivery, you can still offer online ordering to your customers if you offer store pickup during online checkout.
Even before the Pandemic, shipping delays were a problem, especially during peak periods. Given the overall increase in e-commerce and the ongoing labor shortage, this has only gotten worse. Store pickup gives merchants the ability to turn around local orders faster. There’s no packing involved and nearby customers can get products they need faster, even while supporting their own local main street stores.
While there are more tools available now to help shoppers buy online, e-commerce sales continue to have a higher percentage of returns versus in-store sales. Store pickup is one way to reduce costly returns. This way, merchants can avoid extra shipping costs and damages during the return shipment. Shoppers are less likely to return items they have already checked when they pick up in store.
Online processing fees are usually more expensive than in-store payments using card terminals. While getting upfront payment is useful to reduce the risk of the customer not showing up, an omnichannel platform such as TAKU will also allow stores to offer in-store payment during store pickup. Not only does this lower the cost of payment processing, offering in-store returns or exchanges on online purchases can help to reduce the extra processing costs of refunds too.
E-commerce has been a great innovation, but the real benefit for small business comes when it is easily offered with store pickup to give local merchants an advantage compared to larger competitors who often cannot match nearby stores for speed and service.
How to start offering store pickup with TAKU.
Using TAKU as an example, here is how store pickup works once you have products and payments set up in your system:
Add a pickup option in your online store. TAKU eCommerce gives retailers the option of displaying pickup dates and times at checkout. Make sure to include pickup instructions including how and where customers can pick up their orders. Don’t forget to include the store phone number and what ID is necessary to verify the order.
When a customer places an order on your website, the customer can now select a pickup date and time.
Once an order is finalized, you and your customer will get notified about the order. Depending on when the customer is scheduled to pick up his or her order, you or your staff can start preparing the order. TAKU has a built-in packing list for staff to easily pick orders
If you’re using the scheduled store pickup feature, you just need to have the order ready for the confirmed date and time. Otherwise it’s always recommended for you to notify the customer when their order is ready for pickup by changing the Fulfillment Status within TAKU to Completed. Once that it done, the customer will automatically get a notification that the order is ready and your Delivery Status will change to Ready for Pickup.
Make sure that you have clear signage at you store to direct customers to your store pickup area. If your pickup area is unmanned, include instructions for your pickup process.
Remember to remind shoppers about your store pickup person verification policy so they are ready with their IDs if necessary.
If you are limiting exposure and there is parking nearby your store, you can offer the option for staff to bring orders out to customers’ cars.
Hopefully this blog post has helped to explain the many benefits of offering store pickup. Don’t forget to check out the next blog post and videos in our series which covers how local delivery and shipping works with online stores.
Check out our other steps on moving your store online by clicking on the buttons below.
Step 1 – Be found onlineStep 2 – Online product showcaseStep 3 – Online storeStep 4 – Store pickupStep 5 – Local delivery or shipment
Easter falls on April 17th this year. With many COVID-19 restrictions easing everywhere, shoppers are increasingly confident and energized about shopping now. Easter is the first big family holiday of the year. As a retailer, the holidays are a great marketing and sales opportunity. Here are 3 tips for Easter retail marketing this year.
1. Offer ready-to-go promotions and discounts to attract customers
Shoppers today expect convenience and curation when they buy. Make it easy for your customers to grab products without any extra effort. Even if you don’t specialize in chocolate or sell Easter-related products you can still offer a unique angle. Make promotions related to Spring-time activities such as: spring cleaning, spring weather, gardening, etc. Spring is the ideal season for launching new products and exclusives. The season is traditionally seen as a time of renewal and hope, making it the best time to launch new products!
You can also tempt more shoppers into buying from you by:
Discounting your best-selling items with an Easter or Spring theme
Getting rid of your winter products through deep discounts on the items
Preparing small giveaway goodies that customers can get once their purchase reaches a certain amount of money – or if they purchase a product that’s being promoted
You can also set up a landing page or a section on your website / e-commerce site which will advertise these promotions. This way shoppers can easily browse through sale and seasonal items. TAKU helps you create a free micro-website or landing page. In our builder, you can create a beautiful SEO-optimized web page with custom colors, images, and content. The content can be linked directly to your Instagram Shop, Facebook Shop, Google store listings and even Messenger chat. The process will only take you 5 minutes to set up. Afterwards it runs on autopilot. Learn more here.
