The eCommerce world is changing quickly, and customers now expect more than ever. It is crucial to understand and deliver customers what, when, and where they want.
This rising expectation puts a lot of pressure on retailers and consumer product companies to keep their promises. That’s where omnichannel eCommerce comes in. It connects all sales channels, creating a smooth and personalized shopping experience across different touchpoints.
In this article, we will explain what omnichannel eCommerce is and its benefits. We will also share the best practices used by eCommerce development services and the top trends to look out for in 2024.
What is Omnichannel eCommerce?
Omnichannel eCommerce is a retail strategy that connects different shopping channels like websites, mobile apps, online marketplaces, email, social commerce channels, and physical stores. It creates a smooth and unified experience for customers.
This approach helps businesses make the most of all their sales channels. It understands that customers often switch between channels while shopping and ensures these changes are seamless. By integrating these channels, businesses offer a consistent and enjoyable shopping experience, which keeps customers satisfied and increases eCommerce sales.
The idea of an omnichannel eCommerce approach is often mixed up with multichannel eCommerce. In multichannel eCommerce, each channel works separately. They have their own inventories, pricing, and customer support. This means the customer’s experience can change depending on which channel they use. However, the omnichannel and multichannel eCommerce works differently. Omnichannel eCommerce solutions integrate all channels to offer a smooth and consistent customer experience.
In omnichannel eCommerce marketing, retailers are active on multiple platforms, making sure these platforms work together. The company’s messaging, branding, shopping experience, and pricing are the same across all platforms. Customer details are also kept across interactions, so switching channels doesn’t disrupt the experience.
Benefits of Omnichannel eCommerce
According to Omnisend, brands with omnichannel strategies witness 287% higher purchase rates than single-channel campaigns.
It’s safe to say that omnichannel eCommerce marketing is the future. It not only creates a unified customer experience but also offers various benefits to businesses. Let’s discuss some top advantages of omnichannel eCommerce:
Better Customer Experience
The omnichannel strategy makes shopping easier by keeping everything consistent across different platforms. Whether customers use a mobile app or shop through social media, they get the same brand experience.
Their order history, payment info, cart, and recently viewed items are all synced. This convenience makes shopping more enjoyable and hassle-free.
Increased Sales
A smooth shopping experience across different channels can boost eCommerce sales. Customers can start shopping in one place and finish in another without any issues.
For example, if someone tries on a shirt in a store but can’t find their size, they can add it to their cart on the online store. Later, they can buy it from their laptop at home.
Stronger Brand Loyalty
When shopping is easy and consistent, customers are more likely to come back. A personalized experience across all touchpoints builds a strong relationship with customers. This familiarity makes them loyal to the brand, leading to repeat purchases and higher lifetime value.
Omnichannel shoppers are more likely to return and recommend the brand to friends and family.
Valuable Insights
An omnichannel approach lets you collect data from all customer interactions. This data provides insights into customer behavior, preferences, and trends.
Understanding these patterns helps in creating better marketing strategies, offering personalized experiences, and making informed product decisions.
How to Create an Effective Omnichannel eCommerce Strategy?
Now that you know the benefits of implementing an omnichannel approach, you might be thinking of potential ways to create an impactful strategy. But don’t worry; we are here to help with that as well.
Here’s how you can craft a successful omnichannel eCommerce strategy:
Understand How Customers Engage with Your Brand
Understanding how customers engage with your brand is critical to driving customer experience and sales. Go beyond basic demographics (like age and location) to understand how they’re making their purchase decisions, on which channels, and where the pain points are. That’s going to help you realize what is working well and what isn’t.
For example, if you want to learn how to get more customers to add items to their cart, the data will show you how they do it. Was it from a push notification click or while browsing in-app? That kind of information will determine which channels are most engaged. With this kind of data, you can design better eCommerce marketing strategies.
Segment the Audience
Segmentation is key in personalizing your marketing activity. Divide your customers according to age, interests, online behavior, or other relevant factors to help address them by group and make campaigns more effective.
For example, onboarding emails with step-by-step guides or an in-app tour would work for new customers. On the other hand, emails featuring new features and special discounts on the products they have purchased would drive more inactive customers.
