Footwear Insight

22 • Footwear Insight ~ July/August 2017 footwearinsight.com Making E-Comm Work for You RETAIL By Jennifer Ernst Beaudry F or many footwear shops, e-commerce is a question with no good answer. Setting up and running a site takes time and money at a time when both are already stretched thin. And satisfying customers who have come to expect the mobile-friendly shopping and free next-day shipping that characterize e-tail pros like Zappos and Amazon can seem like an expensive way to disappoint customers. But with consumers showing a clear desire to buy online and from their phones, retailers without an online sales presence risk losing sales. The challenging state of affairs has left many independents in a pinch. But there are independents out there who are not only surviving the e-comm revolution, they're making it work for them. The sneaker boutique channel in particular has found online sales to be a major sales driver — and an indispensable part of their business plan. Omar Quiambao, co-owner of the C o m m o n w e a l t h s n e a k e r s t o r e s i n Washington, DC, Virginia Beach, Manila and an upcoming Los Angeles location, says selling online is a critical focus. "We believe [e-commerce] will grow to lead our sales in the future as we shift our focus to omnichannel retailing," he says. "For some of our releases and our collaboration product, we're shipping to parts of the world I didn't know existed. That's why we don't take it lightly. I don't know how any store wouldn't have an online business," says Jason Faustino, co-owner of the Long Island and New York-based Extra Butter shops. For Extra Butter, he says, the sales flowing through their internet storefront are equal, if not greater than the sales through brick-and- mortar, with an average of 50 orders a day going out their doors. "Customers want to be buying at 3 a.m. — that changes the world," Susan Boyle, owner of the two Rime boutiques in New York, says. Her e-comm business, she says, will be one of her major growth initiatives this year and going forward. "Stores not doing [e-commerce] will get lost," she says. So what's the secret? Here, store owners who make e-comm work for them spell out what it takes to succeed online. Make it Easy At the base of it all is your site, and the stores that successfully sell online say partnering with a software provider to Competing online a lost cause? These independents say no. At Extra Butter, online sales are equal, if not more important, to busi- ness than the sales in brick-and-mortar.

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