Online Brands Show Their Stuff Offline

Antonio Moreno, an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, was interested in these retailers’ crossed paths: “Why are online companies moving offline at the same time offline companies are moving online?”

When he looked into one online retailer’s experience, Moreno and his coauthors found evidence that opening showrooms where customers can engage with a product before ordering it boosted demand and revenue. Showrooms also encouraged shoppers to align themselves with the channel that served them better—be it showroom or online—thus optimizing the customer experience and reducing costs for the company.

Inventory vs. Information

With colleagues David Bell, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, and Santiago Gallino, an assistant professor of operations management at Dartmouth, Moreno studied prescription eyewear retailer Warby Parker. Launched online in 2010, the company has been successfully selling its own designs via its unique home try-on program, where customers request up to five pairs of frames to be sent to their home for free in order to choose their favorite before purchasing.

Online brands like Warby Parker have an advantage over traditional brick-and-mortar stores because they can centrally manage their inventory rather than keeping various locations stocked with product. “Online, it doesn’t matter where the demand is coming from. If you have inventory in your distribution center, you’re going to be able to serve it,” Moreno says. But brick-and-mortar stores can offer customers firsthand information about products, which is particularly important for products where fit, feel, or other information that’s hard to convey online play a role in purchase decisions. Put simply, he says, “It lets customers see a product before they buy.”

So some online companies, including Warby Parker, are introducing display-only showrooms that tap into the informational advantages of brick-and-mortar stores while maintaining the operational advantage of centralized fulfillment. At Warby Parker showrooms, customers can try on glasses, order them, and have them shipped to their home, complete with prescription lenses.

How important have Warby Parker’s showrooms been for the company? The retailer had been experimenting with showrooms around the country since its founding, and provided Moreno and his coauthors with data on its sales and returns from when it started, in February 2010 through March 2013.

Using this data, as well as locational information about the showrooms, they compared buying behavior in zip codes within 30 miles of a showroom to zip codes further away. By looking at the change in buying behavior in the influence area of a newly introduced showroom relative to zip codes further away (rather than simply comparing the same zip codes before and after a showroom opened) the researchers could weed out the effects of factors like new eyewear collections or seasonal shopping.

But the places where Warby Parker opened showrooms weren’t randomly distributed: Their focus on certain types of locations, like urban areas, means that comparing those zip codes to others might yield inaccurate results. So Moreno and his coauthors collected demographic information, as well as information about the market outlook for fashion and eyewear, by zip code. “We tried to compare zip codes that looked very similar according to those numbers: Say, there’s a zip code in Seattle that’s similar to one in Boston, but people in Seattle can’t go to a showroom and people in Boston can,” he says. Accordingly, zip codes similar to those where a Warby Parker showroom had opened weighed more heavily than places that were very different.

The Best of Both Worlds

When Warby Parker opened a showroom, it had a significant positive effect on sales, the researchers found: Total sales in nearby areas increased by about 10 percent. But only some of those were sales that started in the showroom. Web sales also went up, likely because the showrooms increased brand awareness. “The showroom is like advertising for the company,” Moreno says. Sales through home try-on, on the other hand, decreased. This suggested that when a showroom opened, customers were moving between channels to use one they preferred—including customers who might previously have used the home try-on option visiting the showroom instead.

Antonio Moreno, an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, was interested in these retailers’ crossed paths: “Why are online companies moving offline at the same time offline companies are moving online?”

When he looked into one online retailer’s experience, Moreno and his coauthors found evidence that opening showrooms where customers can engage with a product before ordering it boosted demand and revenue. Showrooms also encouraged shoppers to align themselves with the channel that served them better—be it showroom or online—thus optimizing the customer experience and reducing costs for the company.

Inventory vs. Information

With colleagues David Bell, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, andSantiago Gallino, an assistant professor of operations management at Dartmouth, Moreno studied prescription eyewear retailer Warby Parker. Launched online in 2010, the company has been successfully selling its own designs via its unique home try-on program, where customers request up to five pairs of frames to be sent to their home for free in order to choose their favorite before purchasing.

Online brands like Warby Parker have an advantage over traditional brick-and-mortar stores because they can centrally manage their inventory rather than keeping various locations stocked with product. “Online, it doesn’t matter where the demand is coming from. If you have inventory in your distribution center, you’re going to be able to serve it,” Moreno says. But brick-and-mortar stores can offer customers firsthand information about products, which is particularly important for products where fit, feel, or other information that’s hard to convey online play a role in purchase decisions. Put simply, he says, “It lets customers see a product before they buy.”

So some online companies, including Warby Parker, are introducing display-only showrooms that tap into the informational advantages of brick-and-mortar stores while maintaining the operational advantage of centralized fulfillment. At Warby Parker showrooms, customers can try on glasses, order them, and have them shipped to their home, complete with prescription lenses.

How important have Warby Parker’s showrooms been for the company? The retailer had been experimenting with showrooms around the country since its founding, and provided Moreno and his coauthors with data on its sales and returns from when it started, in February 2010 through March 2013.

Using this data, as well as locational information about the showrooms, they compared buying behavior in zip codes within 30 miles of a showroom to zip codes further away. By looking at the change in buying behavior in the influence area of a newly introduced showroom relative to zip codes further away (rather than simply comparing the same zip codes before and after a showroom opened) the researchers could weed out the effects of factors like new eyewear collections or seasonal shopping.

But the places where Warby Parker opened showrooms weren’t randomly distributed: Their focus on certain types of locations, like urban areas, means that comparing those zip codes to others might yield inaccurate results. So Moreno and his coauthors collected demographic information, as well as information about the market outlook for fashion and eyewear, by zip code. “We tried to compare zip codes that looked very similar according to those numbers: Say, there’s a zip code in Seattle that’s similar to one in Boston, but people in Seattle can’t go to a showroom and people in Boston can,” he says. Accordingly, zip codes similar to those where a Warby Parker showroom had opened weighed more heavily than places that were very different.

The Best of Both Worlds

When Warby Parker opened a showroom, it had a significant positive effect on sales, the researchers found: Total sales in nearby areas increased by about 10 percent. But only some of those were sales that started in the showroom. Web sales also went up, likely because the showrooms increased brand awareness. “The showroom is like advertising for the company,” Moreno says. Sales through home try-on, on the other hand, decreased. This suggested that when a showroom opened, customers were moving between channels to use one they preferred—including customers who might previously have used the home try-on option visiting the showroom instead.