The world of retail has seen some major upheavals over the last few years, thanks to the emergence of the Internet, social media, mobile technologies, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. As people start coming back to stores, there is an overwhelming understanding that everything will never be the same again.

During this period, people have gotten used to the idea of buying online and when they come back to the store now, they expect the same personal experience that your website has been providing them. As a retailer, understanding what has changed and giving customers what they need is the essential key to your success. And how can you do that? The simple answer – Omnichannel retailing and in-store technologies. 

Let’s briefly understand what omnichannel retailing and related technologies are before we understand their importance.

Need of Omnichannel Retailing in Inventory Management

Omnichannel retailing is the process by which you can reach out to your customers through many channels to provide an integrated and streamlined experience. This requires the right tools to bring together your physical and digital retail channels for a connected shopping experience for your customers.

Many companies around the world are embracing this form of retailing simply because it’s the future. As customers become more tech-savvy and have access to different channels, providing this seamless experience across in-store and online channels is becoming a basic building block for your business. Omnichannel retailing not only has a huge impact on the customer experience, but also on inventory management, operational efficiency, real-time visibility into inventory, and employee motivation. Let us now see how this impact works:

Real-time Visibility into Inventory

One of the advantages of omnichannel retailing is that it provides real-time inventory visibility so that retailers do not have dusty stocks piling up in some corners of their store. Rather, you only have those items that are sellable, and your stock moves quickly as well. Such streamlined inventory management can lead to more profits and better use of available space. It also avoids stockouts and overstocks. You have real-time access to your inventory and can easily navigate your fulfillment strategies, creating rule sets for your routing algorithms over your inventory.

Boosts In-store Efficiency

From an operations standpoint, in-store technology will always give you more efficiency. When you use state-of-the-art technology to monitor anything from customer information to product information and stock availability, on a mobile device, employees will avoid scrambling around the store searching for things. All that they have to do is click a button on their mobile device to know where items are and to answer any questions that customers may have regarding the items in the store or regarding their preferences.  In turn, store staff will have more time to interact with customers leading to better customer service, improved efficiency, and high levels of employee motivation.

Enhances Customer Experience

With omnichannel retailing, you are in a better position to handle your customers’ requests with speed, efficiency, and high levels of shopping experience boosting the overall customer experience. You’re more likely to stock the things they buy and even if you do not have it in the store, you can deliver the item to their address or you can fulfill it from another store or a warehouse for store pick-up. All these are sure to enhance your customers’ trust in your brand. Omnichannel technologies unify channels and your customers can now do every transaction from the stores even for the items they buy online. They can exchange, return and pick up items in store, even though they complete their purchasing process online from e-stores. This provides huge flexibility for both customers and for retailers, minimizing the cost of logistics. 

Increases ROI through Omnichannel 

When all of these are taken into consideration, you may wonder how these capabilities will help you in the long run to increase ROI. ROI is related to customer experience and operational efficiency at its core. So the better the operation, the better the efficiency, and according to that the higher ROI.

This is where omnichannel should be considered as a solution. If the strategy is well-executed then the quality of the experience increases. It forces retailers to be more involved and think about their presence on a larger scale. This leads to opening more possibilities and in turn make the retailer more successful and increase ROI.

The health of a business largely depends on how well-received and professional it is.  It will become important to be omnichannel, to stay one step ahead of the game. Customers are looking for retailers with whom they can connect and make the customer journey satisfying. When these needs are met, the ROI is increased accordingly. With omnichannel investments, you will be not only increasing your overall customer satisfaction but also increasing your efficiency and minimizing your cost for your operations and logistics.

So, isn’t it high time to acquire an omnichannel order management technology to enhance your operation and to keep up with the era? Meet Shopi’s cloud-based omnichannel and mobile solutions that meet the needs of modern-day retail scenarios. Fulfill all those needs above with an intuitive dashboard and a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to stay on top of your customer engagement while increasing your operational efficiency and return on investment.