“Especially during COVID right now, we know that the shopper has been looking for different ways to be inspired — whether that be through recipes or activities or ways just to make ordinary moments more special…”
Lauren Foltz, senior manager of holistic shopper insights at Hershey. (source)
Make YOUR consumer feel special by considering giveaways and / or social media contests. You can have customers sign up for these contests by agreeing to sign up for your mailing list or newsletter; two birds with one stone. This will then direct your followers from the online platform to your physical store. It can also increase your visibility on social media and make your store more recognizable. You could also create a short Easter game like a virtual egg hunt to make your promotions more fun. You can even encourage your customers to vote between products to learn their preferences so you can adjust your communications to match their needs. Then you can encourage the winners to share their prize or experience on social media for some good old word-of-mouth marketing. Remember, the goal with this year’s Easter retail marketing is to make your customers feel special.
Kanudle’s Easter giveaway promotion from 2020 (source)
You can use TAKU’s 360° real-time customer view to see your customers’ sales history in real-time so you can target a specific audience. If your customers are heavy social media users, use our built-in Facebook or Instagram feeds to sell directly to your followers. You can get a pretty clear overview of their total relationship with your business, across all channels, in store and online.
3. Launch remarketing campaigns for Easter retail marketing
Holiday retail marketing is a great opportunity to win back past visitors as well. You can use Facebook “retargeting” ads to attract old visitors back to your website. You will need to set up a Facebook pixel on your website to do this. The retargeting ads can showcase your Easter offers & promotions. You could also show different offers to people who have interacted with your website before. For the best results, retarget past website visitors who added items to their cart but never checked out. After all, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned without finishing the transaction (source: Baymard Institute). You can also target shoppers who have engaged with you on social media during the previous weeks. In a nutshell, you want to get customers to come back and finish the sales they started.
TAKU can simplify this entire process for you. Our built-in abandoned cart saver will help you recapture those pesky cart abandoners! The entire automated process will leave you worry-free.
Experiential retail continues to grow in importance
The competition in physical retail grows daily. Experiential retail is a way for you to make your business stand out. Create unique and memorable in-store experiences by focusing on community, events, and your potential & existing customers’ interests. This way, instead of only aiming to increase sales revenue, you’ll also deliver enjoyable experiences that build brand affinity.
Let’s say you sell sustainably made cookware. You could create a community-building opportunity in store by hosting a mix-and-mingle experience with other businesses that create products for a similar audience. For example, you could invite a chef, a tableware brand, a local farmer, and a brand that makes 100% natural sauces or seasoning to participate in the event.
All the brands involved can display their products. So as the shoppers are experiencing the awesome products, they can also make purchases.
Depending on the point of sale (POS) used at your store, you can review your customer profiles to get an overview of purchase history and interests that can help inform your strategy to create the in-store experiences your customers are looking for.
Marketing is built on human relationships. Social media marketing can help improve and grow these relationships. Businesses have been using social media marketing to grow these relationships for several years. This became even more important during the pandemic. Without access to in-person events and limited access to in-person shopping, it became more important than ever to connect with customers through social media marketing. This blog will help you decide why and when to post on social media as a retailer to get more clicks and make more sales.
Social media marketing uses social media platforms to connect with your customers. It can build your brand, drive website traffic, and increase your sales. There are many different channels in social media and each has its own part to play in a marketing strategy.
2. What are the main social media channels?
Facebook has the biggest reach of all social media channels. In 2021, it registered 1.8 billion daily users.
Ninety percent of Instagram users follow at least one business.
LinkedIn is the top-rated organic social media platform for B2B users, responsible for 80% of the B2B leads for social media.
TikTok’s growth over the last year has been huge. In January 2021, there were 689 million users. In September 2021, it surpassed the 1 billion user mark. That translates to a 45% increase in less than a year. It is now the 7th most popular social network in the world.
Most popular social media platforms globally (source)
3. Why is social media marketing important for retail businesses?
As more and more people connect with others and shop on social media, social media marketing is more important than ever for retail businesses. A HubSpot Marketing Trends survey showed that “social media is the most effective channel marketers leverage, as well as the channel they use most.” Social commerce is selling products directly from your social media platform and social media marketing helps to drive more sales. According to an Accenture report, social commerce will reach $1.2 trillion by 2025, up from $492 billion in 2021.
