Omnichannel – the key to modern sales

Today omnichannel is one of the most important concepts associated with modern sales. This term is not accidental. “Omni” is Latin word for “everything”. Customers are very demanding today and want “everything”.

Omnichannel’s premise is to penetrate sales channels. Only a dozen or so years ago, retail sales took place via one channel – stationary stores.

The explosion of e-commerce has contributed to the development of multi-channel sales. It comes in two different varieties:

• Multichannel – the company sells through many separate channels
• Omnichannel – all sales channels are integrated

Many companies today use the multichannel strategy, mistakenly calling it omnichannel. If a company sells its products in a stationary store, online and e.g by telephone, it certainly carries out multichannel sales. However, if sales in each of the channels is a separate business process, it is difficult to talk about omnichannel.

The omnichannel strategy assumes the integration of business processes related to individual sales channels, so that the customer experience is uniform, regardless of the sales channel.

Omnichannel challenges

Customer service is one of the main challenges faced by retailers  who want to conduct multi-channel sales. It is important to meet the customer, create his unique profile and individual, tailored shopping path.

The next challenge is the exchange of information in each channel between customer, list of orders and product databases. Separate customer databases certainly do not help in effective management of the offer addressed to them. Therefore, the goal should be to build a system based on a centralized flow of information.

Omnichannel also changes the way warehouse management is done. In multichannel solutions, warehouse management is conducted separately for each of the sales channels. In the case of omnichannel – it should be integrated. This requires, among others developing procedures to complete the order if it includes products located in different warehouses.

Advantages of omnichannel

The introduction of omnichannel therefore requires changes to many key processes in the company. However, it is worth investing time, effort and resources, bearing in mind the benefits that integration of sales channels can bring. The most important are:

• reaching more customers due to presence in many sales channels
• greater brand recognition due to the fact that it is present in many places
• differentiating the pricing policy depending on the sales channel

A well-managed omnichannel allows you to increase sales and at the same time improve the quality of service.

Photo: Blake Wisz / Unsplash