You can’t avoid the importance on online to any retail business today. The percentage of retail sales made online continues yes to grow, and at some cost to physical retail.
While there are plenty of online failures, they are no different to physical store failures. There are plenty of online successes.
The year on year growth of 49% for a website connected to one off my shops is terrific, as this graph from Shopify from yesterday shows.
This business transacts more sales outside usual trading hours for a shop. More than 90% of shoppers are not local – they are people not in easy reach of the shop.
We are not doing anything special here. Indeed, we are following the advice we give to other retailers setting up a website for their business.
I urge newsagents who do not have a website connected to their business to get one – but be clever about it, don’t be constrained by what you do today, treat the website as a start up opportunity.
I have 4 Shopify sites connected to 3 shops and about to setup a 4th. There are many opportunities out there that can add real value to a retail business – as the Shopify graph shows.