Convenient as online shopping may be, shoppers like to buy some items in person. These are mostly high value items: home appliances like refrigerators and luxury goods like handbags. Products that heavily rely on sensory perceptions like perfume and lipstick also fall in this category. 

Some people might also prefer to buy certain clothes like suits or formal dresses in person. Such customers often use your online store to look up a product and compare it to others and then come to a physical store in order to take the final leap to purchasing after getting a “feel” of the product.

This kind of situation gives you an edge over your purely online-based competitors if you have a physical store. Because of this, you should clearly display information about products available in your store on the product page

What to show

You should show stock levels of the product or product variant in question at a user’s preselected store. If a user hasn’t yet selected a store, you can use IP geo-targeting to show the stores closest to them. You should also allow your shoppers to set their location manually. Make a point of including a map link and other pertinent details like opening and closing hours on your store locator link.

Allow customers to reserve products

While limited edition high-demand products need to be sold on a first come first served basis, you should give your customers the option of reserving the more mass produced slower-selling products so they can view them in person. 

It wouldn’t be the best experience for them if they went through the trouble of coming to your store only to find the product they were interested in has sold out. A holding period of about 24 hours is long enough to allow customers to come into the store and view a product without significantly impacting your inventory management or costing you sales.

Examples

Sears