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Introduction
Over the past decade, retail shopping has undergone a massive transformation with the emergence of new technologies and customer shopping behaviors. Customers today are embracing multiple channels like online shopping, mobile apps, social media and brick-and-mortar stores to research and purchase products. To stay relevant and cater to modern customers, retailers are adopting an omnichannel strategy that integrates these separate channels into a seamless shopping experience. In this article, we will explore what omnichannel retailing is and how it is shaping the future of shopping.
What is Omnichannel Retailing?
Omnichannel retailing refers to a retail strategy where customers are able to seamlessly engage with a retailer through any channel they choose – whether online, via mobile apps, social media or in-store. The key aspect of omnichannel is providing a consistent and unified experience to customers across all channels. This means customers should be able to start their shopping on one channel, transition to another to complete the purchase and continue engaging with the brand across different interfaces.
For example, a customer may browse new products on their laptop, check store inventory and pricing through the retailer’s mobile app, talk to a sales representative in-store for fitting and size guidance, and complete the purchase online for delivery. Each touchpoint works together to deliver a cohesive shopping journey. Retailers have invested heavily in new technologies like cloud computing, AI and big data analytics to integrate their physical and digital operations on a unified platform for omnichannel.
Benefits of Omnichannel for Customers
By adopting an omnichannel strategy, retailers are able to offer customers more convenience, personalized service and flexibility in how they shop. Some key benefits for customers include:
– Convenience of shopping anytime, anywhere: Customers enjoy the flexibility to shop online on their desktop or on-the-go via mobile when it suits them without being confined by store hours or locations.
– Seamless shopping experience: With channels connected, customers can research online and check in-store availability without wasting trips or getting wrong information. Add-to-cart and buy-online-pickup-in-store services minimize hassles.
– Personalized recommendations: Via order history, browsing behavior and profile data, retailers can give contextual and customized recommendations to customers across channels on what other styles, sizes or related products they may like.
– Consistent loyalty programs: Customers earn and redeem rewards consistently regardless of how and where they shop with the brand – online, app, or in-store. Loyalty programs get more valuable.
– Better product discovery: Customers have access to full assortment of products online along with virtual try-on and reviews by other customers to aid discovery and consideration before visiting physical stores.
Benefits of Omnichannel for Retailers
For retailers, omnichannel is a business imperative as it allows generating higher revenues while deepening customer relationships. Some key operational and financial benefits of omnichannel include:
Increased Sales and Average Order Value: By enabling customers to shop seamlessly across channels, retailers are able to turn more browsers into buyers. Customers also end up buying more per transaction with the enhanced experience. This boosts top and bottom lines for retailers.
Higher Customer Satisfaction and Retention: A unified omnichannel experience builds customer trust, loyalty and lifetime value. Personalized recommendations and loyalty programs give customers more reasons to engage and come back to the retailer. Higher retention lowers costs.
Optimized Inventory and Operations: With unified inventory visibility, retailers can offer buy-online-pickup-in-store options or direct purchases from nearby stores to reduce stockouts and shipping costs. Inventory is better utilized through omnichannel fulfillment.
Actionable Customer Insights: Data from all channels, especially transactional and behavioral insights, are combined to gain a holistic 360-degree view of customers. This helps make recommendations, launch targeted promotions and provide a tailored experience.
Lower Return Rates: Customers can try-before-they-buy options like virtual try-on or buy-in-store-return-online for fit and sizing reduces returns and restocking costs significantly. Returns also give retailers an opportunity to convert returns into future sales through suggestions.
Challenges in Omnichannel Retailing
While omnichannel clearly benefits both customers and retailers, its successful implementation also faces challenges that retailers need to overcome:
– High Investment Requirements: Building an integrated technology infrastructure, redesigning processes, training staff needs heavy upfront investments and partnership with technology providers.
– Legacy Systems Integration: For retailers with older systems, it is difficult to modernize processes and achieve data consistency across disparate platforms developed over time in silos.
– First-Party Customer Data: Many retailers do not own enough customer data and insights to personalize experiences across owned channels. Relying solely on third-party data is risky.
– Workforce Adaptation: Retail employees need to be trained to be channel agnostic in serving customers seamlessly across physical and digital mediums understanding their preferences.
– Measurement Complexities: It is hard to measure Return on Investments and attribute profits accurately to individual channels in an integrated omnichannel environment.
Conclusion
As customers continue to demand experiences tailored to their preferences, omnichannel retailing will play a key role in how brands operate and serve customers in the future. Overcoming integration challenges, collecting robust first-party insights are critical for retailers to differentiate in the competitive landscape. While investments are substantial, omnichannel provides a huge opportunity for increased sales, customer loyalty and business growth when implemented strategically. Retailers need to adopt an omnichannel mindset to stay relevant in today’s age of empowered and experience-driven shoppers.
*Note:
- Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
- We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
