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Improving the in-store customer experience is key for retail businesses to increase foot traffic into the physical store. As technology continues to advance, the world has become increasingly digital — this impacts individuals as well as businesses of all sizes. For retail businesses, the popularity of e-commerce has had a significant effect as customers choose online shopping versus a visit to a physical store

Google's own platform for business owners has gone through many changes in the last number of years but as it stands today known as "Google My Business" (GMB), it's a vital cog in the engine of any physical business. This is because having a well optimised presence on the Google My Business platform means that you have more of a chance of being visible in the Google search engine results page (SERP).

The brick and mortar store is in combat mode and that is set to continue as they vie for footfall and attention from customers who are swayed by the lure of online stores. Brick and mortar retail is very much alive and kicking though and it’s ready for a fight. One major advantageous element that brick and mortar stores have over their online counterparts is the face-to-face contact they have with their customers.

With so much choice available for customers in terms of where they purchase their goods, customer service has never been so important especially for offline retailers. Delighting every single customer that comes in the door of the store will help to encourage that customer to return to the store again and again because they had such a good experience. The key issue though is achieving excellent customer service and achieving it consistently

We hear so much today about social media and the many uses it has for growing a business. Is that restricted to those businesses that operate online? The answer is a definitive no especially if your business is a brick and mortar retail outlet(s). Social media is used by the masses and it is being utilized by practically all demographics therefore it’s something that brick and mortar retailers simply cannot ignore.

Customer returns are an inevitability in retail. People buy things, take them home and for various reasons, they will then decide to return them to the store they purchased them. While retailers likely hate dealing with returns, they need to have a policy in place that all staff understand in order to ensure it’s a streamlined process. If the returns process is not easy for the customer, you could be dealing with a bigger issue in the long term if they decide to vent their dissatisfaction at your levels of customer service to a wider audience.

Choosing a location for your commercial business is one of the primary decisions you’ll arrive at before you open your doors. You’ll of course want somewhere with high footfall potential which doesn’t have an astronomical rent rate and it is sometimes difficult to achieve both. You of course rely on healthy footfall especially as a B2C type of outlet. Some stores of course will be destination shops such as furniture stores and the like as people know and want to travel there and plan their journeys around that.