What’s the difference between omnichannel and multichannel?

Each professional digital marketing agency does its part in overlapping the world of e-commerce, social selling, and digital marketplaces, and since ever-changing technology requires constant adaptation, business owners need to understand the efforts required to keep up with the times. That being said, if you haven’t heard about multichannel or omnichannel, we’re excited to break down these buzzwords to help shape your digital strategy moving forward.

What’s multichannel retail and how does it work?

Multichannel retail is a business strategy that allows shoppers to purchase goods and services from e-commerce vendors in multiple different ways. Not only does it blend the customer experience by giving consumers the choice to engage on the channel they prefer, but multichannel retail is also flexible in behaving to the confines of each individual sales channel — physical stores, online stores, e-commerce platforms, third-party marketplaces, mobile apps, and social media platforms. While each professional digital marketing agency has its own way of explaining the process that makes up multichannel marketing, we compare it to a wheel with spokes — at the centre of your wheel is the product, the outer rim consists of the consumers, and each channel offers an independent opportunity to reach them, allowing them to make a purchase. Once it’s clear which channels best resonate with your target market, you can further optimize your digital strategy to maximize sales on those channels. 

How do businesses benefit from multichannel retail?

Since multichannel retailing allows business owners to target their audience from a variety of sales channels, there are loads of benefits that it can offer to the brand:

• Higher revenue: Whether you’re a first-time business owner or an established company fixed on making a change, the truth is, you can invest loads of money on advertising and marketing to establish trust and brand awareness, but if your customers only have one way to purchase from you, you possess less of an opportunity to increase your conversion rate. That’s why it’s so important to spread your business strategy across multiple channels! If your brand pops up more often, it receives more attention and can attract more customers in ways that may be more appealing to their purchasing power. 
• There are more ways to buy from you: Consumers are often hesitant to buy from a business that they’ve only seen a time or two. However, the more your brand shows up on their online feeds, the better the chance of them remembering your business. Single sales channels may prove to be a good strategy to focus on for older demographics, but younger shoppers trust your brand when it’s shown to them more conveniently, allowing them to select a purchasing method that meets their comfort level. Talk about competitive advantage!  
• Collect valuable data: Multichannel retail collects way more data than a single channel, which translates to more information learned about your ideal consumer. The data you collect can be used by a professional digital marketing agency layer to better promote your brand by improving on business strategies to improve your ability to reach prospective shoppers. 

What’s omnichannel retail and how does it work?

Omnichannel retail is a business strategy that focuses on providing customers with a seamless shopping experience, whether it be from a mobile smartphone, a desktop computer, or within a brick-and-mortar store. By focusing on the entire experience from start to finish, this approach allows businesses to communicate in a way that aligns with the consumer lifecycle, instead of each individual stage of advertising the product. This type of e-commerce retail enables consumers to purchase from wherever they are, instead of relying on accounts to channel and offer a positive experience. Essentially, omnichannel retail removes the boundaries between sales and marketing channels to create a unified front for the brand. With a focus on onsite, social, mobile, email, physical, and instant messaging, the experience of commerce unfold right in front of the consumer.

How do businesses benefit from omnichannel retail?

Since omnichannel retail allows consumers to reach your business page at their convenience, there are loads of benefits that it can offer to the brand: 

• More availability: While it’s important to reach your audience from a variety of channels, it’s equally as important to ensure that they can use the device that best meets their needs, which helps free up your time from dealing with consumer optimization issues. 
• Increase in sales and traffic: There’s no point in running an online business if you aren’t interested in increasing the traffic to your website that will result in more sales. Omnichannel will help to promote a strategy that improves the customer experience from mobile, web, and even in stores, and with these multiple purchasing leads, an increase in sales and traffic will follow. 
• Purchasing start and finish can differ: As long as the process results in a sale it doesn’t matter where the consumer clicked through to. Consumers can see your website on one channel and complete their purchase on another, creating a better retail journey and engaging relationship through the development purchasing channels that you’ve created.  

Do you have any further information that you feel would benefit the above blog submission? Drop a comment below to let our staff writer know.