Omnichannel commerce, also called omnichannel retail, is a sales strategy that involves using multiple channels to generate customers and make sales. Although 82% of retail businesses are confident that physical stores will remain an important part of retail, you can’t ignore the importance of adding other channels to the mix.
The same Shopify survey found that 75% of business decision-makers think interacting with customers in the metaverse—the online world of the future—will become commonplace. And projected metaverse revenue is expected to jump from $47.48 billion in 2022 to $678.8 billion in 2030.
Omnichannel shopping is about giving your customers multiple ways to find your brand. In this article, you’ll learn what this strategy is, what its benefits are, and examples, so you're prepared to sell online and in person.
What is omnichannel commerce?
Omnichannel commerce is a fully integrated approach to sales and marketing that gives shoppers a unified experience across online and offline channels.
Omnichannel commerce solutions extend from brick-and-mortar to online stores and encompass all these channels and everything in-between:
- Ecommerce marketplaces
- Mobile websites and applications
- Social marketing, retargeting, and sales
- Messaging and SMS
- Deeply personalized email marketing
- The metaverse
The aim is to bring together all these features—including, multichannel listing, POS integration, and inventory management—to provide customers with a single buyer’s journey from platform to platform.
Multichannel ecommerce vs. omnichannel ecommerce
Both omnichannel and multichannel ecommerce use multiple channels to reach retail customers. But they differ in their level of integration and customer experience.
Multichannel ecommerce
Multichannel ecommerce is a strategy where a business sells their products on multiple platforms or channels, but these channels largely operate independently of each other. For instance, each channel may have marketing strategies and customer experiences. The focus of multichannel ecommerce is to maximize your reach by being present on as many channels as possible—but without necessarily creating a consistent experience across these channels.
Omnichannel ecommerce
Omnichannel ecommerce emphasizes the integration of all channels. Retailers that use an omnichannel ecommerce strategy are present on multiple platforms, and they ensure these platforms work together to provide a consistent and unified customer experience. The company’s messaging, branding, shopping experience, and pricing are harmonized across all platforms, and customer details are retained across interactions. This way, when a customer switches from one platform to another (like from mobile device to a desktop device), or makes additional purchases, the experience feels consistent.
Learn more about the differences between omnichannel and multichannel
Benefits of omnichannel commerce
There are four major benefits of creating an omnichannel commerce strategy that can help your brand make more sales and improve customer relationships.
Create a unified brand experience across channels
An old survey from 2016 found that 78% of brands admitted they didn’t provide a unified experience for their customers. Times sure have changed as omnichannel becomes more and more important.
According to NewStore’s 2023 Omnichannel Leadership Report, brands increasingly offer additional channels to improve the brand experience and make sure it’s unified across all of its channels.
The data shows:
- 54% of brands offer BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store)
- 72% of brands offer BORIS (buy online, return in store)
- 31% of brands show store inventory online
- 33% of brands have a mobile app
- 54% of brands offer endless aisle (the ability to use a kiosk to shop even more products that aren’t in-store)
- 76% of brands accept contactless payment methods in-store
- 17% of brands offer virtual appointments
Almost all of those offerings have increased from previous years. Your customers want to find you in multiple areas—while still experiencing a seamless customer experience. Provide that for them.
McKinsey research already shows that retail brands are aiming to meet “five zeroes” that could transform what retail looks like, one of which is “zero difference in channels.” Creating a unified experience across channels involves making sure the experience appears exactly the same—no matter where a customer is shopping.
Improve customer loyalty
An omnichannel customer experience can also enhance brand loyalty. When you make it as easy as possible for customers to shop with your business, they will continue to do so.
For example, ensuring you meet your customer at each channel they prefer to shop—whether that’s in-store, online, on social media, or on a mobile app.
Offering multiple channels—and ensuring those channels properly speak to each other—streamlines the shopping experience, providing a better system and keeping customers coming back.
Personalize the customer experience
Personalization is important: 51% of consumers report feeling frustrated when they’re presented with irrelevant content and offers from businesses. And 78% say they’re likely to respond positively when they see a personalized offer tailored to their interests.
Omnichannel commerce solutions help you collect more customer data across platforms, ensuring you’re creating a personalized shopping experience every step of the way.
Generate more sales
Omnichannel shoppers make purchases 70% more often and spend about 34% more than people who only shop in-store. Making more channels available to your customers helps your business to earn more money.
