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Meeting Today’s Shopper Needs with Omnichannel Retail
Feb 2
While COVID-19 the paved way for a lot of eCommerce innovation, it wasn’t the first time businesses went through such drastic transformation. Ecommerce behemoth, Alibaba, created the “New Retail” concept in response to the SARS outbreak, during the early stages of the company’s development. It referred to seamless integration of the physical and digital world with regards to your business and all of its operations.
Similar things are happening across the world today. The term omnichannel retail is making headlines throughout the industry as business owners unify all offline/online channels and operations to deliver an integrated and seamless commerce experience.
According to Shopify, nearly 50% of brands consider integrating online & physical store touchpoints as one of the biggest challenges. This is why 53% of them are making substantial investments in omnichannel strategies.
What does Omnichannel Mean in Retail?
Omnichannel retail refers to the process of marketing, selling, & catering to customer needs in a cohesive manner. Be it your website, social media handles, or brick-and-mortar stores, the objective is to cover all customer touchpoints in a unified way.
Sounds good, but is it effective?
Yes, it sure is. According to a Harvard Business Review study, a cohesive retail strategy like this enables business owners to deliver a seamless customer journey throughout their offline and online channels. Besides providing a unique shopping experience, this approach also gives retailers a competitive edge over their online-only peers by utilizing the physical store products.
The idea makes a lot of business sense too. Why keep your virtual and physical channels in separate silos when you can give end-users the best of both worlds through omnichannel retail?
What are the Benefits of Creating an Omnichannel Brand Experience?
1. It is convenient for customers
While the COVID-19 pandemic had a lot to do with shaping new buying behaviors, all it really did was disperse the daily transactions across new business channels, making the shopping experience more convenient. This is what a shoppers’ survey by NRF points to, as well. It suggests that convenience is more important to them than ever before.
Today, people have multiple ways to shop and they won’t hesitate to try out each one of them in the pursuit of convenience. Meeting them at all touchpoints just makes the whole shopping experience better and more convenient. Something omnichannel retail caters to with ease.
2. Allows businesses to be distinct amid competition
With businesses honing in on winning online customer attention, sticking out in a crowded playing field requires a better shopping experience.
Achieving that will require a recalibration of end-users buying behaviors and adapting to new business strategies. Most of the information you’ve gathered about your customers must be dated and might require rethinking along the following lines:
- The way you assort products.
- Customers’ preferred sales channels.
- Marketing strategy.
- Business messaging.
Keeping these aspects under consideration and implementing the appropriate strategies will increase customer satisfaction – resulting in inflating sustoemr success metrics.
3. Cross-channel promotions
With omnichannel retail, you can deliver more value to customers through better incentives and offers.
For instance, you can offer discounts on Instagram, which can divert some eager customers to your brick-and-mortar location. Pulling them to a physical store while they’re also interacting with your online channels. This escalates customer engagement and boosts footfall at web and physical stores leading to more inventory turnover.
Nielsen’s Total Audience Reportsuggests that Americans, on average, spend more than 10 hours on mobile devices. This is a great opportunity to leverage the online traffic and coerce them into coming to your physical location.
4. Enables data-driven decision making
With the rapidly changing market needs, some businesses will have to optimize their advertising & sales channels to stay in sync with what customers want. Comprehending these valuable insights will help you identify customer pain points and allow you to channel your valuable time, energy, & resources where they are most needed.
A well-devised omnichannel retail strategy will allow you to consolidate valuable data from all commerce touchpoints. This centralized information will make inventory management, customer interaction, and delivering enhanced customer experience a breeze and also help you make informed decisions, every step of the way.
Wrapping Up
Customers of today seek convenience and want everything on-demand. This means businesses need to be aware of these behavioral changes and recalibrate their commerce strategy to achieve the desired results while boosting customer experience.
One of the best ways to achieve this is via a sound omnichannel retail approach. It will help you stay relevant in the game, make shopping more convenient for buyers, make your business disruption-proof, & sustain growth.
Visionet’s all-in-one business solution is a great starting point to enable an omnichannel commerce experience. With it, you can effortlessly sync offline points of sales with your virtual store. Allowing you to reap all the benefits of omnichannel retail.
Get in touch with us today to learn more about it.