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Retail (ecommerce) Websites: Do Bricks-and-Mortar Stores Really Need One? · The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices

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This episode is brought to you by Capify.
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There are two sides to a loan application, the credit score and the story behind it.
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At Capify, they look beyond just the numbers.
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They look at the business owner chasing invoices, paying wages, managing
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It's Capify.
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We get it.
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Do bricks and mortar stores need a website?
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Now, it may seem like an odd question to ask, especially when, if you think about
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in episode number 321, I was talking about the fact that the percentage of sales
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happening online is even greater than it has been at any other point in history
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since the height of the pandemic in 2021.
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Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan.
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I'm Catherine Erdly, and this podcast is here to share retail industry
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trends, insights, and best practices for you, the retailer who's serious
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about building something that lasts.
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So you may be wondering why I'm even asking this question at all.
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This is a two-part series.
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This week talking about whether or not bricks and mortar stores need websites,
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and then next week we're going to flip it and look at whether e-commerce
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businesses need bricks and mortar stores.
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And the reason why I wanted to look at both sides of this equation is I
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really want to break down this myth that when we're talking about sales, we're
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talking about online versus offline.
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I wanted to really delve into this idea of the f- the fact that the two
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of them are very much interlinked, and it's much more nuanced than that.
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The other reason I wanted to have this episode was because I work with
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a lot of bricks and mortar stores, and I have seen firsthand the absolute
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struggles, lengths, the blood, sweat, and tears that go into bricks and
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mortar stores maintaining a website.
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And so I wanted to delve into this notion of if they're necessary for bricks and
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mortar stores and go through some of the myths and misconceptions, and share
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my thoughts about how you can have a website in the most effective way.
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Here's the thing.
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Most of us have absorbed a res- piece of received wisdom
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without really interrogating it.
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You need a website, full stop, end of sentence, no further discussion.
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And today I wanted to pull that apart a bit.
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Not to say that you shouldn't have a website, I'm not saying that, but
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to honestly talk about what it does for you, what it doesn't do for you,
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where it gets hard, and what I think the smartest relationship between your
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shop and your site actually looks like.
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Let's start with a story that we've all been told.
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Your shop needs a website because it lets you grow past your physical footprint.
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Your shop has a fixed number of square feet on a fixed high street with a
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fixed catchment of people who can physically walk through the door.
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So a website, in theory, people used to call it the, the shop without walls.
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It removes all of that.
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Suddenly you're not limited to people who happen to be within a 20-minute drive.
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You're open to anyone, anywhere, at any hour.
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And that logic holds up.
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It's not wrong.
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And if you look at how far website adoption has come amongst businesses,
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you can see that that assumption has become almost universal.
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Back in 2014, around 80% of UK businesses with 10 or more employees
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already had a website, but only about one in five of those businesses were
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actually generating sales through it.
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For the smallest businesses, the micro-enterprises, that
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number was closer to one in 10.
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So a website was something that you had more than something that
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you made that made you money.
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Fast-forward and internet sales, as I touched on in, in the previous episode,
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now make up nearly a third of all UK retail spending, up from the place
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that it was at before the pandemic.
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So the direction of travel is real.
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It's definitely clear that people are more open to buying online.
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The question isn't are more people shopping online,
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clearly that has been answered.
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It's much more specific to you.
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Is a website actually the right growth lever for your shop
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right now given your resources?
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And that's what we're going to dig into.
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So here's where it gets more complicated.
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The Voices of Retail 2026 report was put together by Faire.com
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and Spring & Autumn Fair.
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They surveyed 650 independent UK retailers.
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If you're interested in hearing more about this report, which is
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absolutely fascinating, we had Elyse who was one of the authors
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from Faire.com, onto the podcast.
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It was episode 304 earlier this year, if you're interested
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in taking a listen to that.
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nine in 10 consumers say AI has made them more likely to see products
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in real life and trust a local retailer over an AI recommendation.
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One of the numbers that really jumped out to me from this report, and that
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I've been thinking about a lot ever since, if I'm totally honest, is that
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64% of independent retailers make less than 10% of their revenue online.
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If we break that down further, then 29% make no revenue online
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at all, while another 35% make under 10% of their revenue online.