But don’t take it from us. Look at success story Ulta Beauty. Their annual revenue for 2023 was $10.2 billion, an 18% increase from the year before. Michelle Pacynski, VP of ecommerce at Ulta Beauty, explains how:
“A key objective for guest-facing systems is to drive a consistent experience regardless of the way she wants to shop. So whether that’s in a physical store, in our mobile apps, or online, we feel that we can provide a single brand experience across all channels.”
Ulta was able to thrive by incorporating an omnichannel commerce solution that bridged the growing gap between offline and online that other retailers couldn’t. With their mobile device, users can now browse in-store and scan items using the Ulta app to pull up online reviews of satisfied customers.
Companies like Ulta are thriving in a market that many other giant retailers are sinking in. Omnichannel commerce solutions provide a way forward for retail that matches the needs of consumers in the modern world.
How omnichannel commerce works
Omnichannel commerce allows companies to connect and overlap each channel’s data for a seamless view of the customers themselves. Without a true omnichannel retailing solution, companies are left with no way to translate data from in-store purchases to online retention to marketing efforts and back again.
Still, definitions are one thing. But what does this look like in practice?
Let’s look at one example that has been a pioneering change in the retail industry for years—Rebecca Minkoff. The company’s “smart store” bridges the gap between online-to-offline (O2O) commerce. To start, smart fitting rooms allow customers to try on clothes in-store, add items to their virtual cart, find sizes and variants (like color) not on hand, and then execute mixed physical and digital purchases.
But it is more than just buying. Minkoff also harnesses that data and connects it to additional customer devices and touchpoints, like their website.
On top of that, with direct SMS marketing, those same shoppers can sign up for text message alerts, linking their phone number directly to their online profile (normally enabled solely by email).
This—along with POS integrating and multichannel listing—allows Minkoff to give each user a continuous experience.
"The new definition for luxury," says Emily Culp, SVP of commerce and omnichannel marketing at Rebecca Minkoff, "is being able to be empowered to select the service level that she wants, when she wants, on the device that she wants."
Utilizing an omnichannel commerce solution, they’ve been able to accomplish exactly that. Within the first five months of launching these connected stores, Minkoff increased sales by 6–7x.
But is Minkoff the outlier? Hardly.
More and more brands are creating omnichannel experiences like this one, even if their customers don’t realize it.
Animals Matter is one of those brands. The luxury animal product company started off selling their products directly to retailers through catalogs, keeping them from having to deal with the direct-to-consumer (DTC) load.
But they noticed that customers were looking to buy directly from companies more often, rather than retailers, and their catalog sales started dwindling. To respond, they began an omnichannel approach, ensuring they could reach their customers where their customers wanted to shop.
Animals Matter then reconstructed their business model to create their own online store. Since then, they’ve seen a 45% year-over-year increase in sales, a 36% increase in conversions, and a 46% increase in return on ad spend (ROAS).
How omnichannel commerce works is that you create multiple sales channels so that your customers can shop where they want. But to create a fully omnichannel strategy, those channels also need to speak to each other.
Like how even if a customer buys something at Target, as long as they put their phone number in, they can see their in-store purchases in their online account. Omnichannel commerce is all about gathering customer data and using it to create a seamless experience no matter where they’re shopping.
Omnichannel commerce examples
Let’s look at a few more examples of omnichannel commerce and businesses that are succeeding by implementing these strategies.
1. Allbirds
Allbirds is a sustainable shoe and clothing brand that started as a fully online store, but eventually branched out into the world of brick-and-mortar stores. However, the brand prefers smaller, more intimate spaces for their stores.
With that in mind, they needed a way to cater to their omnichannel customers even with a smaller stock in their stores—and without a conventional checkout line taking up space.
By implementing Shopify’s POS solution within Allbirds’ physical stores, the brand was able to offer an “endless aisle,” allowing customers to come in and shop for more products than they even have in the store with an option to buy in-person and have it shipped to their home.
In addition, salespeople can check customers out anywhere in the store by using a portable POS system, rather than having a line and traditional checkout area take up valuable real estate in the store.
2. Crate & Barrel
Crate & Barrel is a well-known global furniture and home decor store. Shortly after the pandemic hit, the brand’s Singapore location realized the demand for online shopping and knew they needed to adjust their strategy.
