Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2014 - 32

mystore digital Retail

The experiences of Snuggle Bugz
and Structube demonstrate the value
of the Internet to business success
in the twenty-first century. In fact,
it's increasingly becoming essential
that a company get online. The web
is essential as a significant driver
of foot traffic into brick and mortar
stores, as 92 per cent of Canadians
will research online before buying
this holiday season.
History has proven that it will take
more than a few mouse clicks to spell
the demise of the brick and mortar
Google and RCC took to the road to inspire and educate.
store, but at the same time history
Determining what form these changes would take does not stand still for anyone, even businesses that have
meant understanding their customer-base. Google Ana- long thrived using traditional methods of retailing, marketlytics was an invaluable tool in researching customer ing and communicating. The online world has profoundly
behaviour, not just from a demographic and geographic reshaped the retail landscape. Consumers are increasingly
standpoint, but also in exploring purchasing patterns. behaving as if there's no difference between shopping ofThis research revealed that Structube's customers were fline and online. And, consequently, the Internet is a vital
predominantly between 25 and 40 years old, mainly city aspect of retail operations for all retailers today. even if the
dwellers, and that their language was digital-they are retailer doesn't sell online, it should leverage new technolconstantly connected on mobile devices and communi- ogies to drive traffic, reinforce store brand, and communicate via social media.
cate with customers. Taking full advantage of the Internet
"As a result of these findings, we realized that we had is now easier than ever, and more necessary.
to adjust how we spoke to our customers. We set aside old
marketing methods for newer digital tools, and three years
ago we stopped printing completely," Kopek explains.
"To make our content more compelling to customers,
we take inspiration from fashion brands rather than other
furniture stores. We update fresh content to our website
weekly, update the homepage weekly, put out frequent
newsletters, make use of Instagram, and even launched
our own Youtube channel in an effort to create content
that is engaging. Retailers have traditionally been focused on transactional relationships, but now we need to
focus on emotional relationships."
growth and improvement

Like Snuggle Bugz, Structube has embraced AdWords.
In fact, only a year after launching its first campaign,
AdWords now represents the most important part of the
company's total marketing budget. Structube uses AdWords in an innovative fashion, driving traffic to specific
pages on their website rather than the homepage, which
thereby allows for a more precise reading of a given campaign's success.
"We did specific campaigns through Google in three
cities (Sherbrooke, London and Calgary) focusing on online to drive customers to our store," explains Kopek. "We
used store counters to see if customer traffic rose. Over a
three-month period we noticed a 22 per cent increase in
same-store sales over last year, 35 per cent in foot traffic,
and 114 per cent increase in online sales."
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canadian retailer | holiday 2014

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Canadian Retailer - Holiday 2014

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