How Omnichannel Technology is Transforming the Retail Industry
In the 21st-century, the retail industry is increasingly sophisticated as consumers are demanding a seamless shopping experience from start to finish. These expectations had begun to take shape before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the drastic upheaval during that time spurred multiple channels for customers to find and purchase products.
With the pandemic winding down, forward-thinking retailers are evolving those channel offerings into an integrated omnichannel approach. Companies that embrace omnichannel technology will be well positioned to reap its benefits.
Why Omnichannel Retail is a Game-Changer
During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of locked-down consumers drastically increased their online shopping behavior. Online retailers quickly shipped the items or enabled curbside pickup, both practices helping to minimize customers’ virus risks.
Today, customers accustomed to immediate gratification still want that seamless purchase experience. They often research items on their mobile phones, search for online discounts, and visit a local retailer to make the purchase. Afterward, the customers may interact with the retailer’s customer support team via voice, text, chatbot, or chat app.
Regardless of the communication channel, the consumer benefits from an integrated (or omnichannel) customer experience. With this as a backdrop, here are four emerging retail trends based on omnichannel technology.
Enhanced Online and Offline Channel Integration
Companies are increasingly satisfying consumers’ desires for online and offline channel integration. Retailers of all sizes invite customers to shop at the company’s online store and pick up their merchandise at its brick-and-mortar outlet. Certain retailers have distinguished themselves by offering a blend of online and offline services.
Sephora’s Distinctive Omnichannel Strategy
France-based Sephora is an upscale beauty retailer with more than 2,700 stores in 35 nations. The company is known for its portfolio of exclusive products, superb service from recognized beauty experts, and seamless interactive shopping excursions.
Like many retailers, Sephora quickly pivoted to eCommerce during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this innovative retailer kept the personal touch, blending online and in-store experiences to deliver a truly exceptional omnichannel shopping experience.
First, online customers use augmented reality (or AR) and proprietary technology to identify the best foundation. Next, a Sephora Beauty Advisor emails the customer the list of products used for their makeover. This makes it easy to order products online.
Customers who wish to visit a Sephora store will find a Store Locator on the company’s website. Throughout the interactive process, a friendly AI chatbot offers personalized recommendations and product advice.
Highly Personalized Customer Experiences
Retail technology continues to see rapid advancements. Concurrently, AI-driven dataset analysis brings relevant data from customer interactions across multiple channels.
By leveraging both advantages, retailers can offer personalized product recommendations and customer-specific promotions. Taken together, these tools set the stage for tailored customer experiences that foster brand loyalty.
Wayfair’s Digital Furniture Shopping Excursion
Online furniture retailer Wayfair has bridged the gap between in-store furniture browsing and online furniture selection. In fact, Wayfair led the way in developing furniture-friendly personalization technology.
First, customers use the Wayfair mobile app’s AR technology to visualize the physical placement of a specific furniture piece. Home design experts, augmented by idea boards, enable customers to select the most appropriate furniture and furnishings.
To enhance its omnichannel capabilities, Wayfair opened its first brick-and-mortar store in 2019. This blending of shopping environments enables Wayfair to best display its furniture in both settings. Customers appreciate both venues’ advantages, setting the stage for increased sales.
Mobile Purchases and Social Commerce
Mobile-friendly shopping and social commerce are making an increasing impact on the retail industry. Retailers continue to invest in technology infrastructure for both methodologies.
Mobile Purchases
In 2023, mobile transactions make up almost half of all completed digital transactions. For perspective, mobile retail transactions comprise almost 40 percent of total retail transactions.
Time-crunched customers can purchase products from anywhere at any time. Whether shoppers buy cosmetics, home décor, or pet food, a customer can complete these transactions in mere seconds to a few minutes.
Social Commerce
With social media’s increasingly important role in the digital landscape, it’s not surprising that most social platforms want customers to purchase products through the site. This phenomenon is known as social commerce.
For perspective, social commerce blends social media and eCommerce. Each participating social media platform integrates shoppable posts and on-platform storefronts. These digital venues enable users to gain insights on new products while exploring the brand.
Brand expert insights, how-to tutorials, and scrollable videos enhance the user’s shopping experience. Luxury fashion and beauty brands have especially embraced this customer engagement opportunity. Customers who wish to purchase products can do so without exiting their social pages.
