What We’ll Cover:
- What is ROPO?
- Why is it Important?
- What Businesses Should Invest in ROPO?
- How to Calculate ROPO
- Marketing Strategies to Boost Conversions With ROPO
- ROPO FAQs
ROPO: What Is It?
ROPO, or “research online purchase offline,” is a game-changer in today’s retail environment, and here’s why it matters.
Picture this—99% of consumers embark on a digital journey before setting foot in a physical store. Why? The reasons are as diverse as the products themselves—price comparisons, product demonstrations, reviews, coupons, sales, and extensive product research, to name a few.
Take, for example, coffee makers. Imagine potential buyers scrolling through a bunch of options online, comparing prices, watching demos to ensure it fits their needs, and reading reviews for that extra layer of assurance. It’s a comprehensive process that shapes their purchasing decisions.
In fact, Criteo’s latest survey reveals that 60% of consumers have embraced BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In Store), while 77% have delved into the realm of ROPO. And both these figures are on the rise, increasing by 5% year-over-year.
So, as a business, you can tap into this trend, knowing that 55% of consumers want to explore products online and check their availability in nearby brick-and-mortar stores.
ROPO: Why Is It Important?
By now you’re probably wondering why your ROPO rating is important. If you are not incorporating your ROPO rating into your overall pricing, marketing, advertising, and sales strategies, that means that you’re not looking at your entire customer market.
ROPO is the key to connecting the dots, bridging the gap between online research and in-store purchases, all while ensuring your brand remains in the spotlight. Embrace ROPO, and you’ll be one step ahead in meeting your customers where they are.
Soft Conversions: A Clear Sign of Interest
A significant aspect of ROPO is the concept of soft conversions. By placing a button on your product page that allows visitors to check your store’s location and inventory, you can gauge their interest in visiting your physical store. When a visitor clicks this button, it registers as a soft conversion, indicating potential customers’ willingness to step into your store.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Soft conversions provide valuable insights. For instance, if a specific product garners a high rate of soft conversions, it’s a clear sign of interest. You can capitalize on this by running in-store-only sales, motivating customers to take the final step and visit your store.
Neglecting your ROPO rating means missing out on a massive portion of your customer base. Consider this—If you halt an online ad campaign due to lackluster online sales, you risk a drop in in-store purchases because your ROPO customers no longer see your products online. This is the ROPO effect in action.
ROPO’s Impact in 2023
ROPO isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a revenue booster. Here are some key statistics that shed light on this trend:
- Nearly all consumers, a staggering 99%, conduct online research before setting foot in a physical store.
- When navigating the vast online marketplace, 77% of shoppers actively seek out websites with product ratings and reviews.
- Reviews wield immense influence, with 9 in 10 consumers stating that they take reviews into consideration when making purchase decisions.
- 56% of shoppers prefer to physically interact with products, wanting to see, touch, and feel them before making a purchase.
Incorporate ROPO into your current plan, and you’ll tap into a world of possibilities for driving sales, maximizing your reach, and ensuring you stay ahead in today’s competitive market.
What Businesses Should Invest in ROPO?
In the realm of ROPO, certain industries stand out as prime beneficiaries. Here’s a closer look at some of the top sectors that reap the rewards of the ROPO effect.
1. Fashion
Approximately 79% of fashion shoppers prefer to try on clothing in-store before making a purchase decision.
Fashion companies thrive on ROPO because consumers not only compare prices and peruse online reviews but also seek that tactile experience of trying on clothing. The fit and feel of garments matter, and many shoppers prefer avoiding the hassle of online returns.
2. Beauty
Despite the growing popularity of online shopping, a significant 46% of consumers still have a preference for physically examining beauty products before buying.
In the beauty industry, ROPO plays a vital role. Consumers often want to interact with beauty experts in person, discuss specific concerns, and see how makeup colors or skincare products work for them. It’s all about personalized advice and hands-on experience.
3. Athletics
Less than half—45%— of sports enthusiasts prefer to buy their equipment online.
