Do you want to give your customers the best shopping experience possible while also increasing your revenue?
Then, you need to create an omnichannel shopping experience.
Omnichannel shopping lets your customers seamlessly transition from their smartphone to social media to in-store, receiving a consistent experience every time they interact with your brand. These customers spend more as a result. In fact, McKinsey finds omnichannel shoppers purchase up to 70% more often than offline-only shoppers.
In this article, we explain what an omnichannel shopping experience looks like from a retailer’s point of view, the benefits of omnichannel shopping and how you can deliver the best experience possible.
What is omnichannel shopping?
Omnichannel shopping is when you sell products across multiple channels using a single, seamless strategy. Whether customers shop your brand in-store, via your website or on social media, they must have a consistent experience in every interaction.
Omnichannel shopping is about being everywhere your customers are. That means you need a presence on every channel they use, including:
- An online store
- Physical stores
- A Mobile app
- Online marketplaces like Amazon
- Social media
We can’t emphasise enough the importance of being everywhere.
Research by Linnworks, for example, finds that 90% of customers start their purchase journey on marketplaces, and 82% enjoy the convenience of social shopping — with 71% preferring to complete their purchase on social media. At the same time, 82% of businesses remain confident that physical stores will play an important role in the future of commerce.
You don’t have to offer every channel to your customer, though. It’s about engaging with the channels your customers actually use. So, if they don’t use online marketplaces, you don’t need to sell on Amazon.
Delivering an omnichannel shopping experience is especially important in the UK — the only country in the world where the majority of shoppers choose online shopping over brick-and-mortar stores. Moreover, 80% of UK consumers believe brands need to constantly invest in new technologies to meet evolving consumer demands.
What’s the benefit of an omnichannel approach?
There are plenty of ways brands benefit from adopting an omnichannel approach to retail.
Sell to customers on their preferred channel
Today’s customer expects you to meet them on any channel they use — and they want the same great experience, too. The good news is they reward you for delivering a consistent experience.
Omnichannel shoppers spend 4% more on average in-store and 10% more online, according to a study in Harvard Business Review. What’s more, with every additional channel shoppers use, they spend more money in-store. So, customers who use more than four channels spend 9% more in stores compared to shoppers who use a single channel.
Serve cross-border customers
If you want to attract and serve international shoppers, you need to be delivering an omnichannel experience.
The Global Voices report by ESW finds that markets like the UAE, India and South Africa have the highest number of omnichannel shoppers. As many as two-thirds of all consumers in these markets use multiple channels to complete a purchase. More importantly for British retailers, these markets are the ones that purchase most from the UK.
More traffic, more sales
It’s simple maths: the more channels your brand is present on, the more potential customers you can reach. But that’s not all. Research shows omnichannel customers are more valuable than their single-channel counterparts.
The same HBR study finds that omnichannel shoppers had 23% more repeat shopping trips than single-channel shoppers and were more likely to recommend stores to friends and family.
Improve brand image and reputation
The point of omnichannel shopping is to deliver a consistent image across every retail touchpoint. Whether it’s an in-store display, your eCommerce store or a social media post, every brand experience should look and feel the same.
This consistency is an excellent way to promote a particular brand image, product line or message. If you want to change customer opinions of your store, then an omnichannel strategy is the way to go.
How to improve your omnichannel shopping strategy
Improve the consistency of your omnichannel retail experience using the following best practices.
Focus on your customers
Omnichannel shopping isn’t about jumping on the latest social media fad or going all-in on a new eCommerce platform. It’s about relentlessly focusing your efforts on the platforms your customers use. If they aren’t on TikTok, you don’t need to be there.
But don’t assume you know which channels your customers prefer. Research your target audience's interests and behaviours, survey them, invite feedback and use social listening tools to find out what they think and where they are active.
Keep your branding consistent
Branding plays an important role in delivering a seamless shopping experience. You should be aiming to make each platform look as similar as possible.
Think of someone like Nike. It doesn’t matter where you see them or what medium they use to promote their brand — they use the same image and messaging.
Provide omnichannel customer support
Your brand’s customer support efforts need to match its omnichannel shopping efforts. That means delivering support to customers on every channel they use. Social media, your website’s chatbot, email, you name it. Customer support needs to happen everywhere.
Meet delivery expectations
It’s no good being present on dozens of different platforms if it takes weeks for customers to receive their goods. Any positive experience is dashed the moment a customer’s order is late.
That’s why focusing on final-mile delivery is so important in an omnichannel shopping strategy. You need to quickly process and ship orders to customers, irrespective of which channel they bought on.
The best strategy is to work with multiple final-mile carriers to ensure you can deliver goods to customers as quickly as possible and by using their preferred method. This is especially important when dealing with cross-border customers who have unique delivery preferences.
Deliver an omnichannel experience with Pro Carrier
At Pro Carrier, we make shipping simple for eCommerce retailers that already have enough on their plates delivering an omnichannel shopping experience to customers.
What’s more, our stress-free cross-border delivery solution means you can turn delivery into an omnichannel experience. Wherever your customers live and whichever delivery methods they prefer, we have a final-mile solution that meets their needs.
Our platform integrates with every major eCommerce platform, helping you to automate the shipping process alongside our always on-hand team that handles everything for you.
It also gives you complete visibility into the shipping process. You can manage everything through a single dashboard and track shipments worldwide.
Speak to an expert today to find out more about delivering an omnichannel experience with Pro Carrier.
