Local Business

Our coverage of local business topics includes migrating from ecommerce to brick-and-mortar (and vice versa), running pop-up stores, “buy online, pick up in-store,” local business directories, engaging local customers, cross-channel strategies, and more.

Local Business
Beacons to Help Physical Stores Combat Ecommerce

January 15, 2015 • Marcia Kaplan

Brick-and-mortar retailers have been hard at work trying to lure online shoppers, who often visit physical stores to see and touch products, and then make purchases online. I previously addressed this ...
Local Business > Merchant Voice
Brick-and-click stores should offer free pick-up

December 9, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth

Free shipping is commonplace for ecommerce companies. For brick-and-click companies — those with online and physical stores — free pick-up can be a helpful shipping option for ecommerce customers that ...
Local Business
Google’s AdWords Express Helps Manage Local Campaigns

August 22, 2014 • Melih Oztalay

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Web Marketing Today. Practical Ecommerce acquired Web Marketing Today in 2012. In 2016, we merged the two sites, leaving Practical Ecommerce as ...
Local Business
Ultimate Guide to Using Instagram for your Local Business

July 28, 2014 • Kunle Campbell

Instagram is an image-based social network that was started in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012. It’s seen rapid growth since its inception, picking up a million users in its first two months. It now claims about 200 million members, a 23 percent growth in 2013 alone. Roughly 60 million photos are shared daily on Instagram.
Local Business
4 Reasons Small Brick-and-mortar Retailers Need an Online Store

March 12, 2014 • Armando Roggio

Small, brick-and-mortar retailers should also sell online to stay competitive and meet customer expectations. Ecommerce and physical-retail commerce are merging; businesses that exist in shopping centers and malls are expected to ...
Local Business > Merchant Voice
Ecommerce expanding into brick-and-mortar

January 6, 2014 • Richard Stubbings

When I first started in ecommerce, it was as a way of expanding my brick-and-mortar business as a second sales channel. I was not the only one. It seemed to ...
Local Business
Reverse Showrooming: Pinterest Helps Brick-and-mortar Retailers

September 12, 2013 • Marcia Kaplan

When consumers began using the sophisticated features of their smartphones to do price comparisons and make online purchases while browsing the aisles of stores, panic set in among brick-and-mortar retailers.
Local Business
3 Ways Showrooming Could Affect Ecommerce

July 30, 2013 • Armando Roggio

New survey data about “showrooming” may reveal weaknesses or trends that could have important implications for online or multi-channel retailers in at least three areas: product prices, product information, and customer service. About 43 percent of Internet-using American adults have “...
Local Business
Ecommerce and Brick-and-mortar Retail Converge

July 24, 2013 • Armando Roggio

While there may still be plenty of room for pure-play ecommerce businesses, retailers with physical stores should look to expand online as consumers stop seeing a distinction between shopping online and in a store. Increasingly, physical retail outlets are being transformed into a sort ...
Local Business
How to Sell Online if You Already Have a Physical Store

June 14, 2013 • Armando Roggio

Small brick-and-mortar retailers can find new customers, experiment with new products, and generally grow their business when they start selling online. For established retailers, the first steps toward ecommerce often begin with product preparation, software selection and integration, ...
Local Business
SEO: Can Local Searchers Find Your Stores?

August 3, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Online location pages of physical stores should provide much more information than just the physical address of a store close to the individual user. Many consumers already know where a store is, based on their everyday routines. What they don’t know and are seeking are the hours, holid...
Local Business
Showrooming Challenges Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

July 25, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Last December, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Amazon aggressively promoted its price-checking mobile phone application by giving shoppers five percent off items on Amazon that they scanned while in brick-and-mortar stores. The application, which compares store prices wi...
Local Business
Crucial Differences between Retailing and E-Tailing

December 15, 2000 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

The retail business model that is practiced in thousands of shops and strip malls in cities all over the world is widely understood. However, many fail to understand that the Internet e-tail business model is substantially different. Some of these differences are obvious, while others only become clear later.