Retailers bring ‘clicks’ to the bricks

Not long ago, retailers were desperate to get their stores onto the web. Now they are trying to get the web into their stores.

With the initial flurry of the Internet boom, some retailers spent lavishly on websites, feeling that they could put up a site and sit back to wait for the tidal wave of cash. That didn’t happen, and lying alongside the information superhighway were many well known sites such as pets.com.

Level heads prevail, and it appears that websites work best in tandem with well-run brick and mortar retail shops.

In an attempt to better leverage their websites and consolidate their various sales operations, more retailers are bringing the web into their stores, according to the Wall Street Journal.

They are giving customers and salespeople access to computers that enhance the shopping experience—letting them go online to get additional information on a product or order an item that’s not on the shelves.

The following stores have opened up shop in the Mall of Michigan (www.mallofmichigan.com), MRA’s e-commerce website featuring unique Michigan specialty stores:

First Love Handweaving, Pinckney
Little Red Schoolhouse, Lansing
Minsky the Tailor, Lansing, Jackson, Ann Arbor
Pinconning Cheese Store, Pinconning

Name: John, Betty and Beth Williams

Business: On The Spot Engraving, Lansing

Web address: www.applauseinc.com

Products: Custom-engraved gifts, plaques, clocks, medals, trophies.

Years on web: 4

Website designed by: Professional Internet Management in Grand Rapids

Sales on the Web: “Our sales on the web are still a fairly small percentage of our business. But it is the places we are selling to, and the things that are selling on the web better than they sell in the store, that make it worth our while. Engraved doorknockers weren’t selling particularly well in the store, but we sell them all the time on the website.”

Advantage to Web retailing: “You can get people shopping your merchandise that are local but don’t feel like leaving the home or office, and those that live across the country.”

Best online sale: “We received an inquiry from Jamjoom, a Saudi Arabian construction and development conglomerate, for an order of engraved plaques that turned into $4,000 worth of business. There is no way that business would have happened without our website.”

Web retailing tip: “Have a link off of something like MRA’s Mall of Michigan, or get your site’s name high up on major search engines.”

Comments: “No matter what kind of business you’re in, making things easier for the customer increases sales. Having a website with a shopping feature does just that.”

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