Physical Stores Help Boost Online Sales, Asserts Augusto Beato

Augusto Beato reiterated his advice to e-commerce sites not to eliminate physical stores in their business plans, in accordance with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) about the "halo effect".

Beato, the CEO of Portland SEO, added that the said study confirmed his position that online and physical stores complement each other in creating profit for the business owners.

"There's a symbiotic relationship between online stores and physical stores," Beato emphasized. "A physical presence serves as marketing for the brand and allows consumers to check out the products and talk to salespeople to understand more about what they are buying."

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According to the ICSC study, “The Halo Effect: How Bricks Impact Clicks,” that was based on a sample of more than 800 retailers and 4000 consumers, a "halo effect" happens when a retailer opens a new store and not only increases brand awareness but its online traffic.

The "halo effect" is defined as “the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence another.”

The report revealed a new physical store “leads to a 37 percent average gain in overall traffic to a retailer’s website and increases its share of web traffic within that market by an average of 27 percent,” authors of the report said. “The opposite is also true as web traffic tends to fall when stores close.”

This impact is even more pronounced for newer, digitally native vertical brands. Conversely, when a retailer closes a store, web traffic typically takes a big hit.

The study quantified what industry experts like Augusto Beato have maintained all along that new store openings can cause a significant increase in a brand’s online traffic. It also explained how physical stores “impact a brand’s digital presence, why that relationship matters, and why physical stores are essential to any successful retail strategy.”