In the digital age, an online presence is essential for developing your business. But what do you need to know before creating a website? You may have heard or read “showcase site/merchant site”, but you’re not sure what the difference is, or which is best for your business. Are you in the convenience store business? Here are all the answers to your questions in this article.
Showcase site: when should you use it?
A showcase site is considered a communication channel, allowing you to tell your customers about yourself, your history and your offers. This means you can share the origins of your ingredients, the development of your menus, the specialties of your chefs, etc. on your showcase site. It’s also the ideal site for presenting your menu online, sharing your contact details so that customers can make a table reservation by phone or via a contact form.
You can also think of this site as a product catalog, where you present your food products by category: fresh produce, frozen foods, groceries, etc. Whether for restaurants or food shops, specify your opening hours and update all your stock availability and pricing information on a showcase site.
Traditionally, this type of site remains a simple catalog, offering no point of contact with customers. By adopting our SaaS platform, you can combine a showcase site and an e-commerce site in one. In other words, mix your communication channel with your sales channel.
What are the advantages of a showcase site?
The creation of a showcase site is a real asset for food entrepreneurs who want to stand out online. Creating this type of website allows you to :
An online presence
Customers usually search online to find the best restaurant or food store nearby. They then find out more about the restaurant of their choice, its menus and services, before placing their order. A showcase site is precisely what you need to present all this information.
Meet customer expectations
It’s not enough to be online and share useful information with Internet users. Customers set a number of criteria when choosing a food store or restaurant: does it offer organic products? Does it favor short circuits and local producers? Does it have a label? Does it offer only fresh produce and home cooking?
You can highlight all this information on your showcase site to attract and retain customers.
Stand out from the competition
Competition is increasingly fierce, whatever your sector of activity. For local businesses, a showcase site is essential to stand out from the competition. To stand out from the crowd, you need to perfect your local referencing on Google. So every time a customer types in a query to find a nearby restaurant, you’ll appear on the first SERP results.
To achieve this, you not only need to reference your site, but also create and optimize your Google My Business listing.
Reach new customers
To guarantee your company’s growth, you need to constantly attract new customers. And the showcase site serves precisely as a point of contact for attracting new customers. It’s therefore important to properly reference your showcase site to gain visibility and increase traffic to your online store.
Fine-tune your web marketing strategy at lower cost
Showcase sites and e-commerce sites don’t require the same investment costs. With a showcase site, your communication is 100% automated, because it doesn’t require constant monitoring. Once properly referenced, the site remains active throughout the year, guaranteeing long-lasting communication without the need for regular intervention.
How does an e-commerce site work?
If the showcase site is a company’s communication channel, the merchant site is its sales channel. The e-commerce site serves as a point of contact with your customers, enabling them to place orders at any time, or even in advance. You can also offer them payment options so they don’t have to queue at the checkout before picking up their orders.
The e-commerce site replaces the salesperson in a physical store, providing all the information the customer needs before making a purchase. In this case, it must perform very specific functions and offer :
- Product data with a precise description of the origins, ingredients and packaging used.
- Photos of products or menus with prices.
- Possible options or extras, if any.
- Foods or menus for specific needs: gluten-free, organic, vegetarian, etc.
What are the advantages of a merchant site?
While the showcase site serves as an information page for the company, the merchant site is the point of sale where it interacts with customers. The e-commerce site makes it possible:
Organize an autonomous sales system
You can organize inventory management, order preparation and tracking, multiple payment methods, delivery and returns options, and add or remove products from your catalog all on the same site, at no extra cost.
Stay open 24/7
Unlike physical stores, online stores remain open 24/7 without the need for human intervention. Everything is orchestrated so that the customer can consult the product catalog or menu, read the descriptions of each product and place an order at any time, even when the physical store is closed.
Optimize sales
By setting up an e-commerce site, you no longer need to concentrate sales in your store or restaurant, but rather diversify your distribution channels. Customers can consult your products or menu directly online, either on site or at home. In the first case, they take a table and place their order without the intervention of a waiter, thanks to a digital menu. In the second case, they can place an order and validate their purchase from home or from their workplace; you can offer them different sales options: home delivery or click and collect.
With the DOOD solution, you can combine a showcase site and a merchant site into a single site, and leverage their respective advantages to boost your sales and your Internet ranking.