Research online, purchase offline - don't miss out

ROPO is a term introduced by Google some while back to reflect the cross channel habits of today's modern shoppers who research online and then go on to purchase offline.


This is often the unmeasured factor in eCommerce sales, where the online store has actually contributed to an in-store sale by helping the user view the product online (e.g. see the button detail of a jacket, view the specifications of a computer component or read the details of a hotel or resort) before a customer then wanders into a physical location and hands over money to buy the actual goods. 


This shouldn't be confused with the other multi-channel functionality such as: 
click & collect (view, select & pay for your products online, collect in-store)
click & reserve (view & select your products online, pay & collect in-store)


So how do you, as an online marketer help, in this cross-channel transaction? Here's some thoughts:


1. Provide every possible means on your site to help the user record and remember the product they have chosen. This especially means making that 'Print' button easy to find (especially when the item you are displaying online is out of stock).
It is worth noting that some online stores do not include an on-site option to print out the product detail page, instead relying on the browser print function. I'm not a great believer in this, as over time most of the browser companies have done their utmost to hide the print function behind hard-to-find menu options.


2. Make sure your site visitor knows where your stores are!
Simple I know, but assuming you don't yet have the full multi-channel capability to inform your visitor of the exact stock position of each store, make sure the links to your store finder tool is easy to find.
Note: Whilst on this subject, PLEASE make sure the phone numbers of each store are accurate and clearly displayed too.


Furthermore with the increased adoption of mobile / smartphone usage, users aren't just researching online at home.... they are researching all the time online, including in-store! Yup, they are quite possibly browsing your mobile site, app or maybe just your main site in a smartphone whilst wandering around your premises.


John Lewis identified this issue last year and announced their plans for in-sore WiFi in October:
Here's what they said about this:
"More than 60 per cent of John Lewis customers research products online before visiting a shop to make a purchase and in-store Wi-Fi access allows them to continue and complete that journey, accessing product information and viewing ratings and reviews to influence their purchase."
http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/media/press/y2011/press-release-21-october-2011-john-lewis-commits-to-free-wifi-in-all-its-shops.html 


With the Multi-channel & eCommerce landscape becoming more competitive all the time, it will be increasingly hard to ignore ROPO as a factor that contributes to sales.

Retail website homepage weights – why are they so bloated?

I have been working on client eCommerce sites recently and noticed that some competitive ones were very slow to download. Assuming my Internet connection was the problem I looked to stop any other online services that might be running (e.g. Skype, downloads, etc.)… Only to find I didn’t have anything else downloading.

So I loaded-up Firebug (a brilliant and free debugging tool that plugs into Firefox) and checked the size of the homepages I was looking at.

Here’s what I found:

Site: http://www.johnlewis.com/
Total file size: 573k
Onload time*: 7.55s

Site: http://www.marksandspencer.com/
Total file size: 1.5Mb
Onload time*: 13.63s

Site: http://www.hsamuel.co.uk/
Total file size: 1.3Mb
Onload time*: 16.28s

Site: http://www.debenhams.com/
Total file size: 1.1Mb
Onload time*: 8.16s

Site: http://www.goldsmiths.co.uk/
Total file size: 1.1Mb
Onload time*: 7.44s

Site: http://www.bhs.co.uk/
Total file size: 720kb
Onload time*: 7.39s

Site: http://www.morrisons.co.uk/
Total file size: 1.1Mb
Onload time*: 7.22s

Site: http://asda.co.uk/
Total file size: 866k
Onload time*: 9.33s

Note: This isn’t an exactly scientific test, being conducted once on a PC with network traffic. But even as indicators of total file size and download time, they do start to paint a pretty interesting picture.

However these figures pale into mere insignificance when compared with the weight of the George Style Blog http://georgestyle.george.com/ set up to accompany their support of Graduate Fashion Week. This homepage tops the scales at a whopping 2.8Mb (or to put it another way, not just one but two entire old HD floppy drives from the past!).

You really have to ask why this sort of bloated homepage shenanigans is still going on in this age of web page optimisation…. and whether any of these UK retailers are aware that an increase in page delivery speed can significantly improve conversion.



*Onload time is approximately the time taken for the page to start to display. Other elements are still downloading and the entire page might take much longer to fully render.