This small SEO trick is helping this brand get more footfall to their retail outlets

Let me share a personal shopping experience that highlighted just how important a well-optimized website and thoughtful customer journey design can be.

The story begins with my mom wanting a comfortable pair of footwear. Naturally, I thought of Happenstance—a brand known for its ultra-comfy soles that are perfect for walking. But here’s the challenge: we were in town, surrounded by a dozen footwear shops, and I had no idea which store carried Happenstance products.

My first attempt was to walk into a big footwear shop nearby, but they didn’t stock Happenstance. Frustrated, I turned to Google, searching for “Happenstance in [town name]”.

To my surprise, one of the top results was a page on Happenstance’s official website. The page wasn’t just about their products—it included a store locator tool where I could enter my city and instantly see a list of nearby offline retail stores that stocked Happenstance footwear.

Within minutes, I found a store close by, went there, and finally bought the perfect pair for my mom.

Why This Worked

1. Beyond E-Commerce:
   Happenstance primarily operates as an e-commerce website, but they didn’t stop there. They recognized that offline shopping is still a major preference for many customers and created a tool to bridge the gap between their online presence and offline availability.

2. SEO-Optimized Store Locator:
   The fact that this page ranked on Google when I searched for their brand in my town is a testament to their smart SEO strategy. It wasn’t buried deep in their site—it was easily discoverable, making the search process seamless.

3. Solving a Real Customer Pain Point:
   Google Maps might show you store names, but small retail outlets don’t always list the brands they carry. By providing an up-to-date list of partner stores, Happenstance made it incredibly easy for me to locate exactly where to buy their products offline.

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