This week on Bricks and Clicks the six business owners headed to Barangaroo in Sydney where they kicked off the journey to transform their retail stores into an online brands.

This episode shared two key takeaways:

1. Personalised customer experience is key to success

Birdsnest may have grown into a global online brand, but Jane Cay is still able to create personalised shopping experiences for her customers, just as she would on the shop floor.

Since most of her shoppers are repeat customers, she’s been able to tailor her shopping recommendations to fit, style and size. To add a personal touch to all deliveries, every customer receives a handwritten note.

She also noted that scaling a business to an online brand isn’t so simple. But one trait businesses owners need to have is adaptability. Her favourite quote by Darwin:

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives. It’s not the most intelligent that survives. It’s the ones that are most adaptable to change”.

2. Survive and thrive with a website

Research now shows that nearly 9.5 million Australians are now shopping online*. It means that if you don’t have a website, it’ll be difficult for customers to buy from you.

Nick Wilson, Netregistry’s Head of Marketing explains that now more than ever, building an online presence is critical to your business.

There’s no doubt that businesses need an online shopfront but one thing to consider is whether to build it yourself or leave it to the experts.

Once you have your website you’ll need to attract visitors. And to do this, you need a mix of SEO, Google Search Advertising and social media. With new online storefronts launching every day, it’s no longer enough to launch your website and forget. The most successful online businesses are those who actively engage in online marketing to attract website visitors and sales.

3. Know your data

Understanding where your traffic comes from and what visitors are doing when they land on your website is key to ensuring your website visitors convert into buyers. Nick noted three metrics for businesses to look at:

• the number of people visiting your
• what pages they’re visiting
• and the number of people leaving your website

In knowing these three things, you can attract more visitors and reengage those who’ve left.

Missed the episode? Catch up on Channel 7 online. The next episode airs Sunday at 1pm on Channel 7.

*RoyMorgan