This is good news for small businesses. As the report also indicates, instead of favoring big retailers, there will be a power shift towards small businesses in the next few years. That means there will be millions of individuals and small businesses selling to one another in a large social commerce network. Big brands will continue to face increasing competition from these smaller businesses. Since 62% of consumers say that they trust small and local businesses more than major retailers, now is a great opportunity to use social media marketing to expand your customer base and increase sales.
62% of consumers say that they trust small and local businesses more than major retailers
3. Why social media marketing vs. traditional marketing?
When discussing this topic, many people fall into the trap of thinking that you can only do one of these. Social media marketing provides many benefits over traditional – it is still important to use both!
Social media marketing is one of the most powerful avenues for marketing in the information era. You and most of the people around you are most likely already using social media. In fact, 57.6% of the world’s population uses social media. If you have a target audience, chances are they are already using social media. So what are the benefits of social media?
Measuring and analytics
Tracking the performance of marketing campaigns has never been easier. With social media marketing, you can view how well your strategies are performing. Metrics like the following give you a good idea on the efficacy of your campaign:
Reach (the number of people who have seen your content)
The demographics and geographical location of people reached
Conversion rates (how many people are actually doing something from your ad, like claiming a promotional code from your post) and exit rate (number of people leaving after seeing your content)
Bounce rate (% of people who left after visiting one page of your website)
Number of likes/favorites/shares on your post
These are jus a few metrics you could look at. The rise of digital marketing has made marketing a much more understandable process.
Targeting
Each social media offers various methods for targeting audiences. Targeting features include location, age, interests/likes, age and more. This lets you find your specific audience and market directly to them. Targeting on traditional marketing (like newspaper ads) was always very general.
Cost effective
You can get more bang for your buck with social media marketing. Traditional marketing methods can be expensive. Social media can help you reach a bigger audience at a cheaper price!
Trusty marketing
Traditional methods like flyers have this bogus feeling to them. When consumers look at them they feel like they are being sold something. With social media you can make content which feels organic. This keeps your audience have more trust in your brand.
Old school advertisements were a one way conversation. It would be the brand communicating to a consumer, and not the other way around. With social media you can have many ways of communication. Brands can connect with customers, customers can engage back with them. On top of that, customer can even interact with other customers!
These are just some of the benefits social media provides over traditional marketing.
4. How do I create a social media strategy?
It’s important to remember that content quality is more important than content quantity. In other words, what you post is more important than how much you post. Posting consistency is also more important than posting frequency.
If you haven’t built an audience yet, don’t worry. There are still some universal things to consider with your social media strategy. In general, there are 4 things involved when posting on social channels:
a) Having a clear objective in mind
When creating a social media strategy, it’s important to know what you’re trying to achieve. If you don’t have a goal, you won’t know if your marketing strategy is working. This means knowing if your intention is to drive more foot traffic to your store, increase online sales, improve customer service, promote new products to existing customers, etc.
b) Determine the best channel(s) for your business
There are a lot of social media channels and new ones are starting all the time. Most businesses don’t have a dedicated team or the resources to promote their business on every channel. The best way to get better engagement on social media is to start by focusing on the social media channels your customers are most likely to use or be active on.
c) Determine the best time to post on social media
You will need to manage your audience’s expectations. If you decide that your customers respond best to Facebook posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, you should post on those days. Your customers will know that they can visit your Facebook page on Tuesdays and Thursdays and find new content.
When developing your social media strategy, look at your past engagement to see which customers responded most at certain times. Use this information to test posting dates and times and then analyze the results. You will need to figure out the best times to post on social media so you can engage the right customers at the right time.
d) Consider using social media scheduling tools
Instead of rushing to post on each social media channel individually, it’s a lot easier to schedule social media posts in advance. This will give you time to focus on other aspects of your business. To make it easier, many of the social media scheduling tools will let you create templates of the types of posts that get the most engagement and sales conversions.
5. When are the best times for retailers to post to social media?
Summary of when to post to social mediaby platform
Besides your own understanding of your customers, you can also refer to the best practices of other retailers. In general, the best times for retailers to post on social media are 10:00 am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays to get the most likes or engagement.
Facebook: The best time to post on Facebook is 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Instagram: The best time to post on Instagram is 11:00 am on Wednesdays
Twitter: The best time to post on Twitter is 8:00 AM on Mondays and Thursdays.
