Kamila Faeghy shares some tips on how a traditional retailers can move into online retail store. Visit http://blog.lyris.com/ to accelerate your digital & email marketing campaigns.

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Lyris Connections Blog
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Traditional Retailers Are Moving Online … Are You?
By Kamila Faeghy
As a traditional retailer, the online world is at your fingertips.
Today, customers are becoming increasingly digital and taking advantage
of online opportunities can mean boosting your retail sales, improving your
customer engagement and ultimately growing your audience.
At Lyris, we’re often quizzed about what it takes to move from a traditional
retail store into the online realm. If you’re considering an online retail
adventure for your business, this is some of the best advice we share with
our clients:
#1. What’s Your Strategy?
Getting your goals and strategy right from the start is crucial when creating an online retail store. What’s the goal of
your website? Is it to get your customers to visit you in-store, buy from you online or both?
Some of your goals should also focus on brand awareness and how you are going to get your brand/website out there
through activities like email marketing, blogging and social media.
#2. What Systems Do You Have?
Depending on your particular sales activities, you may have a CRM (customer relationship management), e-commerce
or back-end inventory system already in place that can be beneficial when managing your online platform.
But will these systems be able to work with your online strategies? If not, what other support systems do you need?
Have a think about your operations and processes or chat to one of friendly our email marketing experts at Lyris if
you need help in this area.

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#3. What e-Commerce System Will You Choose?
Keen to sell your products and services online? Perfect! You’ll need to set up an e-Commerce system. There are
generally two choices:
(1) You can either choose a hosted solution, where you create an e-Commerce store using software provided
by a host (like Shopify or magento); this is often more cost-friendly, but it might not be able to deliver all the
functionality you need
(2) You can employ a team to develop your own e-Commerce platform so that it doesn’t depend on another host
provider; this is usually considered to be the best way to create an e-Commerce store and it’s something many
big retail brands invest in.
#4. What Buying/Paying Options Will Your Customers Have?
As a retail manager, you want your online customer journey to be easy. Right? To truly make the most of your site and
your e-Commerce solution, you’ll need to make some key decisions about your checkout operations and about how
this willshape your systems and your customers’ buying experience.
For example, you might want to think about what paying options you will give your customer (credit/debit card,
PayPal, deposit) what methods of shipping you will use (will you offer delivery, post or in-store pickup?) or what terms
and conditions will apply to your purchases.
#5. What Will Your Site Look Like?
One of best ways to impress your customers is to have a winning website. If you choose to create your own,
your store must be simple for customers to browse and navigate and it must alsooffer a simple and intuitive
buying process.
How can you achieve all this? Seek professional help with your website creation and remember that investing in areas
like architecture, design, content, imagery can be worth their return. Don’t forget to consider what other features and
integrated solutions you’ll need, too.
#6. How Will You Manage Your Retail Customers?
If you don’t already have one, putting a reliable and comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
system in place will be keyin collecting, managing and automating your customer data.
CRMscan provide you with invaluable insights into your customer demands and buying behaviours and can be vital
when it comes to further segmenting your audience and refining your strategies and marketing campaigns.
Lyris Tip: Make sure your CRM is able to be fully integrated with your website, as well as with your other platforms
– like social media, email marketing, e-Commerce. If not, you might struggle to coordinate your data or gain a
comprehensive view of your online analytics.

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About Lyris Inc:
Lyris (@Lyris ) is a leading global provider of digital marketing solutions that help companies engage with customers
in more meaningful ways. Lyris products and services empower marketers to design, automate, and optimize data-
driven interactive marketing campaigns that facilitate superior engagement, increase conversions, and deliver
measurable business value. Lyris’ high-performance, secure, and flexible digital marketing platforms improve
marketing efficiency by providing automated digital message delivery, robust segmentation, and real-time digital
channel analytics. The Lyris solutions portfolio is comprised of both in-the-cloud and on-premises offerings – Lyris HQ
and Lyris LM – combined with customer-focused services and support. More than 5,000 companies worldwide partner
with Lyris to manage and execute sophisticated digital marketing campaigns across email, social, Web, and mobile
channels. Learn more at www.lyris.com.
#7. What Marketing Campaigns Will You Run?
Creating savvy, customised and far-reaching marketing campaigns will be crucial in driving your online retail
success. For example, email marketing for retailers is growing in popularity and is one of the most successful ways to
communicate with your customers.
Your CRM and other systems should be able to help you decide what messages you want to communicate and what
audience segments you want to target. At Lyris, we can help you understand this data and teach you how to break it
down, so that you can create successful campaigns – and get brilliant results!
Ready to start your online retail adventure? Get in touch with Lyris today or download our FREE guide: “10 Innovative
Email Tactics – That You Probably Aren’t Doing.”