Deliver Personalized Content on All Channels
Although omnichannel eCommerce marketing means a consistent experience across all channels, it requires channel-specific content. Detailed email content doesn’t work for push notifications or SMS; instead, they have to be short and attention-grabbing.
Measure and analyze data to see how each channel performs, then create personalized content accordingly. eCommerce marketing tools can help unify customer data, compare interactions across channels, build customer segments, and send out targeted campaigns for events like cart abandonment or product recommendations. This will enhance customer experience with relevant and engaging content.
Retarget Your Customers
Retargeting is one of the powerful strategies of omnichannel eCommerce marketing. Before making a purchase, customers usually compare prices and options; that is where this feature comes in handy. Using custom retargeting journeys across channels, you will be better placed to keep your brand at the top of customers’ minds and drive conversions.
For example, a customer may intend to buy an expensive gadget by placing it in his shopping cart but then shop around for prices. Retargeting can keep such customers at the top through reminders or other special offers that will push them to complete the sale.
Unify Inventory Management
Inventory management should be unified so that there are no interruptions in the customer’s shopping experience. This will help make handling inventory across selling channels more efficient for retailers and provide customers with the ability to always have the most relevant information.
With a single view of inventory across all channels, customers, either e-shopping or in-store, can be assured of accurate information. The accuracy of the inventory data has to be updated in real time. To achieve this, there is a need for advanced technology that tracks the levels of inventory, all sales data, and order fulfillment in real time.
Automated order routing further enhances efficiency by directing orders to the most suitable fulfillment location, whether a physical store or a distribution center. This ensures quick and efficient order fulfillment, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Automate the Processes
Automation helps simplify processes and facilitates a better customer journey. With eCommerce automation, you can automate customer service, order tracking, and inventory management to enhance efficiency.
Moreover, automated customer service tools, including chatbots and automated email responses, can offer timely and effective support across many channels. Automated order tracking allows customers to receive real-time updates on the status of their orders. Using automated product information management, you can track inventory levels in real-time; automate reordering, with ensuring efficient order routes.
Testing, Measuring, and Iterating
Testing campaigns using the A/B testing method is a great way to optimize them. It will help you know exactly what works and what doesn’t by trying out different designs, CTAs, and messages. You can further experiment by tweaking the journey flows and message timing.
This data-driven approach takes out all the guesswork from your omnichannel eCommerce strategy, increasing click-through rates and maximizing conversion chances. Regular testing and iteration will help you get closer to more personalized experiences that engage your customers for better overall performance.
Omnichannel eCommerce Trends to Watch Out
So, you have created a solid omnichannel eCommerce strategy, and now it’s time for implementation. But what if we say you are not done yet? – Yes, because every marketing strategy needs to be evaluated and adapted over time to changing customer demands and market trends.
To get the most out of your strategy, you need to consider the top trends and adjust your plans based on that. Let’s see some top trends of omnichannel eCommerce in 2024:
Enhance Customer Experience with AI and AR
Nowadays, implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) in the eCommerce strategy is a way to improve customer experience. These technologies increase customer engagement and increase online purchases.
AI is not just a cool feature but a real game-changer in online shopping. With the introduction of generative AI, it has become even more important to leverage artificial intelligence as many leading brands have already implemented it or are planning to do so.
About 54% of brands already leverage Gen AI in their omnichannel eCommerce platform. This clearly dictates the role of AI in making shopping easier and more enjoyable online. Nobody likes to waste time in search of products. AI understands the needs of users and gives personalized suggestions for finding any product within no time.
AR in eCommerce also makes a huge difference. Research says 57% of customers are likely to make a purchase if the brand has an AR experience. In AR, customers can view and try out products virtually as they would do in a physical store. This shall facilitate confident decision-making at all levels, thereby reducing the chances of returns.
Adopt a Mobile-first Approach
Nowadays, most people shop using their phones. The share of global web traffic from mobile devices is more than 50%. Therefore, you have to optimize your eCommerce site for mobile devices. Most importantly, a mobile-first approach means that usability on the phone is hassle-free—a crucial aspect for Millennials and Gen Z, who love shopping using their phones.
