How brands can use store locators and product detail pages to drive performance marketing

by Foodbevy

July 12, 2023

It’s no secret that expectations set by Amazon and other large marketplaces have impacted the way that modern consumers prefer to purchase. In many cases, shoppers want their products and they now want them…yesterday. According to a recent survey:

49% of shoppers say that same-day delivery and buy-online-pickup-in store (BOPIS) options makes them more likely to shop online. (As a result, 51% of retailers now offer same-day delivery and 65% plan to offer it within two years.)
80% of shoppers want same-day shipping, while 61% want their packages even faster — within 1-3 hours of placing an order.
More than 25% of shoppers would abandon a cart online if same-day options weren’t available.

Some consumers still prioritize shopping small, however. 82% say they are now willing to spend more money to support local businesses (regardless of shopping method) following the impacts of the pandemic.

For CPG brands, addressing the wide range of needs and omnichannel preferences for every type of shopper – whether it be speed and convenience or supporting local businesses – now requires one key component: retail ecommerce shoppability.

Enabling retail ecommerce shoppability with inventory scanning technology

Meeting your customers wherever they shop via retail ecommerce is highly dependent on knowing which retailers are actively stocking your products. On their own, brands can’t feasibly monitor inventory counts at every retailer across 40,000+ zip codes.

Fortunately, Pear Commerce does the work for you by connecting any UPC to over 135,000 locations automatically. Real-time inventory scanning at over 3,000 retailers ensures that shoppers in every area can view and purchase from their preferred retailers nearby (from big-box stores to the local bodega) when landing on a brand’s actionable store locator and shoppable widgets.

Store locators

Actionable and customizable store locators with full shoppability at any retailer.

View a Pear store locator in action.

Shoppable widgets

“Buy Near You” functionality embedded directly onto product detail pages (PDPs) or any owned property.

View a Pear shoppable widget in action.

Once the tools for retail ecommerce are implemented, the next step is utilizing them to their full advantage.

Store locators and PDPs with embedded shoppable widgets don’t just inform website visitors of where to buy your products – they act as shoppable, insight-capturing landing pages for both organic and paid marketing efforts. Marketing teams can link out to these pages from social posts, paid social ads, social bios and Linktrees, email marketing campaigns, blog content, and any other owned media.

Using your store locator and/or PDPs as landing pages is mutually beneficial. While shoppers are learning about your products and seamlessly purchasing them however they prefer, your brand is capturing valuable insights directly from the tools to fuel performance marketing.

Using your store locator and/or shoppable PDPs as landing pages to enable shoppability and generate awareness:

Create a streamlined path to purchase
You go through a lot of trouble to drive customers to your website. Once they arrive, you need to provide a user-friendly shopping experience that removes any obstacles standing between a customer and the sale.

Using your shoppable store locator or PDPs as landing pages means you’re always directing shoppers to the best place to buy your products: wherever they prefer. Whether that’s directly through your online store or via a retailer’s ecomm cart, brands need to make it easy for customers to select a convenient buying option to maximize sales.

With Pear, you don’t have to hide your direct-to-consumer option in order to enable retail ecommerce shoppability. Your online store can be included along with your retail partners on all of your shoppable tools.
Take advantage of retailer loyalty
Most consumers have preferred retailers they buy from regularly. They already have established accounts with these stores and likely have loyalty cards or perks they want to take advantage of (think: Target’s 5% discount for RedCard holders).

When shoppers first become aware of a new product, the lowest barrier to entry is buying it through their default retailer. If your brand isn’t making it easy for them to transition from your media to that retailer’s ecomm cart, you introduce obstacles that distract would-be customers. They may decide purchasing your product isn’t worth the effort of finding their credit card and adding shipping information, or worse, they may leave your site to search for your product and be intercepted by competitors’ ads.
Build credibility for your brand
Not only does creating paths to purchase at every retailer make it logistically easier for a shopper to convert, it also makes it rationally easier. Customers are more willing to make a purchase if one or more of their trusted retailers is carrying the brand. This is largely because 1. they’re aware of the quality of products the retailer typically carries and 2. they’re familiar with their return policies so they feel less pressure to try something new.

Retail partnerships help increase exposure, open up new potential audiences, and boost overall brand awareness for CPGs. Use these partnerships to your advantage by displaying every available option in a shopper’s area on your store locator and PDPs. Listing these buying options legitimizes your brand in the eyes of your new customers and creates a much lower barrier for trial.

The shoppability and awareness created by your store locator and/or PDPs can make or break the purchasing journey for customers, but it’s only the first part of the strategy. You also need to know how to use insights data captured from these tools to help inform decisions and optimize future marketing strategies.

Using your store locator and/or shoppable PDPs as landing pages to unlock performance marketing:

Collect actionable insights.
Every time a user visits your Pear store locator or landing page, you collect valuable information about your shoppers. Your marketing team can then use this information to understand which segments of visitors are converting and where they’re most likely to be engaging across traffic source, geography, UPC, retailer, and more.
Build custom audiences.
Pear ties each step of the funnel to conversion events – up to and including purchase. Use this data to build lookalike audiences from people who visited your store locator or specific product pages. Retarget those who visited and abandoned their carts.
Leverage free and automatic optimizations.
Pear integrates with any ad platform (e.g. Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Pinterest). By adding your pixels to all shoppable tools, Pear’s technology will automatically make your ads better by firing events back to the ad networks for each step of the funnel (with zero additional work by your brand).
Drive down-funnel activity.
Use Pear’s add-to-cart and purchaser audiences to drive down-funnel paid social and paid search activity. By adding all ad network pixels to all Pear-powered experiences, audiences can be built and then retargeted on the ideal media platform for any subsequent campaign to generate the highest return.

Curious how your brand can utilize Pear’s shoppable tools and inventory scanning to create paths to purchase everywhere while unlocking performance marketing?