When people are looking for a specific product, most of the time the first results provided by the search engine are hyperlinks to the websites from big online retailers such as Amazon. Even though local companies offer the same product as well, customers often find it hard to check whether the physical store offers a certain product. And when it’s offered, they doubt whether the product is still in stock. Therefore, these niche products are bought at an online retailer such as Amazon.
However, a new start-up has been founded that is trying to help local shops in their battle against online giants; Pointy. This is an Irish company that helps physical retailers put their products and stock online and make it findable for potential customers. Pointy’s slogan is: “Keep it local”. The start-up raised 6m capital initially. Around 1500 shops are using Pointy right now.
It’s a small gadget that makes use of both hardware and software supports retailers to fight back against online giants. How does it work? Shop owners must plug-in a simple box, which connects with their barcode scanner and Point of Sale data. Scanned products automatically appear on the Pointy page from that particular shop. Based on data, an algorithm estimates the current stock. If the data is unclear, the page advices the customer to call the shop personnel.
Besides, Pointy helps to get your shop higher up in the search engines. For instance, inhabitants from Los Altos see ‘True Value Hardware’, which is a local shop, higher on the search results than Amazon when looking for LED lights. Niche or obscure products benefit the most from the service provided by Pointy, since nobody is searching on terms as Coca-Cola.
So, this new gadget provides a helping hand for physical retailers to compete against online retailers. However, I doubt if technologies like these can prevent local shops from losing more market share to online retailers.
Feel free to share your opinion about the developments in the retail market.
References:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/20/pointy/?ncid=rss
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pointy-raises-6-million-to-move-local-stores-online-1505973600
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/09/21/how-bricks-and-mortar-stores-can-fight-off-amazon.html