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So almost two-thirds of the independent retailers surveyed are
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still generating at least 90% of their turnover somewhere other than online.
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And it tells you something important.
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Having a website and making money from a website are two
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completely different achievements.
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Most independent retailers have ticked the digital box, but far fewer have built
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online into a significant part of their revenue mix, and that completely tracks
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with what I see working with clients.
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I've worked with shop owners who have a lovely website, who post on it, keep it
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updated, and it's contributing not a huge percentage of their turnover, not because
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the website is bad, but because the website on its own doesn't create demand.
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It just gives that demand somewhere to land if that demand already exists.
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And that's another really interesting tension in the report.
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53% of retailers say growing online alongside physical retail is one of their
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top priorities for the next 12 months.
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So you've got 64% making less than 10% online, but more than half saying they
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want to grow that side of the business.
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So there's clearly ambition here.
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The question is how realistic that ambition and what it
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takes to make it happen.
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It's also worth mentioning that the wider Voices of Retail research found
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that 71% of independents describe their business as stable or growing,
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with 38% growing year on year.
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So this isn't a story about retailers being in crisis.
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It's a story about where growth is actually coming from.
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For a lot of shops, it's not necessarily the website.
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It could be things like collaboration.
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The report found that 89% of retailers who collaborate directly with other
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businesses see commercial gains.
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Of these retailers, 55% gain new customers, 39% increase brand awareness,
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36% see increased sales, and 30% see increased footfall, and yet
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only 23% are actively collaborating.
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I think that it's useful to mention this because it's a useful contrast.
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We tend to assume that the website is the primary growth engine when for a lot
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of independent shops, the actual growth engine may be much closer to home, quite
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literally I also want to talk now a little bit about why running a website is really
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hard for independent retailers, because I don't think enough people talk about this.
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First off, running a shop is a full-time job, and running a
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website is also a full-time job.
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Any of my clients who run e-commerce businesses can completely attest to that.
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The two things are both full on, and doing them together is really difficult.
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It's not a part-time add-on that you can just squeeze into
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a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
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First off, if you're in the store, it is really hard to get anything done
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because of constant interruptions.
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And secondly, if you then have to make time to be off the shop floor, you have
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to really make time on an ongoing basis to do everything from photography to product
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listings, stock updates, SEO, email marketing, customer service, fulfilling
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the orders, and then dealing with returns.
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So if you're doing both, then you are doing two jobs.
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And going back to the Voices of Retail Research, there's some useful context
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here because 68% of the retailers surveyed are businesses of three people or fewer,
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including 35% who are solo operators.
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So we're talking about very small teams trying to manage all of this.
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They're also quite different skillsets, to be honest.
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Being brilliant at merchandising the shop floor, being really good at reading a
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customer's body language, building a local loyal following, these are a specific
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kind of emotional and retail intelligence.
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Understanding conversion rate optimisation paid search, email segmentation, that
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is a different discipline altogether.
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Plenty of people are exceptional at one and have no particular
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aptitude or interest in the other.
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That is not a character flaw, it's just the reality.
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It can also be a huge amount of work for not very much response.
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This is the bit that's probably not something that you want
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to hear necessarily, but I think it needs to be said.
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You can put in real hours building the site, writing product descriptions,
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running socials that drive to it, and the return can be underwhelming.
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Not because you did it badly.
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Sometimes the response just isn't there, and that's a hard demoralising thing
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to sit with after months of effort.
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And there's another problem that I think, uh, not enough people talk about, and
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that can be the brand ranking problem.
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If you're selling other people's products, which most independent retailers
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are, you're very often competing in search results with the brand itself.
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If someone searches for a specific product, the brand's own website with
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its own SEO, its own digital marketing budget, and its own domain authority
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is frequently going to outrank you.
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So you can be doing everything right and still be fighting an uphill battle for
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visibility on products that you didn't create and don't own the story of it.
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Now, none of this means that you shouldn't bother.
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It means go in with your eyes open about what you're taking on.
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So what is the right way of thinking about your online presence?
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This is my personal opinion, having worked with independent retailers
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over the last eight years and having worked inside bigger retailers with
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big websites and big store chains for nearly 22 years before that.
