It’s (unofficially) E-Commerce week here at Evolve Systems! We’re looking at ways businesses can succeed at e-commerce, whether it’s by using powerful yet user-friendly shopping carts, or how a strategic search engine marketing campaign using SEO principles can help you find new visitors and consumers.
What do Groupon, OpenTable, Restaurant.com, and SpaFinder all have in common? They grease the wheels of online-to-offline commerce.
TechCrunch has posted an interesting article on Why Online-to-Offline Commerce is a Trillion Dollar Opportunity.
The key to O2O is that it finds consumers online and brings them into real-world stores. It is a combination of payment model and foot traffic generator for merchants (as well as a “discovery” mechanism for consumers) that creates offline purchases. It is inherently measurable, since every transaction (or reservation, for things like OpenTable) happens online. This is distinctively different from the directory model (think: Yelp, CitySearch, etc) in that the addition of payment helps quantify performance and close the loop—more on that later.
A key component of this idea of O2O is on how it can deliver social experiences that traditional e-commerce can’t. Where traditional e-commerce consists of you ordering a product that is delivered in a box to an address, this new model instead allows you access to an experience. For example – recently one of my friend’s favorite bands were in town, and we decided to go see the concert. The tickets we used were printed out on his home printer, purchased months in advance through online ticket brokers, and the door man just scanned our printouts and let us in. Yes, we could have bought the tickets are a physical venue, receiving traditional hard carbon stock ticket stubs, but instead we pursued an online ticket broker. And while at the show we purchased drinks and merchandise, leading to offline sales at the venue.
Evolve Systems exists to help businesses manage change at every point during the process. From offline commerce to online commerce, Evolve Systems offers solutions to help your business establish itself, grow, and prosper.
If you are looking for an online shopping cart, Evolve Systems can set up a powerful X-Cart system for you.
If you are looking for offline mobile payment processing, Evolve Systems can set up a POS terminal or smart phone application that will allow you to process transactions quickly and securely.
If you are looking for an online directory, Evolve Systems can set up a PhP My Directory for you.
If you are looking for your own website, Evolve Systems will build a highly customizable user-friendly CMS platform for your website.
If you are looking at establishing your Internet presence, Evolve Systems will help you with social media, online marketing, and search engine optimization.
If you are looking for comprehensive disaster recovery plans for your website, Evolve Systems will set you up with an Evolve Vault account that will automatically backup and protect your data.
Evolve Systems helps businesses manage change. Contact Evolve Systems today to see what we can do for you.
