{"id":21465,"date":"2020-01-29T15:24:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T15:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/ropo"},"modified":"2026-09-22T10:13:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T10:13:59","slug":"ropo","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/ropo","title":{"rendered":"ROPO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad wp-image-14863 size-full alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ropo-1.jpg\" alt=\"ROPO\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ropo-1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/ropo-1-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>ROPO<\/strong> is a purchasing behavior in which a person researches a product or service online and completes the purchase at a physical location. The acronym stands for <em>Research Online, Purchase Offline<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This journey connects digital research with an in-person sale. It may begin on a search engine, website, app, comparison service or review platform and end at a store, office or another physical point of sale.<\/p>\n\n<h2>How the ROPO process works<\/h2>\n<p>The journey is not always linear, but it commonly combines four recognizable moments in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/customer-journey\">customer journey<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Need:<\/strong> the person identifies a product or service they want to buy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Online research:<\/strong> they review features, prices, availability, opinions, images or videos and compare alternatives.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Store selection:<\/strong> they locate a store, check its opening hours or stock and decide where to continue the purchase.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In-person purchase:<\/strong> they visit the location, inspect the product or ask for assistance before completing the transaction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The decision may change during the visit. Prior research reduces uncertainty, but it does not guarantee that the consumer will buy the product, brand or option selected online.<\/p>\n<h2>ROPO, webrooming and showrooming<\/h2>\n<p>ROPO is related to other behaviors and strategies that connect digital and physical channels:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/webrooming\">Webrooming<\/a>:<\/strong> another name for the same online-research and offline-purchase journey. The main difference is the term used, not the behavior described.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/showrooming\">Showrooming<\/a>:<\/strong> follows the opposite direction. A consumer examines a product in a physical store and then buys it online.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/omnichannel\">Omnichannel<\/a>:<\/strong> a strategy through which a business coordinates its channels so that a customer can move between them with continuity. ROPO is a behavior that may occur within this experience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Buying online and collecting in store is not exactly ROPO when the transaction has already been completed online. In that case, the store acts as the collection point, although the journey still combines channels.<\/p>\n<h2>Why the purchase is completed in a store<\/h2>\n<p>Digital research makes it easy to compare options, while a physical location provides elements that cannot always be assessed remotely. Common reasons include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Inspecting the product:<\/strong> seeing, touching, trying or checking its dimensions and materials before paying.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Immediate availability:<\/strong> obtaining the item without waiting for delivery when local stock is available.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Advice:<\/strong> asking specialist staff for help or comparing several options in the same place.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Purchase conditions:<\/strong> avoiding delivery fees, using an in-person payment method or reviewing exchange and return policies.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Trust:<\/strong> confirming that the product and the store match the information found online.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These factors vary by category, price, urgency and previous experience. ROPO can occur in retail, automotive, electronics, fashion, professional services and other purchases where digital research precedes an in-person decision.<\/p>\n<h2>How to support a ROPO experience<\/h2>\n<p>A business with physical locations can bridge the gap between research and purchase by providing consistent, useful information across channels:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Complete product pages:<\/strong> present features, images, prices, options and conditions without forcing customers to find essential details elsewhere.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Store-level inventory:<\/strong> show whether the product is available at a particular location and when that information was updated.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Local details:<\/strong> keep addresses, opening hours, phone numbers and locations accurate, supported where appropriate by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/local-seo\">local SEO<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Continuity:<\/strong> let customers save products, book an appointment or retrieve an online selection in the store.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Commercial consistency:<\/strong> clearly explain differences in prices, promotions, returns or availability between channels.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In-person service:<\/strong> help staff understand the context of the visit and answer questions that remain after online research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The aim is not to force a particular channel, but to prevent customers from losing information or finding contradictions when they move from a digital environment to a store.<\/p>\n<h2>How the ROPO effect is measured<\/h2>\n<p>The sale is recorded away from the website, so a digital visit cannot automatically be attributed to an in-store purchase. Measurement may combine several signals:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Codes or coupons:<\/strong> connect an online action with an in-person transaction when they are presented at checkout.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bookings and appointments:<\/strong> link a digital request with subsequent service or a sale at the location.<\/li>\n<li><strong>First-party data:<\/strong> connects interactions and purchases through an account, loyalty program or CRM, subject to the appropriate legal basis and customer expectations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Offline conversions:<\/strong> import sales or outcomes recorded offline into an advertising platform. Google Ads, for example, documents the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/google-ads\/answer\/2998031?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">import of offline conversions<\/a> that begin with clicks or calls.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Studies and surveys:<\/strong> estimate the influence of online research when there is no individual connection between exposure and purchase.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Each method observes only part of the journey and may introduce matching loss, bias or duplication. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/attribution-model\">attribution model<\/a> should define which interaction receives credit, over what period and under which rules, without presenting an estimate as a complete count of every ROPO sale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What ROPO is, how online research leads to offline purchases, how it differs from showrooming, and how its influence on in-store sales can be measured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1361],"class_list":["post-21465","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-commerce-channels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}