Powerful Ways to Boost Your Omnichannel Ecommerce Business Strategy
If you aspire to launch your own ecommerce business, we've got some excellent news! In 2021, retail ecommerce sales amounted to approximately 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide. This figure is forecast to grow by 50% over the next four years, reaching about 7.4 trillion dollars by 2025. These are indications of phenomenal online business growth following the pandemic.
What are the precise reasons behind it? Customers buy online for various reasons: ecommerce shopping helps them avoid crowded places, maintain social distance, enjoy easy returns & flexible payment methods, purchase genuine brand products, and more. For businesses, an ecommerce website serves as a speedy way to find customers, increase business reachability, lower admin costs, and improve customer service.
With the tremendous growth of the ecommerce market, it's very obvious that competition is at an all-time high, and so is the saturation level. So, how can ecommerce businesses differentiate their offerings and ensure that their shoppers are repeat customers and brand loyal?
They can provide a seamless shopping experience to ecommerce customers, known as omnichannel ecommerce.
Omnichannel ecommerce is an ecommerce experience for customers regardless of their digital device or platform. It is crucial for online businesses, as research says that 73% of online shoppers use multiple channels when purchasing online.
The popularity of omnichannel ecommerce is proven by the fact that 47% of ecommerce companies believe that the omnichannel strategy is essential for their business in 2021 and beyond.
Let's discuss some powerful ways to enhance your omnichannel ecommerce business strategy.
1) Adapt to technological & product requirements in real-time
Certain products, like men's wear, women's wear, kids' goodies, digital devices like smartphones, laptops, TVs, etc., can be purchased by customers on popular ecommerce websites. Imagine this situation: a customer is excited about buying an Apple iPad and an iPhone from an ecommerce website. They browse the website only to find that the page loading speed is extremely slow, and it takes 6-10 seconds to load the ecommerce website page. The issue does not end here, it was found that the product images from all angles are not present, and those pictures are of poor quality with a blurred background, which means they can't be pinched and zoomed in to get a better look at the product.
Frustrated, they go to a competitor's website, where images are HD quality and product details are sparklingly clean from top-to-bottom, left-to-right from all angles.
The point is that if your omnichannel experience is not wired according to the technical requirements of an ecommerce platform, your customers will bid you goodbye.
Omnichannel solutions offered by Fynd use effective catalog management techniques to upload high-quality product images on an ecommerce website and other marketplaces. It ensures that images on all channels of the ecommerce brands are automatically synced without putting in a manual effort. That increases quality customer leads and boosts sales of the listed products.
2) Personalize every interaction with the customer
When companies connect with customers' emotions, the payoff can be huge— HBR
If you wish to be a famous retail brand in the industry. In that case, you should have a loyal customer base, which is possible only if brand-customer interaction at touchpoints is personalized for every customer.
Take a look at the Amazon app if a user desires to see ideas and inspiration on tech, décor, fashion, fitness, food, and more on #FoundItOnAmazon. The hashtag is linked to Twitter and is used by numerous brands around the globe to engage and sell products on Amazon. Here, interested customers can follow the influencers for style guides, home decor, and product suggestions suiting every occasion.
3) Make intelligent use of customer data to personalize the customer experience
A customer is looking for a pair of boots at a retail store but couldn't find one as per their size. They enter into the customer feedback book that the intended size is out-of-stock. Then the concerned retailer can enter this feedback in their repository – ABC customer was looking for the product XYZ at the “location name” store outlet.
So, how can a retail store leverage it to connect, engage and close the sale with these customers?
An omnichannel strategy allows the transfer of physical store data to online channels like an ecommerce website so that marketing campaigns can use the live data and connect with the customer when the product stocks are replenished.
Additionally, brands can also consider the shopping preferences of a customer visiting a physical store and the customer's online activity, saved items, purchase history, and more. The omni channel data can be integrated to create highly personalized messages and engagement plans at each step of the customer journey.
4) Fill the touch and feel shopping experience gap for ecommerce customers
I believe that the future belongs to click and brick businesses, and consolidation is the way to thrive and establish industry leadership. --Anand Mahindra (Chairperson of M&M)
Brick-and-mortar retail stores are gravely concerned about this trend - eCommerce customers visit physical retail stores, peruse the merchandise, and exit. When it comes to shopping, they flock to ecommerce stores.
Why did it happen?
A massive online shopping experience gap hurt the brick-and-mortar store's business and pushed it to a new low. That was due to the uncountable entry of new ecommerce players that promised brand experience, genuine products, and excellent customer service with every electronic product, lifestyle, home décor, beauty product, kid's clothing, and accessories.
eCommerce businesses fulfilled every demand of the customer – quality products, pricing, convenience, and free delivery. But it is missing a critical element-the product's touch and feel experience.
An omnichannel strategy fulfils the touch and feels void of ecommerce shopping by connecting physical stores that serve as experience centres for customers to try and feel the product.
In the cases of Nykaa & FirstCry, the consumer can physically inspect and feel a product before purchasing it online or in a retail location.
5) Develops cross channel fulfillment strategies
An omnichannel strategy can help broaden the order fulfillment strategies of an ecommerce brand. Some of the important ones are:
Use local stores: An excellent way is to use local retail stores as fulfilment centres. For example, if a brand previously relied on two warehouses to store and distribute ecommerce orders, it may now do so from any of its locations around the country. Synchronizing inventory and promoting it across all channels simultaneously results in enhanced product visibility and sales. Additionally, it means that unsold merchandise of a retail store can now be sold by being made accessible on the online marketplace. Amazon provides local stores near customer locations as an alternative fulfillment strategy for different customer orders.
Fulfillment centres: Unlike traditional warehouses, Amazon’s fulfillment centres are scattered all across the country nearby the customer’s location and equipped with a highly automated pick, pack, and ship process to facilitate the safe and timely processing of orders. It caters to customers' growing demand while offering a better experience with a broader product selection and faster delivery.
Raymond, Superdry, and Spykar are some of the best-known brands on Fynd Store, and they use local stores as fulfilment centres to quickly deliver orders to the customers.
Ship from the store: Ship from store is a fulfilment strategy in which orders are fulfilled in-store rather than through a warehouse. As a result, products are shipped from a store nearby the customer's location, requiring less lead time and possibly cutting transportation expenses associated with order fulfillment.
Conclusion
We discussed some of the most potent ways to improve omnichannel eCommerce business strategy. These omnichannel strategies allow you to personalize customer interaction, fill the offline-online shopping experience gap, utilize customer data for personalized engagement and develop cross-channel fulfillment strategies.
Fynd is a pioneer in delivering next-generation omnichannel solutions to well-known retail brands such as Celio, Steve Madden, Ruosh, and Campus Shoes. We have assisted over 1000 retail brands in building their business from scratch and offers a seamless shopping experience to their customer. We believe there is tremendous potential in the retail industry for growth.
If you want to seek expert guidance about improving your omni channel strategy for an eCommerce business, Book a demo with our experts today. See you on the call! We look forward to welcoming you to the Fynd family.