The ROPO trend is consistent here too. People want to take that new bicycle for a spin, ensuring it suits their needs. Sporting goods companies can capitalize on this by providing opportunities for customers to experience the products firsthand.
4. Furniture
In a recent Statista survey, approximately 43 percent of respondents chose to shop for furniture online, with 25 percent favoring ecommerce platforms and 18 percent opting to make their furniture purchases directly from the brand’s website.
In the household and furniture sector, ROPO ratings are indispensable. Consumers seek the tactile experience of sitting in a chair, feeling the texture of upholstery, or comparing different lighting options in-store. It’s about making informed choices for the home.
ROPO: How To Calculate It
Calculating ROPO for your brand might require a little bit of elbow grease.
Purchases made inside a physical store are often completely invisible to digital marketers. This can make it difficult to accurately measure the ROPO effect in your business.
However, there are a few tactics you can incorporate into your business strategy to get an idea of your company’s ROPO effect.
1. Click-to-Call
If you are using Google Ads to advertise your business online, then you will have access to a nifty click-to-call feature. This function will measure how many people phoned your store after seeing your ad.
Consumers will make a call to the store for several reasons, including:
- Store hours
- Product availability
- Product release dates
While you might not know the exact reason behind their calls, you will know that your ad is grabbing people’s attention and getting them to interact.
2. Click For Directions
Another handy feature you can utilize with Google Ads is the click-for-directions function. This specifically pertains to your physical store’s location details.
As a metric, it will show you how many people clicked on the directions to your store. This can directly influence your ROPO rating since these engaged viewers are more likely to make a trip to your physical location.
3. Extension Measuring Distance From Store Location
Staying in Google Ads, you can access another extension that measures the consumer’s distance to your store location.
You can find this information under the Dimensions tab in Google Ads.
From this section, you can select your desired distance from the drop-down menu. This will show you how many people interacted with your ad within that distance.
4. Store Info Metrics
Since you have a website for your business, you should have a page dedicated to your store’s physical location and your operating hours. If you don’t have this page set up, you need to get on that quickly.
The metrics on this page can show you how many people left your website from this page.
That can have a direct influence on your ROPO effect because people who looked at this particular page and exited the site are more likely to come visit the store.
5. Surveys
This may seem obvious, but surveys are a conventional way to figure out where your customers are coming from. Albeit, they can get pricey.
You can implement surveys during in-store checkouts. Simply ask the customer at the register what made them come into the store to purchase the product. If they answer that it was due to an online ad or research, you can attribute that to purchase to the ROPO effect.
Keep in mind, you will need to record data from 200 to 500 consumers in order to get an accurate analysis.
6. Analytics Conversion Rate
If you want to measure your conversion tracking rate by distance to store, you can use Google Analytics.
You can do this by segmenting your data into groups based on distance from your store. Then, you calculate the conversion rates of each distance to see where your in-store customers are coming from.
Let’s break this down.
First, you need to know your online-only rate. That’s the conversion rate coming from people who are too far from your store’s location to visit in-person.
To estimate your ROPO effect, take the online-only conversion rate and subtract it from another distance-related conversion rate.
For example, if your online-only conversion rate is 5.34% and your 5 mile conversion rate is 1.37%, your ROPO rate for consumer within 5 miles of your store would be 3.97%.
Keep in mind that this is an estimate.
ROPO: Marketing Strategies To Boost Conversion Rates
1. Loyalty Cards
One of the easiest ways to track your customers across multiple channels is to provide them with loyalty cards. Loyalty cards will enable you to gather critical information about your customers such as names, phone numbers, emails, and even birthdays.
If you are worried that people will not want to provide you with this information, give them an incentive to do so.
Take Sephora’s Beauty Insider loyalty program, for example. This beauty giant offers reward incentives and birthday gifts to their loyal customers. The company even takes it a step further by allowing customers to earn better rewards based on a points system. The more points a customer racks up, the cooler the reward is.
With your loyalty program in place, you can customize the consumer’s online experience based on their in-store purchases.
For example, Sephora’s Beauty Insider program will provide customers with a personalized experience on their website. It will show the user recommended products based off of previous purchases. It can even show them products based on the data they have provided such as skin type, foundation shade, hair texture, and so much more.
