Online health and beauty products retailer Well.ca is the latest e-commerce company to expand into bricks-and-mortar retail. The company’s first physical store, which will consist of a 900-square-foot outlet, is set to open in late June.
The store will be located at the shops of Don Mills mall in Toronto. This move comes as part of the company’s effort to broaden the business beyond just online buyers.
“We’re going back to our entrepreneurial roots and creating what we believe is going to be a unique retail experience,” says chief executive Rebecca McKillican. “It’s a great opportunity to attract different customers to our brand.”
Begun in 2008, Well.ca has become Canada’s largest online retailer of health and beauty products, with a focus on eco-friendly and natural goods. The privately held company, based in Guelph, Ontario, has 150 employees and hundreds of thousands of active customers, with its revenue growing 40 per cent year over year.
The Toronto shop is scheduled to be open for four months, with the possibility of extension and the opening of additional outlets around Canada. It will offer about 1,000 products in-store. Well.ca plans to review its sales data to predict which of the 40,000 products available online should be stocked at the retail location.
“We’re going to put what we feel is the right assortment of products in, but we’re also going to learn from our customers,” says McKillican. “We have the product portfolio to draw on and we have the data, so we can tailor it to what people are looking for across the country.”
The store will also offer staff-run workshops to educate customers about the products on sale. Employees will also carry tablets that they can use to showcase their online products, technology that will be supplied by Tulip Retail, a New York-based company started by Well.ca’s original founder, Ali Asaria.
“If you think about some of the other retailers in the health and wellness space, it can be an intimidating experience,” says Erin Young, chief marketing officer. “We want to have a welcoming environment.”
Well.ca’s new approach follows in the footsteps of other omni-channel retailers. According to Deloitte, this method sees up to 20 per cent higher conversions.
“The reality is, e-commerce doesn’t make money,” says Jennifer Lee, national retail leader at Deloitte. “By definition, an omni-channel customer is more profitable than a customer who comes through one channel.”
As such, an omni-channel approach is becoming necessary in today’s retail market. By considering the ways in which consumers shop both online and in stores, retailers may make the most of their business and even boost sales.
