Offline to Online
I was meeting with a very successful B2C company. While their primary sales were through offline stores, they also had a digital presence and were selling their products online. As the meeting progressed, I realised that their understanding of the digital business was quite basic. These companies, rooted in offline retail, were venturing into online sales but struggled to adapt their strategies to the digital realm. Their efforts were primarily focused on customer acquisition, neglecting crucial aspects like customer retention and maximising lifetime value. This approach led to inefficiencies and wasted resources in their digital spending, creating friction in the customer conversion funnel.
After three such meetings in as many weeks, I reflected on what could be done about this. At Netcore, we underwent a transformative shift in our approach as we evolved from a traditional in-person selling model to a modern SaaS framework. This transition required us to embrace content marketing and remote selling, fundamentally changing the way we interacted with our clients and marketed our services. The need for the offline businesses was not a reactivation progency (as I was pitching), but something much more. I needed to connect some of the dots I was seeing.
These businesses, while experts in traditional retail elements like manufacturing, supply chain management, and logistics, faced challenges in integrating these strengths into their digital strategies. They competed with digital-native startups who had a direct-to-consumer approach and lacked the institutional knowledge for a seamless transition to eCommerce. This gap often resulted in a reliance on external agencies and consultants, without fully understanding how to leverage these partnerships effectively.
Building a digital DNA is not easy. While the businesses can create digital storefronts – typically on Shopify or similar eCommerce platforms – learning the “digital way” is much harder. They must learn a whole new way of doing business. Getting the right talent is hard – the new employees don’t see a long future and turnover tends to be high. Because the digital team is typically small, the loss of even a handful of staff can be a setback. Also, the digital arms of these companies frequently operated in the shadow of their offline counterparts, leading to unprofitable online ventures burdened by high customer acquisition costs and low customer lifetime values. The common solution, offering discounts, further undermined profitability.
At the same time, the digital landscape offers immense potential beyond just being an online storefront. It can provide valuable data insights, break geographical barriers, attract new customer segments, and significantly contribute to profitability. To realise the true potential of omni-channel, a paradigm shift is needed in how digital business is approached. Enter ELF: eCommerce Lifecycle Franchisee.
The interesting idea here is that of thinking of a franchisee for digital. We will begin by discussing franchising, and then discuss the ELF model.
