Omnichannel Today & Tomorrow

McKinsey & Company stated in its research paper titled “Omnichannel: The Path to Value” that “Offering a compelling omnichannel experience used to be the bleeding edge of retail. Now it’s a requirement for survival”.

The need to be omnichannel today, or for that matter yesterday, became clearly evident for most companies that sell direct to consumer during the pandemic. The post-pandemic consumer has grown accustomed to being able interact with a business across all (omni) channels and is expecting this trend to continue to evolve and be easier, seamless, and personal in the omnichannel world of tomorrow.

  • Some 73% of consumers shop on more than one channel. (Source: Harvard Business Review)
  • Fifty four percent of consumers say that, over the next year, they’re likely to look at a product online and buy it in store, and 53% are likely to look at a product in store and buy it online (source: Shopify)
  • Omnichannel customers in average, spent an average of 4% more every time they purchased in the store, and 10% more online than single-channel customers. Omnichannel shoppers were also more loyal. Within six months after an omnichannel shopping experience, these customers had logged 23% more repeat shopping trips to the retailer’s stores and were more likely to recommend the brand to family and friends than those who used a single channel. (Source: Harvard Business Review)

The Omnichannel Journey

Omnichannel is an on-going journey. You should think about it as a crawl, walk run process followed by a rinse and repeat cycle. So, you should plan on building a strong foundation today that you can build on as things change and new consumer needs and wants arise in the future.

The table below can server as a high-level framework to build the right capabilities across the 3 Ps (Platform, People, Process).

Crawl Walk Run
Product Catalog Synchronized product catalog across all channels Inventory tracking and visibility for all purchase options Real-time inventory adjustments to optimize the customer experience
Purchase Options Centralized shipping and click & collect. Returns based on the original purchase channel. Leverage online and physical store infrastructure to offer more options such as ship from store. Mix & match delivery and returns to optimize for speed and costs.
Loyalty & Engagement Single-master customer record. Loyalty program to promote repeat purchases. Personalized engagements based on the individuals own customer journey. Loyalty and subscriptions to engage the consumer even if they are not purchasing.
People & Process Coordination across online and in-store Teams. Cross functional Teams with easy access to the data they need to serve the customer. Channel agnostic Teams that can serve the customer end-to-end regardless of the point of purchase.

The good news is that you don’t need to start running day 1. At the same, technology today allows you to master these capabilities in a much easier way and a for a reasonable investment so you can reap the value that omnichannel deliver.

  • If you would like to learn more about how bLoyal can help you get going today and be ready for tomorrow with:
  • An omnichannel product catalog and inventory tracking,
  • Single-master customer record,
  • In-flow promotions,
  • Flexible loyalty programs,
  • Personalized subscriptions, and
  • Real-time engagement

Simply email us at info@bloyal.com and we will be in touch with your shortly, or