As people may know, the shift in the way retailers distribute products to market occurred since the day online shopping appeared. Some individuals hold the opinion that Online Shopping will be a dire threat to traditional shopping in physical stores. However, the arrival of Omnichannel totally changed the way retailers deployed business.
Is this true to consider Shopping online a danger to traditional one or does it exist Omnichannel as a perfect solution which is the combination of two factors above supporting business to thrive?
In this section, we will analyze and figure out what exactly Omnichannel can do and How Omnichannel benefits Consumers and the Business.
But…
Before starting main parts, there is a thing readers need to conherend clearly about the essence of Omnichannel: It’s totally different from Multiple-channel system.
While Multiple channels try to sell as much as possible and those channels work separately, Omnichannel focuses on Centralization.
It means, rather than desperate channels, it supports all of them to work together. For examples, Online Stores and Offline Stores are no longer competitors. They support and leverage each other to boost sales of the business.
And now we will move to the next part providing details How Omnichannel benefits Business and Consumers.
1. Cross-Channel Insights
There might be simple to manage if retailers only have a single channel to communicate with the customer. However, this convenience in management process will never satisfy customers’ demands. Then, retailers add on more channels to sell and serve. It leads to the issue of existing various different information streams which retailers have to understand and control those metrics.
And, Omnichannel, with efficient analytic tools can help business interact with customer data regardless where they generated, or even, retailers also use it as cross-reference with other data stemmed from similar customers. In other words, Omnichannel brings into data overview and creates a better picture about the effects of business efforts.
For examples, Omnichannel System provided by Magestore is able to extract reports according to the statistic in practice. It involves a range of reports which are:
- Product Report: Provide the idea of metrics measuring product demand then help business identify the most profitable product lines and vice versa.
- Warehouse Report: Check which warehouse or stock location is generating revenue of profit.
- Inventory Report: Up to date current inventory situation under control with 5 kinds of Inventory Report providing details of number products based on SKU for different purposes
- Shipping Method: Check which is the popular shipping method chosen by customers
- Payment Method: Check which is the popular payment method chosen by customers.
- Order Status: Track details of each transaction and see what order status is generating sales and what need to be improved.
- Customer Reports: They will show top customers by generated revenue or profit for each customer. It specifically displays actual sold quantity, potential sold quantity, average profit, tax, and total sales)
2. Inventory Transparency
Basically, Omnichannel centralizes previously disconnected systems, branches, and channels to help retailers see the inventory of a certain item across each of its stocking locations. It’s the point which multi-channel system is not able to do and this transparency could achieve 3 things:
Firstly, it decreases the shipping cost. By knowing the updated quantity of each product as well as the location of its stock, staffs now can choose precisely the nearest warehouse to deliver products. What’s a saving-cost, saving-time solution!
Secondly, Omnichannel allows retailers to fulfill more orders. It has upgraded smart function notifying staffs in case the quantity of any product was lower than average level. Thus, the loss of potential transactions is reduced.
Finally, Omnichannel assists business in risk management. Thanks to inventory transparency, products now are usually rotated between specific warehouses. The issue of distribution will be solved to minimize inventory level. Unsold products are not the pain-point anymore!
3. Improve Data Collection
With the centralized routing, Omnichannel boosts the visibility across channels which means retailers can track customers over channels to comprehend and serve them better. Then, retailers can meet customers regardless devices they use to connect with brands. This action can be used to leverage customer relationship.
A centralized routing will prevent the loss of information as well as potential transactions. What’s more, instead of using printed physical member card, now, consumers are free to receive digital reward points to engage with the brand no matter where they go, regardless devices they use.
4. Personalized Customer Experience
Up to the newest trend, 67% of retail customers start shopping on one device and finish on another to complete the purchase in physical stores. Shoppers tend to use around 10 sources of information to make a purchasing decision.
Those numbers told us one thing: customers are now free to define the way they shop. They desire individualized experience! Consumers, nowadays, demand retailers providing services they want. For example, various options are provided to satisfy consumers on purchasing journey such as selections of shipping methods (delivered, ship to store, store pickup,…) or payment methods (cash on delivery, by cash in-store, by credit, split payment,…). Shoppers are free to choose what gratify them most!
Luckily, Omnichannel can support business well in this aspect! The streamlining system creates conglomerate solving efficiently all of the extended function above.
5. High Customer Retention
Omnichannel can help retailers win customers’ attention by managing the customer relationship and influencing loyalty program. The centralized system collected and analyzed data of each customer and this function allows Omnichannel to distinguish and greet the customer in each channel they access to communicate with the brand. A seamless flow on customer’s journey will retain their retention. The familiar environment of brand and ability to respond customers’ demand in a desired way created by Omnichannel will increasingly boost customer satisfaction.
6. Targeting Specific Audience
One more strong point of Omnichannel is that it’s able to segment existing customer according to history transactions. For example, if a consumer bought a product of your store, he/she would be given a coupon for higher priced or other products. By this way, shoppers can try out better ones while retailers obtain higher profit margin. And Omnichannel is the secret weapon doing this action in the most attractive way. For instance, Omnichannel offers coupon by using an inbound link and accepts customer to use it regardless device and channels they are shopping on (even on the desktop, tablet or mobile phone, shoppers can use digital coupon instead of physical printed form in traditional shopping way).
Offering a coupon for customers based on their history transaction will leverage potential upgrade-sales for business. Omnichannel does it well!
7. Marketing Content – The difference in the way Business deliver messages across channels.
Multi-channel – a system tries to drive sales on each system separately, its marketing campaign’s message is spread as fast as possible and may not be consistent across channels. In other words, Multi-channels communicates consumers with different content to meet individual goals and doesn’t always follow common mission.
Being different from it, Omnichannel keeps consistent and balanced content to approach specifically targeted customers. Then, message delivers across inter-linked channels to boost the familiar feeling with the brand. It also helps business build up a healthy rapport with customers.
8. Instant Revenue Growth
By encouraging interaction with the customer in natural ways, Omnichannel is able to leverage shoppers spend more 4% during in-store shopping and 10% online purchase than those who use the only single channel to shop.
Indeed, it proves the statement that online and offline stores don’t conflict or defeat each other, they support and leverage instead. Obviously, Omnichannel is the perfect combination of online and offline store helping business boost sales considerably.
9. Integrate Business
Rather than disparate parts of the business, Omnichannel makes each aspect work together. Especially, it’s the integration within online store vs offline store, customer services, sales, merchandising, inventory and enterprise resource planning. Omnichannel sticks those parts into the conglomerate which brings into highest quality of product and service for consumers.
Conclusion
To conclude, to be honest to say, each of business needs its own short-term as well as long-term strategies to win the market race. No matter what they are, they have to satisfy consumers as much as possible by diversification of products and services while making sure this extension doesn’t create any obstacle for business operation. And here is Omnichannel – the system would bring you an evolution!
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