We all know that many web sites have a conversion rate that is a small percentage of its unique visitors. Well, let’s be honest, most e-Commerce sites have proportionally low rates. This means that many visitors use the web site as catalogs and finally pick up the phone or walk to purchase in the local store. Online marketers have huge problem with this because in terms of conversion (if we are talking about a corporate e-Commerce site like instance hp.com) the visitor finally purchased an HP server based on the online information but do it offline without being noticed. In fact, I did it several times! then for the brand it was a sucessfull conversion, for the online marketer it was a dead end. The big difficulty here is how to join both ends: online lead with offline purchase.

Here are 5 ideas:

  1. Create a banner inviting to register the product after the offline purchase, giving some services, updates, gifts, subscription, or whatever you can give without a significant cost but good enough to attract the offline buyer.
  2. Connect the shopping cart with your dealers list, so if the visitor finally want to buy offline you make the connection between both, and you can follow it up (don’t forget to advise that offline prices may be higher than online)
  3. Give the chance to review the dealer after the offline purchase, so if you rate it high the dealer get points for a ranking, , improve reputation, or something like that.
  4. If possible include Buy Offline as a possibility for visitors, then provide a form that let you get useful information to follow the lead and its conversion.
  5. Give “pay & pick up offline” as an option, provide a CRM interface for dealers to confirm the order, so when the purchase is picked up the dealer change the order status letting you know about the success conversion.

More ideas comming… have some to share? comment here.