Nowadays, most shoppers are omnichannel customers, be it in the fashion market or another industry. The rapid development of the internet, the rise of smartphones and the avalanche of information have pushed us towards a mentality in which we expect our most beloved brands to be present wherever (and whenever) we want.
If we’re visiting a shopping mall, we expect our brands to have stores there; if we’re on Instagram checking our favorite brand’s profile, we want to be able to buy directly from the mobile app; if we prefer to talk to someone, we go to the WhatsApp Business profile of our brand, start asking questions and demand to be able to not only be informed but to also buy in that medium.
Each of these daily life cases show us that customers are already there, they’re already omnichannel. Thus, one must ask themselves why brands and retailers are not thinking in an omnichannel way. Indeed, there’s still a long way to go if we take into account that only 47% of retailers think omnichannel is very important in their strategies and customer journeys.
A few years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to be part of one of the most important fashion companies in Colombia. I was asked to be the Ecommerce and Digital Marketing Manager, with a huge challenge: to build this area from scratch. I was both nervous and excited and highly aware there was going to be a lot of work. What I wasn’t yet aware of was that it was going to be the most fulfilling experience and the best school I could have ever asked for.
This brand, as most fashion brands, was born and bred through its physical stores. This company in particular had more than 250 stores around the country, and was present on the market for more than 30 years, having successful results and thus being able to grow internationally, as well.
But, at the same time, it started to face the new digital reality: in order to bring new clients, and to make current clients more valuable, it needed to create a robust online presence. Most of its main competitors were already there and it realized ecommerce wasn’t just a trend, but that this new digital opportunity allowed the business to keep growing at a different pace, one in which the huge investments that brick-and-mortar normally have to make for physical stores were no longer needed.
Instead, in a really short period of time and with less than a quarter of the investment, the brand could start a new sales channel with national (and even international) coverage. Most importantly, it was going to appeal to the new generation the fashion retailer was so desperate to conquer.
Once I started in my role, the first thing I did was to talk to every single operational area and to every single person responsible for all the processes of the company. Why? My personal conviction is that ecommerce is not an end; it’s a method.
Ecommerce is the best digital transformer that any company could possibly have, with the real end being omnichannel. Therefore, I needed to know how everyone worked, what worked, what didn’t, in order to make sure that the online store was going to be another channel that was not only going to be there for itself but to push the growth of all the other sales channels.
Here are some key takeaways that I want to share with you from my omnichannel experience.
In order to avoid this so-called “cannibalization”, you have to create an ecommerce store that doesn’t only use brick-and-mortar stores as return facilitators, but as actual sellers of your orders.
A great way to make this possible is to integrate your physical stores as fulfillment centers of your online operation, using pick-up in-store and/or ship-from-store. This way, stores are able to multiply their inventory (one of their main headaches), secure more orders, obtain more store traffic and score more upsells. Ultimately, they will gain more chances to not only reach their goals, but to surpass them.
According to Aberdeen Group, companies selling products and services with extremely strong omnichannel customer engagement see a 9.5% year-over-year increase in annual revenue, compared to 3.4% for weak omnichannel companies. Similarly, strong omnichannel companies see a 7.5% year-over-year decrease in cost per contact, compared to a 0.2% year-over-year decrease for weak companies.
For an omnichannel operation that permeates the brand experience, all areas of the company have to be involved:
Before searching for the right project partners, here is a checklist of questions you should ask yourself:
In order for the ecommerce channel (and the digital transformation in general) to be successful, we need the complete support from CEO / Owners and all main stakeholders. This is not just another store, this is a game-changing strategy that will bring all the enterprise to a new level. Thus, you need to involve every single person in the company.
Once you have checked all previous steps, you now need to look for those allies that will make this omnichannel strategy possible. Allies are all parties involved in seeing this vision through: the ecommerce platform, the payment gateway, the 3PL, the ERP, the WMS, the CRM, the digital agency, the ecommerce team, the customer service and the list goes on.
Bottomline, however, you must make sure that all those allies support your company’s vision, and not the other way around.
Once your company has adopted these actions for the long term, the sky will be the limit. On top of creating your B2C ecommerce, you can be present in marketplaces or even become a marketplace; globalize your ecommerce; set up your own brand’s mobile apps; monetize your social media; vastly improve the customer experience of your operation; digitize your online stores and even your B2B channels!
But remember: there’s no magic formula, and the recommendations above are not quite a step-by-step guide, because they can’t possibly cover all aspects that need to be taken into account. Nonetheless, I hope that this brief story will at least make you wonder on the subject and push you towards the true path of retail – the one of omnichannel.
The CCX Company, in collaboration with VTEX Commerce Cloud, expresses gratitude for having had the opportunity to enhance its understanding of the advantages, trends, and other elements addressed in the current topic. This article was jointly developed and is brought to you by the VTEX Commerce Cloud team.