If you are looking to improve your ROPO effect, creating a loyalty program might just be the easiest and most effective way.
2. Facebook Ads
Facebook understands the importance of ROPO. That’s why the social media company recently unveiled a feature that allows marketers to measure ROPO from Facebook ads.
It does this by comparing customer data to Facebook accounts to see if those people engaged with your ad within the last 24 hours, week, or month.
Using names, emails, phone numbers, birthdays, and addresses, Facebook matches the data to help you determine how your ads on the platform are affecting your ROPO rate.
3. Build Positive Reviews
This tactic is crucial in boosting your ROPO rate. Positive reviews online are very important to increasing brand trust among your target audience.
To build a lot of positive online reviews, you need to provide your customers with exceptional customer service. That means that you need to answer their questions, address their concerns, provide high-quality products, and keep the online user experience as easy as possible.
If you have no reviews yet, you can incorporate the following practices to build them up:
- Give your customers cards that remind them to leave a review.
- Send customers a post-purchase email thanking them for their business and asking them to leave a review.
- Follow up with your customers to show that you care about their experience with your brand.
If you happen to get a bad review (it happens to the best of us), don’t let it derail you. Always respond to negative reviews in a professional manner. To do this, you should respond to the unhappy customer in your brand’s voice, clarify the issue, and attempt to make it right by them.
Even in the worst-case scenario, if you can’t satisfy the customer, other potential customers will see that you tried. This will go a long way in building a loyal customer base that trusts you. It gives the impression that you will always try to remedy the situation if the customer is unsatisfied.
ROPO: FAQs
1. How do I optimize for ROPO?
Optimizing for ROPO involves a multi-faceted approach. Start by ensuring your online and offline channels are seamlessly integrated, offering consistent information and experiences. Implement strategies like online-to-store incentives, local inventory availability, and customer reviews to build trust. Tracking and analyzing customer data will also help refine your ROPO efforts.
2. What software can I use to optimize for ROPO?
Several software solutions can aid in optimizing for ROPO, including customer relationship management (CRM) systems, retail analytics platforms, and marketing automation tools. These software options can help you track customer behavior, analyze data, and tailor marketing efforts to bridge the online-offline gap effectively.
3. Is ROPO a recent trend or has it been around for awhile?
ROPO is not a new concept, but its significance has grown in the digital age. As consumers increasingly use online resources for product research, its impact has become more pronounced, making it a crucial consideration for businesses in recent years.
4. How does ROPO differ from traditional online conversion metrics?
ROPO focuses on the entire customer journey, acknowledging that online research often leads to offline purchases. Traditional online conversion metrics may only account for digital transactions, while ROPO encompasses both online and in-store conversions, providing a more comprehensive view of customer behavior.
5. How has the rise of mobile devices influenced the ROPO effect?
The popularity of mobile devices has amplified the ROPO effect. Consumers now use smartphones to research products on-the-go, read reviews, and even check in-store availability while physically shopping. This trend highlights the need for mobile-friendly websites and localized information.
6. Is there a specific demographic or age group more influenced by the ROPO effect?
While ROPO affects a broad spectrum of consumers, it tends to be more prominent among younger generations, such as millennials and Gen Z, who are tech-savvy and accustomed to online research. However, its impact can vary based on product categories and individual preferences.
7. How do seasonal trends or holidays affect the ROPO ratio?
Seasonal trends and holidays can significantly influence the ROPO ratio. During peak shopping seasons or holidays, consumers often conduct extensive online research to compare prices, read reviews, and find the best deals before making in-store purchases, making ROPO even more relevant during these periods.
Start Making Your ROPO Insights Work For You
Now that you’re familiar with research online purchase offline statistics and understand its vital role for local businesses and brick-and-mortar shops, it’s time to put these insights into action.
Ignite Visibility is ready to help you start leveraging the power of ROPO analysis to help you refine strategies, enhance sales, and bridge the gap between online research and in-store purchases.
Whether you have an auto business, an insurance company, or run a healthcare business, we’re here to support you.
