retail – DAN REICH

5 Tips Every Small Business Owner Needs To Know

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

With companies like Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly helping people create their own e-commerce stores, taking a business online has never been so easy. And yet, it’s still a challenge to run an online business successfully. “It can be difficult for a small business to really make an impact online, even when it has a beautiful site,” says Olga Vidisheva, the founder and CEO of Shoptiques.com. The 4-year-old business is an online destination for customers to shop brick-and-mortar boutique stores. Having recently signed its 5,000^thstore, Vidisheva’s company is now the largest of its kind. I sat down with Vidisheva to get her perspective on what it takes for small businesses to thrive online.

_DSC4810 — Shoptiques has over 5,000 small businesses on its platform.

Have a point of view and unique product offering

Commodity businesses such as books and electronics were the first to see e-commerce really squeeze out mom and pop stores. The product offering is uniform and easily comparable. If you’re looking to buy a copy of the latest bestseller there isn’t anything distinguishable from one copy to another. If the differentiators are only price and speed, then purchasing from an e-commerce giant like Amazon is a clear choice even if there is a shop down the street that sells the same item. Amazon may be able to deliver it to your door before you have time to stop by the store.The more difficult industries for Amazon and others to compete in are those with high degrees of differentiation and low degrees of uniformity. “Your offering must stand out and have a point of view,” says Vidisheva. “If what you’re selling is not special, your business will never get off the ground,” she adds. This maxim is true for both e

The more difficult industries for Amazon and others to compete in are those with high degrees of differentiation and low degrees of uniformity. “Your offering must stand out and have a point of view,” says Vidisheva. “If what you’re selling is not special, your business will never get off the ground,” she adds. This maxim is true for both e-commerce and traditional retailers. Vidisheva explains, “for fashion, we really believe that boutiques selling unique items will continue to thrive and those are the boutiques we’re bringing to Shoptiques. It’s not enough to be unique to your zip code or postcode. Once your customers can access product from around the world, you need to be offering something truly special in the global marketplace.”

Logistics are key

Consumer expectations today are heavily influenced by companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Uber. Consumers want products and experiences that are intuitive, operate smoothly, and arrive virtually on-demand. Once customers take the leap and buy from your store, restaurant or even a dry cleaner, it’s important you don’t lose their trust with a bad delivery experience. “Items need to arrive in perfect condition, quickly, and nicely packaged,” notes Vidisheva. “It is no longer enough to just offer the product, whether you are a large or small business, the consumer expects a lot from the start to finish of their purchase experience.”

Embrace the omnichannel

Your brand is your brand, wherever customers experience it. “Cultivating a brand identity is critical for a small business,” says Pinkyotto boutique owner Peter Hsia. “Whatever the client sees or experiences becomes your brand.” That means your site, app, social media, and in-store aesthetic should be consistent. “The website shouldn’t feel like a departure from your product.” Vidisheva adds. “A customer should immediately recognize the look and feel. It builds recognition and repeat rate.” Eliminate the ‘e’ in e-commerce and think about how to use technology to serve all of our customers across every touch point. It shouldn’t matter if your customer wants to walk in the door and try something on or if your customer wants to purchase via a tweet from the other side of the world. Technology is what will allow small business owners to operate on a global scale.

Always be on their minds

There are more ways than ever to be in touch with your customers. Social media is an essential communication tool for a company to engage with customers on a regular basis, and so is email. For brick-and-mortar stores, an online presence is also a way to cross-promote. Elliot Dejmal of New York’s Dor L’ Dor boutique explains, “I love being able to market the website to customers in-store and market the physical stores on the web.”

See what else is out there – and use it

Companies like Shoptiques, PostMates, and OpenTable make it easier for small businesses to compete in a global scale. As Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local wrote, “As a result of technology, services that were once only available to multinational companies with millions of dollars in revenue are now only an app away for small businesses.” Small businesses shouldn’t shy away from using these types of services to grow their digital footprint.

Have more thoughts on tech and small businesses? Share them in the comments section below. And check out the independent boutiques on Shoptiques here.

How Retail Is Evolving In An On-Demand Economy

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

It’s been widely discussed that Amazon plans to enter the brick-and-mortar retail game. This is ironic because it is Amazon that put many brick-and-mortar retailers out of business in the first place. Circuit City, Borders and Blockbuster all succumbed to the dynamics of e-commerce and companies like Barnes & Noble, Sears and K-Mart aren’t too far behind. Big box retailers carry fewer product lines and holding inventory presents significant risks. Consider that in the last four years, cumulative sales of brick-and-mortar retailers shrank by $30 billion and as Jeff Jordan rightly points out, “these trends are only accelerating.”

In the past, brands would have to fight for shelf space and customer access and that gave power to the larger retailers. Today, anyone with a product and a website can build their own sales channel and that is creating enormous shareholder value for the digital players. This creates a new set of challenges for brands and retailers.

On one hand, building an online-only business has cost and distribution advantages. There is no need to invest in large amounts of inventory and you aren’t subjected to retailer buying terms or expensive overhead for rent. This is a large reason why companies like Bonobos and Warby Parker experienced success early on and why many brands looked to copy the online-only model.

On the other hand, having a physical presence has proven to drive sales with meaningful volume and be an effective channel to reach new customers. Take Quirky as an example. The company claims that brick-and-mortar retail partners are key to Quirky’s success, driving 85% of the company’s revenue, with the rest coming from online sales through Quirky.com, Amazon, ThinkGeek, Fab.com and other e-sellers.”

So the challenge becomes this: how do businesses leverage the benefits of a physical store while removing the challenges that are destroying brick-and-mortar retail?

One startup company thinks they’ve solved this problem by taking inspiration from successful businesses with marketplace dynamics like Airbnb. In just nine months, a startup called Storefront has created one of the largest online marketplace for brands, artists and designers that are in need of temporary retail space. This model allows brands to create engaging, physical experiences without taking on the overhead of long term leases that are putting so many retailers out of business. Imagine a future in which Fitbit is sold in gym lobbies across the U.S., IKEA is on college campuses during move-in week, and the hottest Kickstarter campaigns are available for pre-order or purchase at Best Buy.

: UNIQLO Pop-Up store at Union Square station (Photo credit: MTAPhotos)

Nick Roberston, CEO of the fast growing ASOS is thinking along these lines as well. “Being a digital fashion brand, it is important we never lose a digital element to what we’re doing, however based on consumer reaction and participation, I think we will be looking at more new and innovative ways we can get our brand in front of the customer for a physical experience in the future.”

Will a company like ASOS use Storefront? It’s very likely. Hundreds of brands have opened their own store and generated millions in sales revenue. And when you consider that 80% of all economic output takes place in urban areas, it further validates the idea that having a cost-effective physical presence makes a lot of sense.

From the New York Times, “whenever a city doubles in size, every measure of economic activity, from construction spending to the amount of bank deposits, increases by approximately 15 percent per capita. It doesn’t matter how big the city is; the law remains the same.” NYT

That law is quite compelling and Jeff Bezos knows it is. It’s perhaps part of the reason Amazon is opening a distribution warehouse in the densely populated tri-state area and why Jeff is quoted as saying that “We [Amazon] would love to [do physical retail], but only if we can have a truly differentiated idea.” Being closer to the customer creates better experiences and improves economic efficiencies. In the case of retail, maybe the “differentiated idea” is simply about getting to your customers, quicker, cheaper and more intimately than anyone else and having an on-demand storefront seems like a pretty powerful way to do just that.

Follow me on Twitter at @DanReich.