Some car audio electronics retailers are creating 360 degree virtual tours of their stores that allow online customers to ‘walk’ around the store and ‘see’ displays.
You can embed the tour on your web site so it’s the first thing your customers see. And the tour shows up in Google searches and Google Maps.
Here’s one by Mobile Edge, Lehighton, PA.: http://www.mobileedgeonline.com/tour/
The tour can help to bring phone customers into the store. “When they say ‘Why do you charge $50 more for window tint?’ I can say ‘If you have a minute, I can show you why’…I can talk until I’m blue in the face about how we have a clean work environment and we protect the car with blue tape…now I can show them in a cool way,” said Mitch Shaffer owner of Mobile Edge.
Shaffer said the process of creating the tour was pretty painless and only cost $500.
To learn about a virtual tour, retailers can click: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/businessphotos/ The next step is to find an authorized “Google Trusted Photographer” who comes to the store and basically does all the work. He photographs the store and then posts the “tour” on line.
Schaffer said the photographer took about 50 or 60 good quality still shots of his location. “They handle everything. He showed up, he did the work, I wrote him a check and 10 days later it was live.”
For retailers who want to show off their installation bays as a differentiator from other shops, the virtual tour can help. In Schaffer’s case, he had recently completely redone his bay, adding epoxy floors and new cabinets and creating an iPad based system of checking in and out vehicles. So the timing worked.
A self-proclaimed geek, Schaffer also placed certain objects around the store like keys as the photographer was shooting so now he plans to hold “virtual treasure hunt” contests on Facebook for those who can find the keys on the virtual tour. The winner might get a pair of speakers or other prize.
We know there are other car audio retailers who have setup virtual tours. Send us a link and we’ll publish a follow up story showing other retail tours.
Source: CEoutlook
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