What is Omnichannel Ecommerce?

Omnichannel ecommerce is a business strategy wherein a brand connects with its customers across multiple channels (digital as well as offline) and offers them a unified buying experience across all these channels. Omnichannel commerce is more aligned with the modern buying habits of customers and gives them the bandwidth to explore a brand across channels. 

For example, let us consider an omnichannel footwear brand. The customers can explore different types of footwear on the go using the brand’s mobile app, then go and check out the size and quality etc in the brick and mortar store. They might decide to think a bit or explore more and eventually make the purchase from the brand’s ecommerce website. 

What are the benefits of Omnichannel Ecommerce?

A decade ago customers used to interact with a maximum of two touchpoints before deciding their final purchase. But now, buyers interact with a brand on 4-6 channels before making a purchase decision. Brands need to optimize their multichannel strategy through omnichannel commerce to offer their customers a unified experience across channels.

The benefits of omnichannel commerce are:

• Boost conversions by targeting customers across multiple channels 

• Add new innovative frontends to engage customers on the new trending touchpoints like  wearables, voice-based devices like Alexa and other IoT devices

• Increase customer loyalty with consistent experience and ease of buying across channels 

• Boost revenue with personalized segmented and omnichannel marketing strategies

• Reduce cost by automating processes and improving operational efficiency across channels

• Centrally control different channels to get a streamlined view of business and its operations

• Utilize inventory better by demand-planning and pushing the stocks through the highest selling customer touchpoints 

• Get data-driven insights about the best performing channels to leverage it for business growth 

What are the challenges of Omnichannel Commerce?

While omnichannel is the way out to meet the modern customers’ demands, there are quite a few challenges in adopting the strategy. 

The key challenges faced by omnichannel brands are:

• Engaging customers across channels

• Finding a solution that gives a unified view of inventory, orders shipping status etc on every channel

• Finding the right tech solutions to implement omnichannel strategies 

• Deciding new customer touchpoints and quickly adding new frontends

• Offering personalized content and deals to customers across channels 

• Partnering with the right logistics partners to build a streamlined supply and fulfilment chain

• Cutting-edge reporting and analytics solutions to understand the performance of each customer touchpoint on their omnichannel platform

• Identifying and leveraging the right customer touchpoints for different product segments

• Scaling the omnichannel model to new markets and new touchpoints

What is the future of Omnichannel Ecommerce?

Google reports suggest that omnichannel buyers have a 30% higher lifetime value than buyers who use a single channel. Omnichannel retail is also known for boosting consumer spending if they are given a unified, immersive and seamless buying experience. 

Omnichannel strategy is no longer limited to retail as B2B buyers conditioned by their D2C experiences are also asking for unified multichannel experiences. Whether it is B2B or D2C, shopping is going to be more and more “phygital” i.e; physical and digital at the same time. Omnichannel commerce along with extreme personalization is going to be the success mantra for businesses of every scale and size.

StoreHippo omnichannel platform comes with an advanced multi-channel solution for businesses. The decoupled headless architecture of StoreHippo enables brands to add new customer touchpoints rapidly using the same backend logic and 300+ API endpoints. By unifying these multichannel buyer journeys through a single central control StoreHippo offers the right tools and tech solutions for brands planning their omnichannel transition.