The “most common” definition of omnichannel retailing is enabling customers to shop and return merchandise across any of the channels (stores, e-commerce, catalog, mobile). Catalog and mobile channels being a relatively small portion of the sales for most retailers, it effectively reduces the problem of store and e-commerce.
A lot of retailers have been doing “multi-channel” retailing for decades. Two things changed:
- Rise in e-commerce spending leading to a larger share of the revenue from e-commerce.
- Consumers’ shopping behavior: Earlier, there was a belief that the consumer who shops in a store is different from the consumer who shops online. This belief has been invalidated. There is consensus that the same consumer shops across channels, and they expect a more seamless shopping experience.
In summary, a lot of retailers have been operating multiple channels for the last two decades. However, they have been operating in silos internally as well as in customer-facing. Omnichannel requires a retailer to eliminate the silos from a customer experience perspective as well as internal operations. To put a marketing phrase around it: “One customer, one inventory, one price, one experience”.
