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Specialty Retail & Wholesale
Online retail success comes down to one thing: making it easy for buyers to buy. Clear pricing, frictionless checkout, cross-selling at every step, and the kind of specialized knowledge your competitors can’t replicate — these are the pillars of a specialty retail web presence that converts.
Key Considerations for Specialty Retail
Price must be front-and-center. Let users add items to a cart with a clear message that they’re under no obligation until final checkout. The most common reason shopping carts are abandoned is sticker shock at checkout — surprise shipping charges are the single biggest culprit. Publish shipping costs on every product page, and consider free shipping thresholds to reward larger orders.
Offer net terms for large orders, just as you would for offline wholesale accounts. A retail buyer who discovers you offer net-30 on large purchases is a buyer who comes back — and refers others.
User-generated reviews and ratings add rich, constantly refreshing content at minimal cost. Like any retail environment, up-selling and cross-selling are essential — build product suggestions into every product page, throughout checkout, and into post-purchase follow-up emails.
The most fundamental retail resource is complete store location and contact information for both sales and service, including hours of operation. Live chat or AI-assisted online help is increasingly expected — make sure whoever answers knows your products.
Products & Services Pages: The Foundation
The key to all products and services pages is to provide comprehensive information in an organized, intuitive, visually appealing fashion. Specialty retail buyers want to know what you carry, what it costs, and what it will cost them to get it — in that order.
Franchise & Multi-Location Operations
Some franchise operations still avoid selling via the web because corporate fears online sales will cannibalize local store revenue. This is easily remedied: give store owners a commission on web sales originating from their territory. Everyone wins.
Smart franchise operations make a web presence part of the franchise standard, ensuring consistent brand treatment while allowing local flavor. The e-commerce engine can be shared across all locations — transactions processed through a shared corporate backend while sales originate from local store sites. Corporate cost-effectively extends brand reach while individual stores maintain their community presence and distribution channel.
Corporate can also provide relatively low-cost live sales support across all local store sites — the economies of scale for the parent, combined with the local presence and distribution channels of individual stores, are ideal for web marketing.
Locally Owned & Independent Retailers
Local, independently owned retail and wholesale operations face a different challenge. These stores compete not on price leverage but on specialized knowledge — of the local market, of the product category, of the customer. Your web presence must reflect and communicate that expertise. The depth of knowledge that allows an independent retailer to survive and thrive offline is exactly what should power their online presence.
Consider a presence on eBay and other marketplace platforms in addition to your own site. The auction model — especially paired with a “Buy It Now” fixed-price option — works well for specialty goods and generates a buyer audience you wouldn’t otherwise reach.
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