Mobile-friendly simply means a website that is easily accessible; people can go through products, read their descriptions, and ultimately purchase them without much hassle. Not only that, but it will also increase the chances of purchase as well as create an opportunity where more customers will stay connected to your website.
Implement Virtual Assistance and Customer Support
Customer support is transforming with the help of AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistance. A study shows that stores that use conversational commerce can increase their annual sales by 7 to 25%. Chatbots have the ability to answer questions and solve problems quickly without requiring any human presence.
They also help in collecting valuable information about customers, which can be useful in enhancing the shopping experience. Implementing a chatbot in your eCommerce store will ensure that customers get assistance whenever they need it, making the shopping journey smoother.
Return to Brick-and-Mortar Stores
Although online shopping has become popular, there is still a need for physical stores. More than 55% of shoppers visit physical stores before placing an order online. Therefore, creating the right omnichannel experience depends on the mixing of physical and online stores.
Physical stores allow customers to touch and feel the products, something that does not happen with online shopping. The in-store staff can offer personalized help that raises shopping enjoyment and customer satisfaction.
Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS)
The popularity of the BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) model is rising constantly. It’s because 50% of shoppers expect to buy online and pick up in-store. It links eCommerce to physical stores by allowing customers to shop online and then collect the purchases whenever it’s convenient. This often helps them avoid delivery fees.
It further opens opportunities for customer interaction and incremental sales. When customers come to the store physically to collect the ordered products, staffers are in a position to suggest other products they would like, which could even result in additional incremental sales.
Buy Online, Return In-Store (BORIS)
The BORIS (Buy Online, Return In-Store) model makes returns easier and improves customer satisfaction. Enabling customers to return online purchases in-store simplifies the process and allows staff to help and collect customer feedback. This information can then be used to make improvements to the products and correct any errors.
BOPIS and BORIS are very important strategies in bringing smoothness to the omnichannel experience. They increase convenience and flexibility, which helps drive sales and customer loyalty.
FAQs on Omnichannel eCommerce
Q1. What is the difference between multichannel and omnichannel eCommerce?
Multichannel eCommerce involves selling products through various channels, which include websites, social media, and marketplaces. All of these channels are independent, hence they do not share any data. A customer places an order online; the staff in-store won’t have that history. In omnichannel eCommerce, all the channels have coherent integration. One platform—like a website—enables customers to start shopping and finish on another, like a mobile app, without losing their shopping cart or preferences. This allows for a far more seamless and personalized shopping experience.
Q2. What is one example of an omnichannel eCommerce channel?
A good example of an omnichannel eCommerce channel is when you integrate your online store with a mobile app and physical stores. For instance, the customer is on your website looking for shoes. They searched, placed an item in the cart, but decided to exit the site to buy later using their mobile app. The items stay there in the customer’s cart, and they can opt to pick up the item at a physical store nearby. This integration is for a seamless shopping experience, irrespective of the channel used.
Q3. What are the key characteristics of an omnichannel eCommerce strategy?
An omnichannel eCommerce strategy integrates all sales channels to work together. There is constant branding, personalized customer experiences, and synchronized data across all platforms. That means customers can easily move between online and offline shopping with no hassle. For example, they might check availability online and buy through a mobile app, and pick up in-store. In addition, unified channel inventory management and customer support increase the level of convenience and engagement, generating higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Ending Notes
The future of online shopping is all about making the customer experience smooth and connected everywhere. Creating an omnichannel eCommerce platform will not only help you tackle the challenges of multichannel models but also offer a better and more consistent journey for customers.
There are lots of exciting trends in omnichannel eCommerce solutions, like AI, augmented reality (AR), buying online and picking up in-store (BOPIS), and buying online and returning in-store (BORIS). These trends make shopping easier and more enjoyable for customers. We’ve covered the top trends in omnichannel eCommerce here, so start researching and take your eCommerce business to the next level!
If you need more assistance with implementing an omnichannel eCommerce approach, you can consult our experts today!
