How SmallBiz Retail can Compete with Ecommerce

I'm a fan of the ecommerce movement, but not at the expense of local SMB retail. There is nothing more charming than strolling the local streets, the authentic neighborhoods, the crooks and crannies, and running into a new small to medium business (SMB) that has some retail clothing or other kinds of accessories.  It's all about quality and the experience of browsing a little store with personality and customer memories. Maybe it's a specialty store, maybe it's just a store you've been going to for years. It's intimate, you get to know the people who sell their products there and it's a whole different kind of shopping experience. 

So imagine my surprise and excitement, when I discovered a local startup solution that caters to brick and mortar SMB Retail! It's an example too of maybe one of the best startup names I've heard in a while, ThirdShelf. What do SMB retail have in common? It's the 80/20 rule, they make 80% of their profits on their top 20% most loyal customers. So clearly here the ROI, is how to maximize engagement on those top 20% customers and brand advocates of theirs. They buy, not just for the products, but for the human experience that these stores provide. The refreshing change, and the humanizing experience, what's left of it that is in the Retail experience. So what does ThirdShelf do, from what can tell they offer: 

• Identifying high value customers 
• Create OOTB (out of the box) tailor made loyalty programs & campaigns
• Improve shopping experience with app and Ipad displays
• Provide valuable insights, analytics and the integration needed to send personalized mobile promotions to the right customers. 

These incentives are designed to increase the average transaction size, with an increase in personalization of offers customized to each customer. There a literally a ton of innovative Montreal startups I've yet to discover, though hopefully a visit to D3 tomorrow will help. 

What impresses me are startups that not only have a strong USP (unique selling proposition) but cater to a market that offers something to the world that is ethical and has impact on sustainable development and ideas that matter to me and a generation of Millennials. I want to know about startups that can change the world for good! With my Dad passing away today of lung cancer, it really hit home for me that I want to know about and hopefully work with projects that have meaning and offer services that truly help people. The ethical impact of startups that contribute to causes I believe in, that value-fit. 

The companies that are authentic in this way, will have an edge over corporations that scheme primarily for profit and don't offer meaningful contributions to a more humane world. 

ThirdShelf isn't just about customer retention and loyalty, it's about improving the shopping experience via software that knows my historical data and has the potential to predict what products might have value to me in the future. What this amounts to is the kind of real-time shopping personalization brick & mortal retail has to have in 2016, in order to compete with Ecommerce. 

As a consumer, this brand is gives me hope that capitalism isn't defacing the shopping experience, the face-to-face interactions with people of different ethnicities, family businesses, brick and mortal, specialty shops, can still make it, those that makes shopping in a place like New York, Montreal or Toronto such a joy. Because, I want to feel the world when I shop, feel the personality of small businesses struggling to survive just like I am. 

Can SMB Brick & Mortal Retail Survive?

• I want to support those "street-side" businesses
• SMB and Brick and Mortar stores represent the relationships and interpersonal emphasis of Retail, where they know their best customers, because they are repeat customers, and I shop there in part, because I like the owners and customer service reps as people. 
• This relationship-centric store experience, is something that's uniquely personal in a world of malls, ecommerce, outlet stores, warehouses stores and Walmart culture. 
• If we give brick and mortar (B&M-SMB) advanced tools to optimize the mobile world, to bring people back to these smaller stores, can they survive?

For our sake as diverse and interesting cities, I hope so, it's a resounding yes with the right tools. But SMB will have to invest as well, in SaaS and apps and next-gen personalization in 2016. 

 Follow Michael@ on Twitter.  

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Michael Spencer helps companies improve their content marketing, blogs, social media & video marketing initiatives. If you are a startup or smallbizz you may want to outsource some of your digital marketing needs. 

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If you believe in the premise of the article, follow and support ThirdShelf, and tell SMB owners you may know about this service: 

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Perhaps we can keep that Mom and Pop store we've come to care for open longer and make them smarter for us as shoppers as well. You don't have to go Ecommerce to go mobile.