Seamless Shopping and the Value of an Omnichannel Approach
In today’s retail landscape, the term "omnichannel" is often thrown around — but what does it truly mean and how is it different from "multichannel"?
As shopping habits evolve, so must the strategies retailers use to connect with their customers. Multichannel retail is everywhere — yet omnichannel takes things further, weaving a cohesive experience across all touchpoints.
Customers now shop fluidly, moving between channels in a single journey. Here we explore the art of seamless shopping, showing how omnichannel can help retailers not just survive but thrive in this complex, interconnected world of consumer demands and expectations.
Multichannel and Omnichannel — what’s the difference?
Before we tackle the complexities of seamless shopping, let us take a moment to acknowledge the inherent meaning of omnichannel — as opposed to multichannel.
It is this very definition that is at the heart of seamless shopping. Multichannel retail surrounds us. There are very few pure players left operating in today’s market. The consumer preference for marketplace shopping means most retailers sell in multiple places to maximise their access to customers.
Omnichannel is the next stage beyond multichannel; it is the art of creating a seamless experience across those various channels such that the customer can shop in multiple places with a single, albeit meandering, journey.
Catering for the ways modern customers shop
Customers no longer shop a particular channel, they just shop — in-store, online, via mobile, through a marketplace, on a DTC website — and quite often this involves cruising several channels for one single transaction.
They may start on a brand’s website to find a particular item they desire and then switch to the market to hunt down the best price or quicker delivery on a marketplace before quite possibly going in-store to collect said item. Retailers need to prepare themselves for all permutations and ensure consistency from start to finish.
Mastering the art of seamless shopping
Seamless shopping starts with how the product is marketed, on every channel, including:
As a consumer browses those different channels, the discovery of a vastly different offer ‘somewhere else’ will sway their purchasing decision regardless of where they make their purchase. It is your brand they are purchasing — and your brand that will or won’t deliver to their expectations.
Seamless shopping requires sublime fulfilment practices. Interestingly, speed has diminished in priority in place of reliability. Customers want surety and if a delay occurs, proactive communication with the proposed mitigation is paramount.
Whether it is connecting to those channels to market your solution, integration with shipping partners to fulfil or simply the mechanics of order orchestration once the buy button is pressed, technology is how one makes all of this a reality.
Embrace the right technology for seamless selling success
Your customers demand an ‘omni’ experience and, quite frankly, so should you as the retailer. If you are selling on multiple channels you need a single solution from which to manage your market presence, a single view of inventory to route orders effectively and replenish when needed as well as a single interface to automate processes and keep your business running efficiently.
Challenges occur when your stock is out of sync across channels. As products are ordered on one channel, stock levels need updating across all channels so that you don’t inadvertently oversell and disappoint your consumer. It is only a connected commerce platform that can manage that sync and ensure you stay true to any advertised stock availability.
Another challenging area is commissioning shipping partners (couriers) for deliveries. Get the size, shape, nature of that parcel wrong and you could be hit with fines for incorrect shipment types. A connected commerce platform with those integrations built in will help you avoid this travesty all together.
Finally there is growth and that desire we all have to expand our businesses. Seamless shopping as you scale up can only be achieved with technology that helps you connect, automate and control your operation. It helps you transcend the manual and enables you to showcase more products on more channels so as to process more orders and facilitate more deliveries often whilst alleviating pressure on staff and giving them the chance to raise the bar even further.
Omnichannel has evolved to be the backbone of seamless shopping taking care of the consumer’s expectations and making the world of difference to you as the retailer when technology is put in place to finesse that customer experience.