What is Omnichannel Retail and How It Is More Buyer-Friendly?

It has been found in studies that Millennials and later generations check their mobile phones more than 150 times a day and more than half of that time is spent on non-voice activity.Therefore it can be confidently stated  that a significant part of their daily lives are influenced by technology. And thus many retail businesses are looking at how to leverage the power of Omnichannel Retail to boost their customer base and revenues.

While the general belief among retailers about going online is to list themselves on retail aggregators like Amazon and eBay, or bring-in sales via social networking marketplaces such as Facebook. Big brands such as Decathlon are enjoying improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by delivering a seamless shopping experience by integrating their online and offline sales process.

But, not all retailers can benefit from a mobile app. Retailers that enjoy more frequent purchases and customer interactions are best placed to leverage the full potential of mobile apps. For example, a luxury jeweller is likely to have less of a need for a mobile app, because their customers make purchases infrequently, and when they do, they probably prefer to come in store. But a retail brand like Target that has many customers who make purchases or interact with the brand several times a week or month, can get the most out of a mobile strategy.

What is Omnichannel Retail?

In general terms, Omnichannel retail is a modern approach of retailing that largely focuses on providing a cohesive buying experience at every customer touchpoint. It is an innovative method of integrated marketing where the retailer focuses on utilising both physical and digital marketing channels to provide customers with a seamless buying experience. 

Omnichannel retailing is a modern approach and encompasses optimisation and integration of all the available retail marketing channels. It differs from multichannel marketing where the retailers used to have different strategies for every marketing channel.

The Customer buying decision funnel is more Omnichannel than ever

Despite the hype of online shopping in the past few years, recent reports from the US state that 87 percent of all consumer spending still occurs offline. On paper, offline commerce may still dominate, but digital commerce plays a significant role in the purchase decision making process. When asked about their shopping behaviour prior to the offline purchase, 32 percent of the digital consumers searched for the brand on Amazon, 39 percent visited the brand’s website, 36 percent visited the brand website and 33 percent compared the online and offline prices.

Then, how do the retailers reach these hyper-connected customers? Specifically, in a highly competitive market.

The approach is simple. The retailers can adopt an omnichannel sales strategy to provide their customers with a seamless shopping experience. Regardless of where the final purchase happens, retail brands must have a strategy which includes all of the relevant physical and digital channels involved in the shopping experience. Now, retailers need to figure out how their online presence – including their website and social media presence – influence their customers. This applies even to those customers who buy on marketplaces like Amazon.

Brands have to focus on integrating their overall online presence to influence where and what the customers choose to purchase. Every customer interaction is the opportunity to improve brand awareness. By making the product/service available on all marketing channels, brands make their product/service discoverability easy, which will ultimately result in customers being more likely to buy the product.

Online Marketplaces are complementary channels to Retailers

Amazon’s dominance in the retail landscape is evident with 49 percent of the online spend in the US occurring on Amazon. In fact, in 2018, almost 83 percent of the US consumers have made a purchase on Amazon. When you are specifically looking at the digital-first Millennial generation within the US, the percentage hikes to 90 percent. It proves that Amazon has become an integral part of nearly every customer’s shopping journey.

Convenience is the number 1 reason why consumers buy from Amazon.

Despite capturing a huge market share, the growth of this giant online marketplace doesn’t significantly hamper the retailers; In fact, it brings a pool of opportunities. Merchants who consider Amazon and other marketplaces as another sales channel are thriving. According to Amazon’s Small business impact Report, third-party sellers accounted for more than half of the units sold from June 2019 to May 2020.

You might not know but consumers consider Amazon as a destination to find new products for their needs. In fact, 30 percent of the customers agree that they first saw the brand on Amazon before they bought the product from the brand’s website. Many brands remiss this obvious connection between these two sales channels. And in turn, they fail to survive in the cutthroat competitive environment.