Retail and Technological Innovations
Many retailers are aware that traditional retail store infrastructure needs a complete revamp. Forward-thinking retail companies are introducing new store layouts and formats. New product delivery and order fulfillment logistics are also being developed.
Retailers also continue to bring new technologies into the brick-and-mortar retail setting. Specifically, augmented reality and virtual reality have recently been adapted for retail use.
Augmented Reality Retail Applications
Augmented reality brings a new dimension to a customer’s shopping experience. In a brick-and-mortar store, an AR overlay provides new information on a physical product. AR-driven navigation enables the customer to locate a specific product within the store.
Online shoppers can use AR technology to create a 3D product view. The customer can also compare a garment’s sizes or customize it with selected materials and/or colors. In AR’s most exciting application, the technology can design virtual product demonstrations or virtual store tours. Both options provide customers with a personalized experience.
To illustrate, the international furnishings retailer IKEA created an app that helps customers visualize how furniture and décor items would look in their homes. The IKEA Place app integrates AR and 3D technology to place the items in the appropriate spaces. If the customer approves, they can easily purchase the furnishings.
Virtual Reality Retail Applications
Virtual reality (or VR) technology takes the experience a step further. In fact, VR is an immersive technology that brings the user into a self-contained virtual world. A virtual shopping environment bears little resemblance to a physical store.
Two Omnichannel Evangelists Weigh In
Omnichannel customer experiences are making inroads into the retail industry. Two respected omnichannel evangelists offer perspectives on this increasingly popular trend.
Mitto: Leader in Omnichannel Communications
Ilja Gorelik is the Chief Operating Officer of Mitto, a Switzerland-based company recognized as a leader in the omnichannel communication arena. He emphasized the importance of effective communication between companies (including retail stores) and their customers.
“A business cannot attract and retain a customer if that customer doesn’t have positive experiences with the brand. Brand loyalty, conversions, evangelism, repeat purchases…none of these actions that enable a brand to grow are possible with unhappy customers,” Ilja Gorelik explained.
“For brands today, ensuring they’re ‘getting it right’ with their digital customer communications is vital: it’s more or less the only way in which the two interact these days,” he remarked.
Finally, Ilja Gorelik stressed that brands should interact with their customers with one unified voice. “Brands need to speak to customers wherever they are ─ be it SMS, Chat Apps or other ─ with a single consistent voice. Otherwise, they risk losing them and their revenue. Drawing multiple digital channels seamlessly together will become a foundational element to unify customers’ touch points across all channels.
Mitto’s Omnichannel-Focused Mission
“At Mitto, we’re on a mission to deliver reliable, high-quality communications between businesses and their customers, every time…Our company was founded in 2013 with the specific aim of building a state-of-the-art Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS messaging platform, unrivaled in reliability, that could support the requirements of a new wave of A2P services.
“As the demand grew for enablement of omnichannel communications capabilities, we expanded our portfolio beyond SMS to now include voice, chat bots, all major chat apps (WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, etc.), Google Business Messaging, RCS, myriad CRM and marketing platform integrations…Simply put, we make communication happen,” Ilja Gorelik concluded.
WhyteSpyder: Digital Commerce Retail Expert
Scott Benedict, WhyteSpyder’s Vice President of Partnerships, is a digital commerce leader who helps brands increase their online sales. With knowledge of the legacy retail marketplace, he has recently seen the emergence of an omnichannel retail strategy. Here, retailers cultivate customers at multiple points in the customer experience.
Scott Benedict acknowledged that retail omnichannel adoption has seen some unforeseen delays. “My observation is that the root cause of this difficulty in implementing a new vision for the future of retailing might lie in a lack of understanding of what retail elements remain evergreen or unchanged. In contrast, other new aspects of the business process are installed to serve a changing ecosystem of consumer needs and business requirements,” he explained.
However, Scott Benedict is confident that leaders who understand omnichannel retail strategy will emerge. “All told, the days of siloed and highly specialized management of a retail business channel are quickly giving way to retail leaders across the broader ecosystem of our industry who understand all the elements of omnichannel success and are driving their organizations forward in a rapidly changing business environment,” Scott Benedict summarized.
