The Importance of Multichannel Shopping
Setting up an eCommerce business has grown more accessible and easier in recent years, due to the availability of domain registration and site-building tools offered by web hosting companies. Once the site is up and running, however, the challenges of maintaining and optimising it begins. Integrating your eCommerce site with other online retail platforms and any physical stores you may have is one of the most difficult and important tasks any eCommerce firm will encounter.
What is Multichannel Shopping?
Multichannel shopping refers to the practice of making your products available to customers on a variety of channels. Multichannel retail is becoming increasingly important for businesses that do not have catalogues or physical store aisles but operate in the same virtual world as online marketplaces. The basic premise of multichannel shopping is to optimize your business across various channels with the goal of increasing revenue by giving your clients more options and allowing them to interact with your business in the most convenient way possible.
Consumers, not eCommerce companies, have led the way toward multichannel shopping. Online customers are increasingly expecting to find the things they're looking for across marketplaces, with Amazon being the most popular. The appeal of purchasing products on sites, like Amazon, Shopee, or Lazada, is that they provide a comfortable user experience because they are trusted and familiar. In addition, you can buy many items from several vendors while just having to make one payment.
In multichannel purchasing, one major risk for companies is muddying the data gathered on customers. When it comes to multichannel retail, it's critical that the channels are integrated so that instead of dividing your consumer profiles, you can get a well-rounded perspective of them.
In addition, it is critical that the consumer's front-end experience be consistent across all platforms, in addition to the back-end processes being integrated. Consistency in the brand and customer experience is a key factor in ensuring consumer loyalty, which leads to repeat sales. From design templates to customer service, packaging, delivery, and the refund policy, you want as few faults as possible to affect consumers who are purchasing products via different eCommerce platforms for the first time.
Although customers who shop on Amazon and its competitors are unlikely to abandon the site completely, you still want to make sure that they are simultaneously developing a relationship with your brand. It's critical to establish a sense of your brand through the multichannel shopping experience, which includes the aesthetic, product descriptions, and customer service quality. When using third-party platforms, there are specific limitations. When using Amazon, for example, there are certain requirements in terms of product category and qualities that must be met.
The Role of Your Physical Stores
Furthermore, multichannel retail is critical for businesses which operate offline as well. Although showrooming, the practice of checking out a product in a store and then returning home to buy it online, is growing more popular, a considerable segment of customers still prefers to do their research online before making their final purchase in a store. The essential feature point is that consumers are continuing to interact with merchants both online and in person. One must ensure that their eCommerce site corresponds with their physical store, rather than assuming that their clients are divided into two distinct categories.
According to a study from 2013, 62% of shoppers who used a cell phone while in a retail store accessed the store's eCommerce website. Imagine a prospective customer comes into your store looking for an item that the website or app states is in stock, only to discover that it isn't. This person is unlikely to trust both the website and the store in the future. As a result, it's critical to have the online and physical channels work in tandem with real-time updates, as part of a broad multichannel sales strategy. Because these products are offered through various avenues, there should be an automated inventory system where each platform has real-time access to product availability to guarantee accuracy.
OMNA helps you ensure accurate inventory levels across all your eCommerce platforms. Through the real-time inventory sync function, OMNA updates your product stock levels in Shopify, Shopee and Lazada regularly. This guarantees a positive customer experience, as there is no risk of incorrect inventory levels being shown on any platform.
An up-to-date eCommerce site will also allow businesses that have brick-and-mortar stores to implement strategies like arming their personnel with tablets, allowing them to provide on-the-spot complete product information to store visitors. Staff will also be able to place orders for customers immediately if an item is out of stock.
Conclusion
Essentially, the challenge posed by multichannel shopping is to deliver a comfortable and efficient service across all platforms, allowing customers to shop when and how they want while ensuring that the various channels do not fragment, but rather, enhance your brand identity. With planning and the right tools by your side, setting up your multichannel retail operations can be done effortlessly.