To make room for this demand, the location put together an omnichannel strategy to ensure they could help their customers have a seamless online shopping experience, just like they would in-store.
For example, it can be daunting trying to buy big-ticket items completely online. To account for this, Crate & Barrel Singapore started offering virtual consultations so that online shoppers could virtually view these pieces of furniture and make sure it fit their style.
The brand also implemented a return and exchange policy that let shoppers feel more comfortable making these big purchases should the item not work out the way they’d hoped.
By creating an online shopping experience that’s so similar to shopping in-store, Crate & Barrel was able to seamlessly implement omnichannel shopping into their sales strategy.
3. Filling Pieces
Filling Pieces is a luxury apparel brand that sells online as well as in physical stores and pop-up shops. The brand wanted to streamline their customer experience across channels to ensure a cohesive process.
The decision to streamline processes happened after a surge in website traffic, causing the site to crash. The brand knew they needed a better system to ensure this wouldn’t happen—so they switched to Shopify to use both for their online website and POS system.
Filling Pieces’ ecommerce director Paulinho Chin shared, “For us, Shopify is the only true omnichannel solution. It allows our customers to buy both online and in-store with a consistent experience. It enables flexibility and efficiency across our channels—whether it is online, in-store or at a popup event.”
4. Oh My Cream
Beauty store Oh My Cream started with both a brick-and-mortar store and an online ecommerce website, trying to implement an omnichannel commerce solution right out the gates. But the brand struggled initially to capitalize on their ecommerce assets.
By switching to Shopify, Oh My Cream was able to optimize customer flows and ensure a cohesive process across the board.
Oh My Cream has implemented different Shopify apps that help them further improve their omnichannel strategy. Now, regardless of whether customers are buying in-store or online, the checkout process is the same, creating a cohesive experience.
How to create a successful omnichannel strategy
With careful planning and execution, a successful omnichannel ecommerce strategy is within your reach. Keep customer satisfaction at the heart of your strategy, strive for consistency and personalization, and harness technology to deliver a seamless experience across all channels. Here’s how:
- Outline your goals and objectives.
- Define your buyer personas.
- Establish a consistent brand identity.
- Integrate your data and systems.
- Create a seamless customer journey.
- Personalize the shopping experience.
- Ensure top-tier customer service.
- Keep your approach agile and adaptive.
1. Outline your goals and objectives
To start, create clear and measurable business goals that align with business growth. Are you aiming to boost online store sales, drive in-store brick-and-mortar traffic, improve customer retention, or enhance brand loyalty? By defining your objectives at the onset, you can tailor your omnichannel strategy to achieve your desired outcomes.
2. Define your buyer personas
Create buyer personas—customer archetypes for targeted marketing—for each of your key customer segments. Consider their demographics, interests, buying behaviors, and preferred interaction channels. By fully understanding your target audience, you can deliver more relevant and personalized experiences across all your ecommerce touchpoints.
3. Establish a consistent brand identity
A consistent brand identity extends beyond your logo and color scheme to your brand messaging, tone, and overall shopping experience. In an omnichannel ecommerce context, a cohesive brand narrative is reflected on your website, mobile app, social media, and physical stores, cultivating a strong sense of familiarity and affinity among omnichannel customers.
4. Integrate your data and systems
A unified view of your customer interactions requires the synchronization of inventory management, customer relationship management, and order processing. An ecommerce platform can streamline this process, ensuring real-time data access and visibility across all channels. Most platforms, like Shopify, also support multichannel attribution, helping you determine which marketing channels—email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, or PPC advertising—contribute to a customer’s decision to make a purchase.
5. Create a seamless customer journey
A truly omnichannel retail experience is defined by a seamless customer journey, regardless of the channels involved. For instance, with an omnichannel retail strategy, a customer can discover your product through a sponsored Instagram post, get retargeted with a cart abandonment email containing a discount code, and use that same discount code in-store to make the purchase with the help of a sales associate.
By mapping and optimizing customer paths, you can reduce friction as a retailer and foster a more satisfying omnichannel experience for customers.
6. Personalize the shopping experience
By using customer data, your business can provide tailored product recommendations, targeted promotions, and personalized content across different channels.
For instance, by tracking customer behavior on your website using cookies or login data, you can personalize the content on your website for repeat visitors. If a customer frequently shops or browses the outerwear section, more products from this category can appear on the homepage.