LinkedIn: The best time to post on LinkedIn is 9:00 AM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
TikTok: The best times to post on TikTok are 7:00 am PST on Tuesdays, 10:00 am PST on Thursdays, and 5:00 am PST on Fridays.
More and more shoppers are using live chat for product information and pricing. When you use our built-in Facebook Messenger feature you can respond to shoppers, right when they’re checking out your online store.
With TAKU, you can reach local shoppers, wherever they are. Attract more local shoppers, right when they are searching for what you sell. Run high-performing Google Shopping ads that can be activated and managed directly from TAKU for as little as $5/day.
Although the word omnichannel is often used in retail, it is a term that is often misunderstood. Here is an explanation of what omnichannel means, how it works, and how it can help you increase your profits.
Sales channels refer to every different method used by retailers to sell their products to customers. Sales channels go beyond brick & mortar stores. Other sales channels could be events, trade shows, resellers, dealers, curbside pickup, and on-the-go pickup. Additionally, sales channels can also include social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok), SMS, instant messaging, and even Google Ads.
Most retailers start off selling on a single channel. This can be a physical brick and mortar store or an online only webstore. Prior to the pandemic, an increasing number of retailers have started to add new sales channels to their businesses as shoppers now expect to be able to shop and pre-shop in more than one place.
2. What is omnichannel?
Omnichannel is a fully-integrated retail experience for shoppers. So when omnichannel works, it means customers will have the same experience no matter which sales channel they use. A customer who buys products from a brick & mortar store should have the same experience as one who uses social media channels to buy products. This is the ideal outcome for a successful omnichannel retail business.
What many retailers aren’t as familiar with, is that retailers must use a system that can share sales, inventory, and customer information (data) across all sales channels to be able to offer omnichannel retail. This means handling all store sales and fulfillment of online orders under a single login. In particular, omnichannel systems make store-managed e-commerce such as “buy online pickup in-store” a lot more efficient.
A successful system handles data for sales, inventory and customer information across all brick & mortar stores, online storefronts, ecommerce marketplaces, mobile channels/apps (WhatsApp), and social media commerce (Facebook or Instagram Shop). You should be able to sell to your customers no matter where they shop. In the past, omnichannel systems were expensive and only available to very large retailers. However, today’s modern cloud systems have made it possible for small-to-mid-sized retailers to take advantage of the cost-savings and sales boosting benefits of omnichannel retail.
3. What is the difference between multichannel & omnichannel?
It’s important not to confuse omnichannel with multichannel, despite their similarities. Like omnichannel, multichannel refers to retailers selling to customers through different sales channels. Yet, in a multichannel setup, these channels are not integrated.
Unlike omnichannel, multichannel does not unify the customer experience. And more importantly, multichannel retail costs merchants a lot more money because they need to log into separate tools or channels to manage inventory separately, or see sales and customer history. This is a time-consuming process that can lead to lost sales and errors. It also increases the complexity of your sales and tax management. Additionally, multichannel increases the cost of managing inventory if sales are being fulfilled from the store or the same place.
Multichannel retail costs a lot more money to run because a retailer needs to manage her or his business in separate tools or channels.
4. Why is omnichannel retail important?
Omnichannel selling offers a data-driven approach to retail. As stock levels change, you will want to know the product levels in every channel. A good omnichannel system will do this automatically. This means you will never have to manually manage stockouts. A good omnichannel system will also increase sales by highlighting your best customers across all sales channels. It will focus on faster fulfill of every sale, no matter where the sale originates.
Omnichannel systems are increasingly effective at attracting people to brick & mortar locations. They do this by linking to Google to drive foot traffic to stores based on how close nearby shoppers are to available stock. This increases overall profits by increasing in-store and sales conversion rates.
The goal is a memorable and positive experience for your customers. Omnichannel can make this happen.
TAKU Retail can provide you with a comprehensive and integrated omnichannel strategy that will remove friction between channels. Because TAKU is cloud-based, it can function on any device since it’s not tied to any specific type of hardware. This enables you to use any existing web-enabled devices from desktop computers or tablets to smartphones.
TAKU can not only help you increase sales and reduce operational costs, but it can also help you get in front of shoppers before they even leave their homes. Click below to find out about other ways TAKU Retail can help you achieve a successful omnichannel system for your business.
