Do profitable brick-and-mortar stores need ecommerce? Costco Wholesale thinks so. The country’s second-largest retailer has announced plans to overhaul its ecommerce operations, according to a recent report in the Seattle Times. Costco.com already does $2 billion in online sales, but feels like it’s falling behind competitors like Amazon and Walmart.
“The stakes are very high. The growth of e-tail is far sharper than the growth of retail in general, and sooner of later those companies will simply eat Costco’s lunch,” Vladimir Zwass of the International Journal of Electronic Commerce told the newspaper.
The top category for Costco ecommerce is electronics, followed by furniture, yet you wouldn’t know that by doing a Google search. Costco’s Ginnie Roeglin said the new ecommerce platform will “be structured in a way to be picked up by search engines.” She also said the company has plans to launch mobile apps later this month and is looking at ways to improve its social media strategy.
Site Lacks A+ Content
While Costco remains mum on its exact plans for the redesigned site, the company needs to add content merchandising to its to-do list. Costco’s mediocre product detail pages (as opposed to the A+ kind) make online research a chore. Lifestyle photos are nonexistent, intros are bland, and user benefits are hidden in a flurry of bulleted lists.
The Costco ecommerce content merchandising strategy will need to grow up fast if it wants to compete with big boys like Amazon and Walmart.
You can read more about Costco ecommerce plans at seattletimes.nwsource.com.