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I don't think we should be thinking about the question of website versus shop.
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I think the healthiest way to think about your website is as part of a
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symbiotic relationship where each one makes the other one stronger rather than
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competing for your time and attention as two separate businesses under one roof.
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And actually, again, going back to the Voices of Retail data, it supports
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this idea that 64% of retailers currently generating less than 10%
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of revenue online, growing online alongside physical retail is the
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number one priority that retailers identified for the next 12 months.
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So it's definitely not about abandoning bricks and mortar in favour of e-commerce.
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It's working out how the two can reinforce each other.
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I have to say that I have seen it work better for people when they really
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look at how the online channel can serve the bricks and mortar, and the
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bricks and mortar can push traffic to the online channel than when people
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have set out to create a completely separate online business that is all
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about getting cold traffic to that website and selling to them there.
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When it is treated as part of the overall business ecosystem, it tends
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to be much more successful I do know retailers who have done well pushing
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hard on paid advertising, for example, to drive traffic to their site.
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I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it at all, but I would approach it
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with real caution, particularly if you're selling multiple brands or a
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wide range of products because that's exactly the scenario where the ranking
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problem I just mentioned can really hit hardest and where ad spend can quickly
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dissipate without really providing you with any significant results.
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I've seen businesses that looked from the outside like they were doing
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brilliantly with their online sales, but when you actually looked at the
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numbers properly and what it costs to acquire each sale and then fulfil it,
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it wasn't making them much money at all.
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So I'm not saying that you should never consider paid advertising to grow your
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website, but I'm just saying you really have to know what numbers that you
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need to look at because revenue is not profit and traffic is not profit either.
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So there's a few ideas that I have found that work well for independent retailers
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when it comes to looking at their business as a whole rather than looking
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at the website and the store separately.
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First off, very importantly, keep it simple.
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If you're going to have an online presence but your point of sale system
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and your website don't talk to each other, if you're manually updating
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stock levels across two places, or you regularly have to cancel online orders
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because something sold in store first, that is not just a minor inconvenience.
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It's a structural problem that is going to cost you a huge amount in
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terms of effort, energy, customer trust, and ultimately sales.
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So simplicity isn't nice to have here.
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It is foundational.
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It works best when your two systems just talk to each other seamlessly.
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Of course, Shopify have POS as well and lots of people I know use that
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as- alongside their website and that definitely does save time to have
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everything happening in one place.
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You're only inputting products once.
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You can choose where you're displaying them and it just
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makes everything so much simpler.
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So if you are really struggling because the systems aren't talking to each other,
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I really strongly suggest that at some point in the next 12 months you consider
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rectifying that if you are serious about growing your online presence.
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The second point I'd really like to make is that you need to be realistic about
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your time and get help where you need it.
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If you genuinely don't have the hours or the specific skill set to run the website
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properly, then that's not a failure.
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That is just information.
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It might mean bringing someone in who actually knows what they're doing,
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even if that's in a fairly limited capacity or getting admin support
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to help handle the repetitive parts.
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Trying to white-knuckle it yourself on top of running the shop is often how
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the standard slips on both sides at once
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The third thing is to get really real with yourself about whether it's working.
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Now, this is uncomfortable because a lot of people have put a lot of time
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and effort into their digital side.
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But you have to ask yourself, is it giving you your return on your time investment?
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If you're pouring money, for example, into paid traffic that isn't converting
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or you're spending hours on a website that's barely moving the needle, it is
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completely reasonable to step back and change strategy rather than treating
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keep going as the only acceptable answer.
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I don't know that it's necessarily 100% true that every single
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retailer has to have a website.
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I think where it can be really helpful is to allow your customers
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almost to see what they can expect to find in store and to use that
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as a tool to get people to come in.
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But I wouldn't necessarily say that if it's absolutely just crippling you to
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spend all this time on your website, if you think about where you can focus and
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see real results in the business, if you could improve your bricks and mortar
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store by 10%, the sales in your bricks and mortar store by 10%, that is gonna
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have a bigger impact than even if you double or triple your web sales because
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the number is so much bigger in your bricks and mortar store to start with.
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That makes sense.
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So I just think you have to be realistic about if it's working.
