What is omnichannel retail?

Multichannel Retail

Multichannel retail describes a retailer that is selling products through multiple channels. This could be over the phone, online, instore and at events and concession stands. These multiple sales channels are what make them a multichannel retailer.

Usually, each of these channels have their own processes and systems, like a separate EPoS and eCommerce system. This means that multichannel retail is siloed and often these channels, and the data generated from each, aren’t connected. It’s therefore difficult to offer services like click and collect or instore returns and view sales and stock reports from all channels in one system.

Omnichannel retail

Omnichannel retail, on the other hand, describes a situation where all of a retailer's sales channels are connected, and the data is centralised in one database. The difference here is that information generated by each channel can be accessed by all channels. This is particularly useful for retailers with online and offline sales channels.

So, where a multichannel retailer may have specific stock allocated to their eCommerce channel for example, once it’s gone, it’s gone. An omnichannel retailer in this scenario can allocate stock from a store to eCommerce orders if there is a sudden increase in demand. The impact is that omnichannel retailers can sell more products at full margin and avoid a dreaded stock-out.

Omnichannel retailing is really an evolution of multichannel retail. Retailers are recognising that customers no longer see ‘channels’ and want to shop however and whenever they want. The result is that convenience and customer experience is key, more so than price in some cases.

An omnichannel example from a leading omnichannel retailer

And So To Bed (ASTB) are a long established retailer on the high street and have been advising bed buyers on how to ensure a great night's sleep for over 40 years. A timely investment by ASTB during 2019 in the OMNIS unified commerce solution has delivered the right systems at the right time for the Pandemic lockdown and its impact.

With twenty stores in the UK and an established way of doing business the strategic problem for ASTB in recent years was the need to stay relevant in a changing market. The customer demographic had shifted, buyer behaviour and expectations were rapidly evolving with the spread of mobile technology and new entrants and disruptors like Eve Sleep and Casper were threatening to pinch mattress market share.

In 2019 ASTB saw the opportunity to fully embrace the 21st century shopper with a commitment to unifying the online and instore experience. This meant taking an omnichannel approach, installing digital kiosks in showrooms and finding one solution that would combine the ecommerce, EPoS, CRM and retail management functions into one.

ASTB retail staff were consulted to find out what they wanted from the new systems and this encouraged digital ownership of the new features. Digital kiosks were installed in showrooms and the unified system allows for the retrieval online of quotes initially put together instore. This delivers great customer service and allows instore and online sales to work in harmony.

Since launching with OMNIS in October 2019 internet sales have increased by 60%. It shows that a commitment to modernising your business and retail management systems can pay off in unexpected ways, especially when an unprecedented Pandemic turns up.

A great omnichannel strategy will help retailers to answer this question with a data-driven approach. Knowing who, what, why, when and how people are buying enables retailers to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not, ultimately maximising sales and profits. 

With data being collected from all channels and stored centrally it can be analysed in real-time allowing decisions to be made that have an immediate impact on revenue and efficiency.

These 10 stunning statistics reveal why omnichannel retailing is important if you want to attract and retain more customers.

1. 46% of shoppers surveyed confirm inventory online before going to the store. (Think With Google)

2. 95% of retailers cited that enabling ship-from-store had resulted in a positive or significantly positive uplift in online revenue. (Business to Community)

3. Companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement. (Digital Commerce 360)

4. 15 years ago the average consumer typically used twotouch-pointswhen buying an item and only 7% regularly used more than four. Today consumers use an average of almost six touch-points with nearly 50% regularly using more than four. (Marketing Week Study)

5. 39% of consumers are unlikely or very unlikely to visit a retailer’s store if the online store does not provide physical store inventory information. (Forrester)

6. 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who provide relevant offers and recommendations. (Accenture)

7. 81% of retailers say they will deploy a Unified Commerce platform by the end of 2020. (Boston Retail Partners)

8. 61% of customers have not been able to easily switch from one channel to another when interacting with customer service. (Aspect)

9. 64% of customers expect to receive real-time assistance regardless of the customer service channel they use. (Zendesk)

10. 73% of consumers shop in more than one channel. (HBR)

Julia Jones - “We have worked closely with the great team at Iconography to deploy the eCommerce,  EPoS and retail management elements of OMNIS into a solution customised to our particular workflow and needs. As well as making the business far more efficient we have been able to land a lot of new orders because I can do things with this system that were impossible before”

ASTB - “We now see ASTB as a fully embraced Omnichannel business. Everything we do from the print ad to a digital ad, to the in store experience, to the web site - they are now all fully interconnected. We want customer trust in us to be really solid and one way to do that is to make sure the online experience and the in-store experience are presenting the same message to the end-consumer.”

Footbalance - "Our brief was complex - we needed a multi-brand eCommerce site which provided the consumer with different buying and booking options, as well as a till system for our retail stores. FootBalance UK now has a fully responsive site, connected to the instore till system which allows for fully automated stock control, preventing the ability to oversell items as the stock is instantly updated on the database. It’s so much better than the traditional 10 to 15 minute lag time with a third party integration."

These are our top 10 key considerations when researching new unified commerce software.

1. What do you actually want? - List out the specific requirements that you have including those you don’t get from your existing system. Are you interested in advanced CRM functions? Is your current inventory control too reliant on manual input? Do you want to make the case for having tablet devices on the shopfloor?  

2. Hardware or software? - Knowing how many hardware devices are supporting the RMS is useful, as is their location and what software products are installed. Knowing your license position will support a thorough cost-benefit analysis, limit over-deployment of software and indicate how budget could be redeployed.  

3. Growth plans - The type of solution and software integration that works well for a small independent retailer is inadequate for a chain retailer operating stores in several locations. How you choose to scale your operations and leverage technology to help you get there is a critical question to answer up front. 

4. Retail sector - While it may seem like a simple decision to consider a particular solution based on your retail category, the key to getting this right is to minimise integration. Understanding what your distinct functional and technical requirements are will help narrow the field of vendors.

5. Fragmented or unified? - Facing the frustration of your current systems will help you unpick what’s not working and why. The questions are around how the core components of the current solution integrate with other key aspects of your business? Integrations are never seamless and so avoiding them is a priority. Having one unified system is mre efficient and eliminates the duplication of effort when it comes to data entry and product updates.

6. Non core RMS software - Get clear about how your system talks to your existing peripheral software e.g. back office accounting.  What are the needs? What levels of technical support do you require and what are they costing you? How could this be improved?

7. Customer support - When comparing potential RMS solutions to replace what you have currently, ask questions about the customer support policy and read the fine print. Is the support team in-house or a third-party agent? What are the hours of operation for tech support and the policy for onsite assistance? Will they meet your needs?

8. Technology platform - Old systems are often at full stretch and nearing breaking point. Be realistic about what you have. Retailers reviewing RMS software need to consider the technology choices vendors have made during the design and build of their systems. These choices matter for reasons of interoperability, performance, scalability, security and cost.

9. SaaS in the cloud or on-premise? - SaaS, or software-as-a-service, solutions are cloud based and web first. This means a faster time to value as you’ll have little downtime during implementation. Vendors are responsible for this process as well as any ongoing maintenance.

10. Functionality - It's important to know what you're missing and to then compare this with what you could have. Remember that how this functionality is delivered is as important as what it does. The benefit of a fully unified system where one data source feeds the ecommerce, EPOS and RMS is an ideal solution to work towards.