A high-powered omnichannel retail solution is imperative to staying ahead of the retail market trend and growth curve.
Your omnichannel strategy could be the single most important aspect of your business development over the next few years, so, let’s hop right in to the top 5 omnichannel retail industry trends that will supercharge your business growth.
Omnichannel Retail Trend #1: Mobile-based Consumer Behavior
Mobile is not the only channel, but certainly a key channel for customers across all age groups and geographies.
According to a Business Insider Report, 40% of the top 100 global retailers do not have a dedicated mobile website. The same report states that 71% of shoppers believe that they will get a better deal online than in stores. Also, 53% of all online traffic comes from smartphones, but they drive only 29% of all online sales. The basis for this anomaly can be found in a PwC report, which says that 70% of all consumers prefer researching for products online and buying them in stores. According to Shopatron’s 2015 Cyber Week analysis, intelligent retailers and brands cannot afford to underestimate the power of mobile devices in 2016 and should evaluate retail technology trends and options to help them satisfy consumers’ mobile shopping expectations.
Omnichannel Retail Trend #2: Expedited Shipping
Consumers want their products faster than ever. Amazon is blazing the trail for the ultimate ecommerce strategy with offerings such as same day shipping. So, in order to compete, retailers and manufacturers will need a sophisticated solution that allows consumers to order products when they want them and how they want them.
Omnichannel Retail Trend #3: Seamless Omnichannel Operations
According to Shopatron, when companies look forward over the next three years, the number one element they will need to remain in business is seamless omnichannel fulfillment functionality. They go on to say that executives are recognizing the importance of offering consumers a seamless omnichannel shopping experience that includes brick and mortar stores, website, mobile and social media. A Business 2 Community report states that 98% of customers switch between devices on the same day, so it pays for companies to have extremely strong omnichannel customer engagement. Business 2 Community states that a strong omnichannel solution:
- Offers the customers the ability to check availability of products prior to making visiting a store
- Offers the customers the ability to make a product reservation online and pick it up later from the store
- Enables companies to store customer information across various channels
- Enables companies to offer consistent personalized customer services across multiple channels
- Makes it possible for companies to use social media to serve customers
Omnichannel Retail Trend #4: Omnichannel Retail Technology
A report by Intel states that, “New technologies supporting the omnichannel offer retail marketers powerful solutions for developing more effective, highly targeted, and measurable promotions for improved sales. At the same time, omnichannel technology can improve marketers’ ability to collect customer data and to measure results, two things that are vital to determining return on investment (ROI) and strengthening the retailer’s bottom line.”
Let’s hone in on this idea of collecting customer data. This is imperative in order to execute more granular solutions to glean results such as real estate site selection, customer profiling, and improving the performance of existing locations. That brings us to our fifth omnichannel retail trend…
Omnichannel Retail Trend #5: Customer-centric
In this new era of retail, brands must be agile when it comes to supporting customers' navigation, purchasing and fulfillment activities across a brand's channels. Therefore, brands must adopt a customer-centric strategy that focuses specifically on how consumer demand impacts inventory movement.
“Gone are the days when a product-centric business model will drive sales reports,” says Sundip Naik, vice president in the North America Supply Chain Technologies practice at Capgemini and Balaji Ramnath Venkatesan, senior manager in the North America Digital Commerce practice at Capgemini.
Apparel reports that this shift requires a deep understanding of customer demographics. This insight enables brands to learn customer personas and journeys – from exploration through purchase, and even post-purchase activities such as customer service and returns – that can impact overall brand positioning and long-term strategy.
To supercharge your business with these 5 omnichannel retail trends and to learn more about your unique customers, contact Buxton to learn how we can help. We’re here to provide answers to your toughest business and customer analytics questions.
