Omnichannel, also known as an “all” channel, is a fully-integrated approach providing a unified brand experience across all your sales and marketing channels. The successful omnichannel strategy requires leveraging information about one channel to invite the customer to participate in other touchpoints.
Why is Omnichannel important?
With the hustle of daily life, and in the fragments of spare time we have, we are always on our phones whether it be watching a Youtube video or keeping up with the latest news on Facebook. Essentially, this is what keeps all of us connected. In the current generation, we have mastered the art of multitasking, our phone permanently in one hand, and something else in the other. Humans are always hungry for more information. We are comforted by convenience, speed, and personalized interactions. Omni-channel retail strategies will satisfy consumers’ obsession with being ‘in control’, simultaneously allowing businesses to optimize each channel, streamlining their interaction with customers, building trust, and strengthening the connection.
Harvard Business Review has conducted a study on the impact of omnichannel retailing and found that close to 80% of customers use multiple channels during their purchasing journey.
What does omnichannel look like?
To make it easier for you to understand, we have made an infographic below based on our real client case to allow you to better understand what an omnichannel looks like.
Tim wanted to buy some furniture for his new apartment. On the first day of his hunt, he searched up ‘Furniture Hong Kong’ on Google and found himself on Furniture ABC’s website. Proceeding on to ABC’s website, he subscribes to their newsletter in the next half hour.
On the third day, while browsing through Facebook on his way to work, Tim comes across ABC’s ad. Similarly on the fourth day, while reading daily news on a few online newspaper sites, he sees ABC’s Display Ad.
On the fifth day, Tim sees ABC’s Google Shopping Ad, and even better, the ad tells Tim that the item he was interested in purchasing is now on sale. Tim then decides to visit ABC’s website to check it out, adding the item into his cart, but decides not to check out yet.
The next day, after forgetting to check back on ABC’s website, Tim receives an email reminder that his shopping cart was left abandoned, the email had also attached a coupon code for him. On the seventh day, Tim decides to visit ABC’s showroom, and ends up purchasing from the showroom, a minute later, he receives a Thank You email.
Three days later Tim received a product delivery email reminder. As Tim had been pretty busy at work, it was nice that ABC had sent him a reminder so he could make plans to stay home. The day after, the product he purchased arrived at his new apartment.
After a week had passed, another email from ABC appeared in Tim’s inbox, it was an invite for a product review. He completes the product review and receives a Thank You email for finishing it the next day. Four hours later, Tim joins ABC’s referral program by referring his friend Peter who is also looking for furniture for a new apartment. By now, all the ads have stopped for Tim.
Looking Forward
Retail giants like Amazon are improving their omnichannel experience to exceed their customer expectations. Nowadays, the overall eCommerce ecosystem is way more complex, and more connected. eCommerce does not only pertain to the eCommerce website itself, but it also refers to being one important digital asset, seamlessly and smartly connected with so many necessary channels.
Omnichannel is not only limited to an enterprise. To a certain extent, SMBs are more agile to implement strategies to stand out in the competition. Check out our blog: Practical Tips For SME: Unifying the Online and Offline Retails to see how you can unlock the techniques for future retail to grow your business effectively.