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And this is what I'd love you, to leave you with, is just to
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think a little bit differently about the role of your website.
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It might not be what you assume it is.
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I- and also it's worth actually looking at your own online numbers
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and asking yourself how many of your online orders are actually coming
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from people in your local area.
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For a lot of people, that number is higher than you'd expect, and if that's true for
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you, then that's telling you something.
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Your website isn't necessarily out there winning strangers from across the country.
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The reason for that is because that is the hardest thing to do
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and the most expensive thing to do, usually either in time or in cost.
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It's often functioning, as I mentioned, as a catalogue for your shop, somewhere
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local people can browse what you've got before they decide to come in.
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That is not a failure mode.
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That is a website doing a genuinely valuable job, just not
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the job you were told to expect.
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People who might never have walked past your door can see what you
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stock, get curious, and then come and shop with you in person.
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The website and the shop should reflect each other as closely as possible.
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Same personality, same product story, same feel because they're feeding the same
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relationship And again, some interesting data from the Voices of Retail report.
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82% of customers say they get a better experience with independents
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than chains, and 61% say they choose independents because of their personality.
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So your website isn't just a transactional engine, it can be a digital expression
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of exactly the same things that people value about shopping with you in person.
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And then this is the piece I think is the single biggest missed opportunity most
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independent retailers are underusing.
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Using your bricks-and-mortar store to capture email addresses and
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contact details for people who could then go and buy from you online.
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This is the real engine pinging your in-store customers towards
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your website and your website customers towards your shop.
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Two-way traffic between the two.
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Research also shows that people who shop with you across more than one channel
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are generally speaking better customers.
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They spend more, they come back more, they leave reviews, they recommend you to
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other people, and they are generally just better customers, more valuable customers.
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Here's the honest truth.
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If the paid outward-facing side of your website isn't working well for you,
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if you feel like you're putting too much money behind something that isn't
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returning much, I would genuinely focus your energy on the organic piece instead,
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getting the people who already know you, who've already walked through your
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door once, to come back and buy from you again, either online or in person.
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That's where you get your real leverage.
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It makes you less reliant on footfall walking past your window, less reliant
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on the weather, less reliant on all the things about running a physical
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shop that you can't control So that's my takeaway from this, is that you
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can do this with or without a website.
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Some people do this really well through their social media presence, for example.
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They do shop tours on Instagram.
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They show people around the shop.
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They tell them what to expect so that those people will see
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them, come across them, and then come shop from them in person.
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Or you have a website, but you keep it simple.
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You don't have to put everything on your website.
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You make it really clear what you do have, what you stand for, and you
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encourage people to come into the shop.
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Once they're in the shop, you capture their details.
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You're then able to email m- do email marketing to them or WhatsApp
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marketing, and you're able to encourage them to come back again.
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That, to me, is the best way that you can treat your online presence
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as part of a symbiotic relationship with your store as opposed to a
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completely separate sales channel.
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Now, I'm not saying it's impossible to build a completely separate sales channel
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online for a bricks and mortar store.
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I have seen it.
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We do have clients who are above that 10% who have really grown it to, to
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g- have a larger reach than their bricks and mortar store alone allows.
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I'm just saying if it's something that you've found difficult, you are not
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alone, and there are reasons for that.
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There are reasons that you have to carefully overcome with
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getting the right kind of support.
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A website is perhaps less of a standalone growth machine than we've been led to
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believe and more of a catalogue a trust builder, and a home for the relationship
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that you've already started in person.
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And I think the 64% figure is the one I'd really like to leave you with.
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Almost two-thirds of the independent retailers surveyed are currently
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making less than 10% of their revenue online, and at the same time, more than
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half say growing online s- alongside the physical shop is a priority.
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So the opportunity is clearly there, but the answer isn't simply, "I need to sell
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online." The better question is, "What job do I actually need my website to do
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for my business?" In the next episode, we're going to be flipping this entirely.
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If you're an e-commerce brand, what does a physical bricks and mortar
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presence actually do for you?
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Is it worth it, and what does it solve that a website can?
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If you like, follow, or subscribe to the podcast, depending on where you listen,
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you'll be the first to know about the next episode coming out next Thursday.
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See you then