During our planning stage, we argued long and hard about having a physical retail outlet, that we could expand upon as the website grew. We finally came to the conclusion that it made the best strategic sense to launch a physical shop alongside the website and then branch out into further fixed locations as the business grew.
To us, it makes perfect sense to support a growing number of retail outlets with a national online brand. Much more sense, in fact, that relying on a local shop to drive a national web brand, as so many ‘traditional’ retailers have done over the last few years.
Added to this, staff working in the phyiscal shops can contribute content to the website, enhancing the offering and further integrating them into the company. If a proportion of the overall companies profitability is re-invested in the physical stores, in terms of brand advertising and higher than average salaries, you end up with a fairly neat solution to problems like staff turnover, vertical promotion, etc.
Opinion on this strategy has been divided with most of the people we’ve spoken to. I’d love to hear what others think about this. I personally think that this model will be adopted more and more as the online / offline markets mature.
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