7. Ensure top-tier customer service
In an omnichannel context, providing excellent customer support means being available and responsive across all customer touchpoints. Whether it’s a timely response to an email query, live chat support on your website, or knowledgeable in-store staff, effective and fast customer service elevates the overall shopping experience and contributes to customer loyalty.
8. Keep your approach agile and adaptive
An adaptable and responsive strategy is crucial in the ever-changing ecommerce environment. Regularly evaluating your omnichannel performance against set objectives, staying attuned to emerging consumer trends, and being willing to pivot your approach is key to staying relevant and ahead of the competition.
How to choose an omnichannel commerce solution
Want to implement your own omnichannel commerce solution? There are four main facets you might consider.
Multichannel listing
Multichannel listing and selling is a key ingredient in any successful omnichannel strategy. In essence, multichannel ecommerce is about giving customers a choice in where they purchase:
Multichannel is just a piece of the omnichannel puzzle. Without an omnichannel focus, consumers would normally browse in-store but have to “reset” their journey on other channels. They would have to search through your site to find the same items they just spent hours looking at in-store.
Each experience without omnichannel integration forces a consumer to effectively start from scratch, killing any conversion momentum you built through other channels.
By using apps like Attribution Connector, Shopify users on the Plus plan can see sales by channel. Get an accurate, up-to-date view of the orders and sales brought in by each channel by arranging your traffic data by source, and then further segmenting it by referrer name.
Point-of-sale integration
Point-of-sale (POS) integration is at the heart of a powerful omnichannel commerce solution. Utilizing technology that allows companies to collect user information directly at the POS makes it easier to sell products and accept payments on any channel.
As a result of switching to Shopify POS, RUDSAK is now able to unite its online and offline data—one of the most powerful features for customer acquisition. Through building customer profiles on Shopify POS, RUDSAK is able to consistently offer top-tier service to every repeat customer.
Similarly, UNTUCKit recently partnered with SATO Global Solutions to bring “Smart Fitting Room” experiences that will use direct POS integrations to sell and collect data for each customer:
The POS system allows for easier, faster selling with the added benefits of a synced user experience across channels.
Inventory management
When it comes to successful omnichannel examples, inventory management is critical. If someone wants to purchase on Facebook or through a retail location, inventory levels have to also be updated onsite and across your backend systems.
Given how sensitive and complicated logistic issues are, we’ve covered a host of tools in previous articles:
- Inventory management systems (IMS)
- Ecommerce order management system (OMS)
- Third-party logistics (3PL)
Shopify businesses already have inventory management tools built into their back end, ensuring their stock is always as up-to-date as possible.
Marketing integration
A consumer’s overall omnichannel experience has to transcend each individual platform. Outfits examined in a brick-and-mortar store should directly translate back to the user’s mobile app and online shopping cart.
This level of offline to online integration is exactly what an omnichannel commerce solution should contain.
With a growing amount of users inspecting products in-store using their phone, this meets consumer demand and allows for a seamless experience between channels.
For example, someone browsing a shoe on your website wouldn’t only be shown the right retargeted ad offsite but also be given a shoe-based experience the next time they arrive on your website.
Omnichannel should also excel at retention. After all, the goal is to create seamless experiences before and after purchase.
Get started with omnichannel commerce
Omnichannel solutions are proven technologies that utilize multichannel listings, POS integration, inventory management, and diverse marketing software to seamlessly transmit customer data to each step of their buying process.
Investing in omnichannel commerce ensures your business stays relevant as retail trends change over the years. Learn more about how we can help.
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Omnichannel commerce FAQ
What does omnichannel mean in ecommerce?
Omnichannel in ecommerce means that customers can seamlessly shop for products across a number of connected online channels.
What is an example of omnichannel?
One example of omnichannel commerce is when a customer buys a product in a physical store, inputs their customer account phone number at checkout, and then can later access their purchase information online in case they need to reorder a product at a later date.
What is omnichannel commerce and why is it increasingly important?
Omnichannel commerce is a strategy where retail stores enable customers to shop and make purchases across a number of interconnected channels. Not only are these channels easily accessible, but they communicate with each other to make the customer journey seamless.
It’s important because customers expect these personalized experiences. Providing omnichannel options for them can help brands generate more sales, improve customer satisfaction, and retain more customers.
