Since 2020, Covid-19 has reinvented the need for an omnichannel eCommerce strategy - ensuring that business efforts are optimised to achieve business objectives. We discuss the advantages of an omnichannel eCommerce strategy and we will visualize the future of omnichannel experiences across different industries.
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by Irina Ciutaco
June 05, 2020
Since 2020, Covid-19 has reinvented the need for an omnichannel eCommerce strategy - ensuring that business efforts are optimised to achieve business objectives. Businesses that are implementing this and providing their customers with a seamless experience across online and offline channels are generally ahead of their competitors and increasing their online sales. Today, we're discussing the advantages of an omnichannel eCommerce strategy and visualising the future of omnichannel experiences across different industries.
What is an eCommerce Strategy?
An eCommerce omnichannel strategy is a company’s approach to a steady and streamlined experience through all stages of the customer journey. Businesses that determine their omnichannel strategy in a faster and innovative way are on a more durable path than those that implement a short-term strategy - which will only support single customer transactions. The solution is not to create an additional channel, but to build an ecosystem that sustains simple and seamless engagements – this will determine your success and adaptability to changing customer needs.
As stated in the Connectivity Benchmark report, a classic enterprise has approximately 900 applications and systems. These structures have essential data, such as the condition of order, information related to the customers, inventory in real-time, payment information and pricing. But this information is usually isolated, causing inconveniences for brands when creating unified customer experiences.
Companies need to modernise their IT infrastructure to seamlessly implement any integration and system of choice. Organisations with a well structured API-led action that simply integrates information set a baseline for unified omnichannel experiences.
The ways we fulfil customer needs have changed across most industries over the last few decades. Mobile, social, call centre and store kiosks are just a few examples of customer interaction touchpoints as a solution to establish a unified omnichannel experience for customers. Nevertheless, for some companies, the omnichannel know-how is very well planned and narrow – such as creating a mobile application further to the website. Software companies like Kooomo who take a detailed process to their omnichannel approach, with a 360-view of their customer’s needs, will be the ones to overcome the Coronavirus crisis.
The future of omnichannel experiences across industries
It’s no secret that the retail industry suffered greatly during the pandemic. As many offline stores are shut down, in-store traffic has massively changed for the majority of companies. Today, we see a big challenge for eCommerce to fulfil customer’s needs and deliver goods from a distance. Each organisation has different goals and individual ways of implementing an omnichannel strategy for its customers. A relevant example, in this case, is to include increasing physical store traffic via applications such as ‘buy online' and ‘pick-up in store’ or ‘Click & Collect’.
These adjustments have become very popular as vendors which have incorporated with third-party delivery systems or managed a deserved reputation in an online marketplace have seen a growth in demand.
In reality, the impact is not just on retailers – Supply chains and logistics are also affected. In the fashion eCommerce industry, lockdowns lead to a shift in messaging on social networks and offering incentives as the sales severely dropped in March. Retailers around the world began to rethink their digital eCommerce approach, with the launch of many fashion collections readjusted to the online.
Now, an eCommerce omnichannel strategy is no longer optional
As we predicted in our blog post 6 eCommerce Predictions for 2021, click and collect is now a mandatory feature for any eCommerce business and we will be seeing more full eCommerce omnichannel strategies as the years progress.
How Kooomo can help
We are always looking for edgy eCommerce solutions for our customers and now more than ever, we are implementing innovative ideas.
Kooomo’s eCommerce omnichannel strategy allows for synchronised stock across platforms, helping customers to click and collect their orders whether in-store or online. By integrating a solution that combines stock management, distribution order management and click-and-collect, it is an effective way to help mitigate the risk of any future crisis.
One such example of Kooomo's innovation is our omnichannel case study, Slam. Clients now have the possibility of checking online the right size recommendations thanks to an eCommerce integration in Kooomo platform. Slam helps its customers to find the right size and passes the data that they receive to the department of competence for the fit and creation of their garments.
Conclusion:
As companies need to connect to internal and external customers more now than ever, the solution is to establish the foundation for change – empowering them to reach a business consistency without any disruption and adapt to new customer behaviour. With a modern approach such as seamlessly and diverse integration of services, retailers can easily change their systems, with no consequence for their data. Therefore, retailers can simply adopt new technologies such as omnichannel in order to adapt their business to necessary changes.
If you are interested in this topic, you can find more information here.
More to explore
Here’s an overview of the latest improvements that are now available in the Kooomo platform.
In the next few years, we are foreseeing an impressive increase for the global retail industry. While this can be beneficial for the global eCommerce industry, it also means that there will be more competition, as well.