What is omnichannel e-commerce?

The customer experience should feel consistent regardless of whether they engage with a brand on store shelves or online. However, this doesn’t happen enough. Throughout the consumer journey, silos are still prevalent, resulting in a disjointed experience.

You can purchase a product on the internet, but you can’t return it in-store. In-store they might return an item, but later browse the web on their desktop and be bombarded with display ads for that same product. They can often get frustrated using your live chat and contact your call center with the same steps, only to repeat it and submit the same information again.

Having a negative experience can lead to lost sales and lost customers.

Brands can get closer to providing seamless customer experiences with omnichannel ecommerce by addressing these challenges. Let’s take a closer look at what it is and how it can benefit your business.

What Is Omnichannel Commerce?

In general, omnichannel commerce is similar to multichannel commerce, but with one key difference: It encompasses all customer touchpoints and channels for a seamless customer experience.

Yet, for most brands today, this is a pipe dream. 78 percent of brands say they don’t provide a unified customer experience across channels, citing Periscope Research. Customers’ journeys have become increasingly dependent on omnichannel.

Even though about a third of all purchases happened online before the pandemic, we’ve observed a direct effect on retailers because they are switching their online and offline channels to connect online and offline channels.

Getting your brand to be included in every touchpoint of the customer journey is called omnichannel ecommerce. A good ecommerce strategy is about developing a cohesive methodology so as to make it easy for consumers to buy from you.

Why is Omnichannel Ecommerce Important for Brands?

Besides providing increased brand visibility and personalization, omnichannel commerce also gives your brand many other benefits.

Better Customer Data

Your brand likely collects a lot of customer data across multiple touchpoints if it has a multichannel strategy. Problems may arise because of incorrect deployment.

The omnichannel ecommerce strategy connects touchpoints by taking insights gained from one channel and applying them to the other. This lets businesses gain deeper insights into their customers.

This means finding out that logged in shoppers are more likely to shop in-store than on your website. These insights may help you come up with innovative social media promotions that will allow customers who redeem their social media coupons in-store to get an even bigger discount.

You can connect the customer experience even more with the omnichannel data and help them convert as well.

Customer Personalization

A further benefit of omnichannel retail is its ability to personalize. Ecommerce is about using data correctly for maximum effect. The customer journey can be personalized with better data.

Customer loyalty and conversions are driven by personalization. According to research, 86% of marketers say their campaigns perform better when tailored to different market segments, and 80% of repeat shoppers only shop with brands that personalize the experience for them.

By personalizing the customer journey brands demonstrate their understanding of the preferences of their customers.

Greater Customer Loyalty

Customers who use multiple channels are also loyal to them. Based on a Harvard study conducted among 46,000 shoppers, those buying through four channels spent 9% more in-store than customers shopping through one.
The omnichannel customers referred to family and friends 59% more often as a result of their omnichannel shopping experience. They also made 23% more in-store shopping trips than single-channel customers.

Statistics have proven that familiarity breeds loyalty, so your brand could land repeat business if you’re omnipresent and deliver frictionless experiences across every touchpoint.

Enhanced Brand Visibility

There is fierce competition online for attention because of the wide variety of product categories. Consumers have numerous channels and companies to choose from. The ability to make your mark also exists with omnichannel ecommerce.

Making sure you tell a consistent, captivating story across all channels is essential to standing out on the digital shelf.

What value do you offer your customers? What problem can you solve for them? If they interact with your brand in store, on social media, or through the web, customers should understand your full range of offerings — such as curbside pickup or next-day delivery — regardless of where they interact with you.

The beauty of omnichannel shopping is that you don’t need to be on every channel to extend your brand’s visibility — just the ones that matter most to your customers.

Investing in a video-based platform like TikTok can be time-consuming and expensive if you’re not able to acquire the needed talents and internal resources. Instead, invest in longer-lasting channels like YouTube that have already shown great results for your brand.

Conclusion

The experiment and innovation can come later, but executing a successful omnichannel ecommerce strategy requires strong customer insights to guide planning and continuous fine-tuning as your strategy evolves. This way, you can provide engaging experiences that drive sales, customer loyalty and better customer retention.

Providing excellent customer experiences is possible with omnichannel marketing strategies. Throughout the entire journey, customers can communicate within all channels. These omnichannel tips will help you beat your competitors with the right marketing automation platform. Additionally, you can manage them to make your audience lifelong customers.