You've likely come across it before, whether from your marketing team or through social media—the buzzword that's currently making waves in the retail industry: "omnichannel." It certainly has a fresh and innovative ring to it, but what does it actually mean?
Here, you will discover the meaning, importance, and implementation of an omnichannel approach in retail and marketing. By following a few simple steps, you can establish a comprehensive system that covers every aspect of your customers' experience, from the initial interaction to the final stage. The ultimate outcome is complete coverage and continuity throughout the entire customer journey.
What does Omnichannel mean?
An omnichannel experience refers to a comprehensive and integrated approach to marketing, selling, and serving customers. The goal is to create a cohesive and seamless customer experience, regardless of the channel or platform they use to interact with the business, be it social media, eCommerce, or physical stores.
Research, such as a study conducted by Harvard Business Review involving 46,000 consumers, provides concrete evidence that adopting an omnichannel retail strategy is effective and successful.
For business owners, embracing an omnichannel approach allows them to offer customers a smooth and consistent shopping experience across various channels, blending brick-and-mortar stores with digital platforms. This not only sets them apart from competitors but also grants an advantage over online-only retailers by leveraging the assets of physical stores.
By breaking down the barriers between different commerce channels and making them work together, businesses can optimize all touch-points of the consumer experience. This synergy between physical and digital channels leads to significant economic value, benefitting both traditional store shoppers and those engaging through digital means. Overall, an omnichannel strategy provides the best of both worlds and a powerful way to enhance the overall customer experience.
How consumers shop?
Approximately 43% of customers have utilized their mobile phones while shopping in physical stores, underscoring the significance of omni-channel marketing.
By implementing an omnichannel retail strategy, you have the potential to convert this screen time into actual sales at your brick-and-mortar locations.
Consider the scenario of a shopper seeking an item that your website or app claims is available in stock, only to discover it's not present when they visit your store. This mismatched information creates a less than ideal shopping experience.
In recent years, retail sales through digital channels, including mobile sales, have seen a remarkable growth of 23%. The major beneficiaries of this surge have been online merchants.
Among these, Amazon stands out as the dominant force, capturing a significant 26% share of the entire online retail market.
As Amazon continues its aggressive expansion into diverse sectors like fashion and food, the threat it poses to traditional online and brick-and-mortar retailers becomes increasingly pronounced, raising concerns about their long-term survival.
The key takeaway here is that having a presence across all channels is crucial for enhancing user experience and improving your business's financial performance. Amazon's success in the consumer market is largely due to its advanced omnichannel approach.
To avoid missing out on potential sales, it's essential to optimize your retail strategy and fully embrace an omnichannel approach. By doing so, you can ensure a seamless and consistent experience for your customers, regardless of the channels they use to interact with your business.
How Omni-channel can improve any business
Any business, whether a large corporation or a local brick-and-mortar store aiming to increase its market share, can employ various effective strategies for immediate growth.
In-store picks-ups + returns from online orders
In essence, offering a wide range of options to customers increases the likelihood of their purchases.
Both customers and small businesses highly value the flexibility of buying online and returning items in-store. This, in turn, enhances the customer's lifetime value and more.
Cross-channel promotions
Omnichannel retail presents the opportunity to offer improved pricing incentives and the ability to provide discount offers.
For instance, you can entice customers with a discount code on Facebook, encouraging them to visit your physical store. This way, you capture their attention both online/mobile and encourage them to step into your store.
Moreover, considering the substantial time people spend in front of screens, as reported by Nielsen's Total Audience Report (10 hours and 39 minutes daily on average for Americans), it becomes a prime opportunity to leverage their online presence to drive them to your physical location.
Even while customers are in-store, they remain active on their phones, continuing to shop, check prices, make product comparisons, read reviews, and seek advice from their social media apps before making a purchase. Recognizing this behavior is essential as it allows you to optimize the customer experience across both online and physical platforms.
Real Time Inventory and availability control
By utilizing DizLog POS, you gain the capability to synchronize your inventory across both your physical store and eCommerce operations. This ensures real-time visibility of your inventory at all levels.
When a customer makes a purchase through your POS system, the online stock is automatically updated, preventing the sale of items that are no longer available. As a result, you can confidently avoid missing out on sales due to inaccurate stock information, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for your customers.
Innovative pick-up solutions
Enable customers to access products instantly, eliminating the need to wait for days or weeks for traditional shipping.
This involves providing utmost convenience to your customers, allowing them to make purchases via their phones or tablets, whether they are stuck in traffic, sitting in the back seat of a car, or during any other moment. They can then conveniently pick up the item on their way home from work or dinner, knowing it is in stock and securing it immediately online. This seamless blend of online and brick-and-mortar shopping creates the perfect customer journey, offering the best of both worlds for a satisfying shopping experience.
Big Data – more metrics on shopping behavior
The more information you have about your customers, the more you can personalize and tailor their individual experiences. Implementing an omnichannel strategy allows you to monitor your customers throughout their entire journey.
By gathering extensive data on your customers and their purchasing behaviors, you accumulate valuable insights for future targeted marketing campaigns.
Incorporating a comprehensive measurement approach is essential, enabling you to track and analyze all relevant metrics to maximize the effectiveness of your strategies.
Conclusion
DizLog's comprehensive omnichannel solution provides an excellent starting point for implementing your omnichannel strategy.
By using DizLog, you can effortlessly synchronize your point of sale system with your online store and eCommerce operations. This integration unlocks the advantages of a fully unified omnichannel approach, ensuring a seamless and cohesive customer experience across all channels.
Take the first step and integrate today! Experience DizLog's complete POS solution for free and discover the benefits of a robust omnichannel strategy.