Over the past few years, major retailers have been shifting more of their resources online. It’s not unusual to hear about big-box merchants shuttering their brick-and-mortar locations or slimming them down to reduce overhead expenses.

Conversely, some eCommerce stores are doing the opposite – after witnessing growth in the digital realm, they are looking to expand into the physical world. Although their eCommerce stores are bringing in profits, there is no denying that there are just some things you can’t do through the Web. By opening a physical store, they hope to use the brick-and-click model to improve the shopping experience.

Birchbox is one such retailer. After establishing itself as a reputed personal care eCommerce merchant, the brand is now opening its first brick-and-mortar store in New York. While the brick-and-mortar location will be a fully functioning retail destination, Birchbox is also looking to provide customers with a unique shopping experience through hair-styling classes and “build-your-own-box” section that allows customers to personalize a bundle of different personal care products, Internet Retailer reported.

Birchbox is just one eCommerce merchant making the transition into brick-and-mortar, with other big-name merchants such as Bonobos making similar moves.

Just because an internet retailer starts by selling online, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to restrict themselves to that channel. Merchants should always be looking for ways to improve the shopping experience. For example, some retailers are fulfilling online orders from there brick-and-mortar locations. As retailers add more channels to the mix, they need to ensure their eCommerce operations don’t go awry. By implementing the right solutions, they can maintain inventory across multiple channels which helps improve cross-channel management.

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Big-box retailer forge their own online marketplace