Online and offline sales, their fundamental similarities and key differences were the focus of the new episode of our radio series in Darik Cafe. It aired on May 9th and our guest was Sport Depot’s Marketing Director Ivo Todorov. Together with the CCO of euShipments.com – Vichren Bisset, Todorov commented on the synergy between eCommerce and physical stores network – which is the business model of Sport Depot.
Sport Depot is a leading Bulgarian company for online and offline sales of sporting goods, part of the sports giant Sport 2000 International. For over 26 years the company has been offering a variety of solutions for sport and hobby, with a product catalog of over 20,000 sporting items. euShipments.com is Sport Depot’s logistics partner for Croatia, where the sports brand entered the local market with online-only sales before investing in setting up physical retail locations as well.
Online and offline sales – does global eCommerce expansion mean imminent death for traditional stores?
Todorov and Bisset discussed the future of retail in general, and the claims that gradually eCommerce will not only dominate as a way to buy and sell goods/services, but will also ‘kill’ sales through physical stores.
“The future of eCommerce is vast. However, at the same time, physical retail will also continue to evolve and will not disappear as a model. Global online brands that are just starting to open physical stores are setting an example.” – says Todorov- “The presence of physical stores create customers’ trust in the brand.”
Bisset complemented the thesis with examples from online giants such as Aliexpress and EMAG, which have physical showroom-type locations. The function of such showrooms is precisely to build customer trust through the visualization of the goods sold online. In their case, shopping on the spot is not always possible, but in any case the Click&Collect* service is available. An additional and very important aspect of maintaining such locations is to facilitate the logistics of receiving/returning online orders.
Online and offline sales – combinations and alternatives
The conversation between Todorov, Bisset and the hosts of Darik Cafe – Dyuzev and Raichev, touched on different scenarios for a combination of online and offline sales.
Classic offline stores that have started selling online.
Online stores that, for various reasons, also open physical stores/showrooms.
There is, however, an option where online merchants wish to take advantage of some of the advantages of physical locations without investing in purchasing or renting their own. Such an important advantage, as we mentioned above, is the simplified logistics – deliveries, returns and exchanges.
As you know, euShipments.com develops a logistics network of 14 fulfillment centers on the territory of the EU. In addition to stocking goods and processing online orders (fulfillment), these centers are available to our clients as a local return address. In this way, online merchants can benefit from the additional dose of trust among customers – from having a local address to return their online orders. And an even greater advantage is the significant time and resource optimization that a local address creates for the forward and reverse logistics process of online orders. This and our other solutions are designed specifically to support online merchants, regardless of their experience, size or business model.
We thank Ivo Todorov for the shared experience and the interesting discussion about online and offline sales!
Watch the entire fourth episode of season two of our radio series here:
*Click&Collect – a service that combines online shopping with receiving the order in a physical store or showroom of the online merchant.
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