It’s no secret that consumer shopping tendencies are trending toward online purchases, but one of the more staggering numbers reported by USA Today is that Amazon shipped more than 1 billion items worldwide this holiday season.

Simplicity and convenience are two of the benefits that come with shopping online. But these assets can also be valuable selling points to attract tech-savvy customers.

While farm equipment dealerships don’t have the reach of Amazon, that doesn’t mean companies can’t incorporate mobile retail practices to offer a more comprehensive suite of precision services and products.

Building a recognizable and reliable online presence can provide another avenue for ag technology sales, while also building customer trust, says Kevin Depies, part of the sales and management team with Ritchie Implement in Cobb., Wis.

“We’ve all identified that the consumers are trying to do more and more themselves, do more purchasing themselves, less business hour decisions. And the comment kept coming up to make it as easy as Amazon. So we discussed if there’s opportunities to streamline our systems for parts, parts lookup, something similar to My Shed that Case IH offers, but directly link to the dealership level where a customer can confidently pick a part online, order it and consistently know they’re getting the right product to them, be more like Amazon, so to speak.”

Depies adds that an important consideration for creating online sales opportunities is to be able to appeal to a cross-section of customers to increase visibility and interest.