120 Days of Retail: Day 56 - What's Your Local Ecommerce Strategy?

This is part 56 of a 120 day series on validating our product ListIt, a buy online pickup in-store solution for local retailers. You can see the whole series here.

The internet has been very slowly working its way into commerce, from the first ship-to-you ecommerce websites that popped up in the 1990s that made way for the Amazons, Shopifys and eBays of today. And the online shopping vertical has been growing about 0.5 to 1% per year since then.

But the majority of shopping still takes place in-store, with 8 out of every 10 purchases still happening on the ground at physical retail stores, according to the US Census Bureau. This is why over the last 5 years every major retailer in the country from Target to Walmart to Costco and Home Depot has made their inventory available online for local shoppers to see.

Now that post-Covid shopping habits are returning back to normal and American consumer budgets are tighter, more and more consumers are opting to research products online and pick up in-store to save time and save money on shipping. For this reason, although delivery still takes up a greater total share of retail dollars spent, buy online pickup in-store is now growing 4 times faster than delivery- at 8% per year versus delivery's 2%.

All of this suggests the question- if retail giants like Walmart and Costco are shifting to an omnichannel shopping approach that emphasizes click-and-collect, what can local retailers do to compete? Especially when over a quarter of businesses still don't have a website in 2023, according to Forbes.

Nearly 60% of US consumers are interested in shopping online and picking up in-store, and that number will likely grow as it becomes the norm. A whopping 85% of consumers research online before making an in-store purchase, and 86% of Gen Z prefers online shopping.

Putting in place an online service where your local neighborhood shoppers can find your inventory and purchase online for pickup in-store is crucial to implementing what we should start calling a Local Ecommerce Strategy.

This is why ListIt is building a service that takes all the pain away from building a website, so you literally don't have to. You can upload products with a picture and description from your phone in seconds. We want to make uploading a product and advertising your inventory to online shoppers as easy as posting to social media.

ListIt is the Buy Online Pickup In-Store solution for local retailers. It’s free and takes only seconds to upload your first product. You can reach out to me directly at james@listit.one