电商反攻实体店零售业务

    时尚网站BaubleBar在过去两年建立了忠实的用户群，这些人已习惯于在BaubleBar上购买款式多变、价格合理的珠宝。BaubleBar计划在10月17日邀请顾客前往曼哈顿总部后的THE BAR体验店亲自佩戴珠宝，这座体验店的面积足有500平方英尺之大。

    它意味着现代营销方式向传统回归：自互联网诞生以来，传统实体零售店纷纷开设网上商店。据咨询公司eMarketer统计，在线服饰和配件的销售额增长率要远远高于其它电子商务产品类别，有望在2012年达到409亿美元，高于2011年的409亿美元。不过到目前为止，电商们还鲜有涉足实体店的。【你还记得上次开车前往本地的亚马逊（Amazon）实体店买T恤是什么时候吗？】

    然而，这一趋势如今正在发生改变。许多新近成立的数字品牌都在大力发展线下业务。他们知道，互联网市场满是大好机会，但与传统实体市场相比，前者仍稍显稚嫩。据统计，目前80%的商品交易仍在线下进行。

    所以时尚眼镜制造商Warby Parker最近也开设了一家名为SoHo的体验店，还将一部校车改造成了流动商店，计划在未来半年内前往美国9座城市。此外，Warby Parker计划在洛杉矶、芝加哥和费城等9座城市的商场内开设体验店。

    另一个例子是互联网时尚男装品牌Bonobos。去年秋天，这家公司在切尔西总部附近开设了名为Guideshop的精品店。今年4月，Bonobos获得了由诺德斯特姆百货公司（Nordstrom's）牵头的1,640万美元投资【还有风险投资加速合伙公司（Accel Partners）和光速创投（Lightspeed Venture Partners）】，而且还与其达成了协议，将在后者超过69家零售店中销售服装。一年后，Bonobos在波士顿和帕洛阿尔托开设了Guideshop精品店，而其芝加哥店也将于10月15日开张。

    咨询公司弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）分析师苏卡利塔•穆尔普鲁表示，这样的策略合情合理。因为房地产价格目前相对较低，而电商们也已大幅降低了库存成本。（许多电商在顾客从实体店选购好商品后，仍使用在线快递方式发货。）穆尔普鲁补充说：“这只是一些小动作而已。一旦奏效，他们就会推广到其它地方。”

    BaubleBar希望遵循这一模式。该公司创始人达妮埃拉•亚科博夫斯基以及艾米•贾恩今年都是30岁。几年前，两人同在哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）读二年级时，产生了创办珠宝公司的想法，该公司出售的项链、耳环和手镯价格一般在20到120美元之间。他们发现，与服装或鞋子相比，大多数消费者对珠宝商的品牌没那么在意。因此，百货商场竞争凭借的是利润率，而非销量：他们压低价格，从许多规模较小的设计师那里采购珠宝，然后以高得多的价格将产品卖出。

    见过数百名设计师之后，亚科博夫斯基与贾恩转向了互联网，以绕开中间商环节，使消费者能享受到更低的价格，而同时设计师能比以前多赚些钱。她们向朋友们发出BaubleBar邀请后，于2011年1月正式启动了网站。至今，BaubleBar的增长主要是靠口耳相传。该公司拥有560万美元的资金，每周大概上线100款新品。BaubleBar能够迅速行动——这是互联网的典型优势，并使产品本地化。

    Fashion site BaubleBar has spent two years building an avid group of fans who turn to the site to sift through a fast-changing array of hip jewelry sold at reasonable prices. On October 17, the company will invite customers to try on that jewelry in person -- at THE BAR, a 500 square-foot showroom that will open in the back of the company's Manhattan corporate headquarters.

    Consider it a modern twist on an old trend: since the birth of the web, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers have been creating digital storefronts. Web sales of apparel and accessories, in particular, are growing far faster than any other e-commerce product category and are expected to reach $40.9 billion in 2012, up from $40.9 billion in 2011, according to eMarketer. But until recently, digital retailers rarely took to the streets. (When's the last time you drove down to your local Amazon (AMZN) to pick up a skirt?)

    Now that's changing as a new crop of entrepreneurs are developing digital brands that migrate to physical locations. They know that the online opportunity may be big, but it is still dwarfed by more traditional shopping experiences; 80% of transactions still occur offline after all.

    Thus trendy glasses-maker Warby Parker recently opened a SoHo showroom, and the company has retrofitted a school bus to be a pop-up store-on-the-go that will travel to nine cities over the next six months. It has also launched showrooms within existing retail spaces in nine US cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

    Another example: Last fall Bonobos, an Internet fashion brand that peddles trendy pants to affluent men, opened a storefront it called "Guideshop" in the company's Chelsea headquarters. In April, the company took a $16.4 million investment led by Nordstrom's (JWN) (along with Accel Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners) and struck a deal with the retailer to sell its clothes in more than 69 physical stores. A year later, Bonobos has "Guideshop" boutiques in Boston and Palo Alto and a Chicago store will open October 15.

    It's a strategy that makes sense, says Forrester (FORR) analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, because real estate is relatively cheap right now and online retailers have drastically reduced the price of inventory. (Many still mail the inventory online after customers have reviewed the products in the store.) "They're small bets," Mulpuru adds. "If it ends up being successful they can extend it to other places as well."

    That's the model BaubleBar hopes to follow. Founders Daniella Yacobovsky and Amy Jain, both 30, developed the idea for the jewelry company, which sells necklaces, earrings and bracelets for an average between $20 and $120, a few years ago when they were classmates in their second year of Harvard Business School. They noticed most shoppers had no brand affiliation with jewelers the way they might with clothing, say, or shoes. Thus department stores competed on margins, not volume: they bought from many smaller designers without care-taking relationships and then marked the jewelry way up.

    After meeting with hundreds of designers, Yacobovsky and Jain turned to the Internet to cut out the middlemen, bringing prices down for consumers while at the same time paying designers more. They launched officially in January 2011 after issuing BaubleBar invitations to friends, and have grown mostly by word-of-mouth. With $5.6 million in funding, the company, which adds roughly 100 new products to the site every week, is also able to move very fast -- a classic Internet advantage -- and to localize products.