Omnichannel Leadership Report: Omnichannel Convenience
Posted by Amanda McLaughlin on Nov 18, 2020
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This is part two of a three-part series on the 2021 Omnichannel Leadership Report. This year’s research is a critical assessment of nearly 200 luxury, premium, and lifestyle brands’ omnichannel competence. The specific focus is on the seamlessness of each function and if brands are using this time to accelerate their digital transformations. In this edition, we review the availability of 14 core omnichannel capabilities across three critical retail categories.
1. Contactless Engagement: Opportunities to engage with and service customers securely without physical contact.
2. Omnichannel Convenience: Solutions that make engaging and transacting across channels simple and easy.
3. Customer Experience: Reimagined capabilities for a mobile omnichannel shopper that boost the overall shopper-brand relationship.
If you missed it, make sure to read the first article on Contactless Engagement.
Convenience has been king in retail for many years. Shoppers are fickle and strapped for time. But time isn’t the only thing of the essence now. Mid-pandemic, health is, too. From fulfillment to communication, customers are relying on their favorite brands to not only remove friction from the shopping experience but also to make it safe.
Here are the key capabilities we looked at for Omnichannel Convenience.
Not everyone who shops online is ready to hit the buy button. This is especially true when it comes to high-priced items or items that need to be tried on for fit or size. To solve this, some retail brands have added reservation technology to their ecommerce experience. We don’t mean reserving a time to shop in this case; instead, this kind of retail reservation is when a brand holds store inventory for the person to try and buy in-person.
Reservations combine the convenience of online shopping with the efficiency and personalization of physical stores. Even so, only 7% of brands provide the option to reserve online and pay in-store, down from 22% in 2019. The reason is likely because some brands turned off store-related features during the height of the pandemic. Doors were closed and crowds needed to be carefully controlled to allow for social distancing.
There are a few key benefits of having a reservations feature, though; first, it boosts online conversion. Shoppers are looking for flexibility right now and this is an option that gives them just that. Second, it also helps with shopper confidence. Being able to see an item in real life or try it on is often the difference between a sale that sticks and a return. This type of confidence can go a long way when it comes to raising lifetime customer value. The bottom line is that customers want simplicity. Let them start their shopping journey online and finish it at a store. A sale is a sale.
In a state of retail report by Forrester in 2019, 56% of the retailers surveyed identified inventory accuracy as a problem. Specifically, they said the lack of inventory visibility is impacting their overall omnichannel efforts. Inventory is the backbone of omnichannel success. You need to have the items you say you have, in the locations where you say you have them. Otherwise, you risk having a frustrated customer. Or worse, losing them.
The pandemic has made it clear how important it is to have a system in place that can react to dynamic events. Demand sources can change at the drop of a hat. COVID drove many people out of major metropolitan areas to smaller towns. This called for many stores to change both their product assortment and volume. The right items needed to be available in the right places so people could buy them.
We found that 44% of brands expose inventory levels for the customer’s local store on their ecommerce sites. This is up from 32% in 2019 and 36% in 2018. What this ultimately is doing is preventing shopper uncertainty and making purposeful trips to your store worthwhile.
A recent academic study found 60% of retailers surveyed had inaccurate inventory. When corrected, their sales jumped 6%. The key learning here is that with precise inventory, you can not only drive more sales but also more full-price sell-through. In addition, you can enable revenue-driving services like BOPIS and curbside pickup. Do what it takes to get every customer what they want, when and where they want it.
At the start of the pandemic, digital revenue grew to record numbers. According to the Salesforce Q2 Shopping Index, the number was up 71% compared to the previous year. This signals that digital shoppers are the most intentional they’ve ever been and there are no signs of slowing down.
One online feature driving digital revenues is buy online pickup in-store (BOPIS). In the same Index, it was reported that sites advertising BOPIS saw a 127% year-over-year growth in online spending. Shoppers love the convenience and instant gratification of it. They can avoid shipping fees and pick up their order the same day if not within hours. They can also avoid long store checkout lines. With health and safety now a concern, this ensures the shopper can be in and out of the store in a matter of minutes.
Despite the clear benefits, only 40% of brands researched offer BOPIS. While up from 25% in 2019, it is clear most brands don’t have the foundation to properly deploy store pickup. That is, their online storefront isn’t integrated on the back-end with their physical locations. This is critical to offer modern fulfillment including store pickup and even store returns.
The report revealed 55% of brands allow shoppers to return their online orders in-store. Returns are historically a huge headache for brands, but they don’t have to be. Better yet, you don’t want them to be. A whopping 73 percent of shoppers won’t make a repeat purchase if they’ve encountered a subpar returns experience. It is critical to facilitate returns with the same friction-free experience as transactions.
In-store interactions have dramatically changed in the face of COVID-19. They’re now fewer and far between. This has been the advantage of physical retail for years now, so it is forcing brands to get creative with how they activate and nurture their communities. One way to bring the in-store experience to digital is by enabling store associates to connect with shoppers in different formats.
45% of brands have a way for associates to contact customers outside of the store, up 80% from 2019 and 246% from 2018. Think email and text messages. It’s not just a means for associates to send marketing messages, though; when equipped with the right information, it is a remote selling opportunity. The associate can reach out based on what they know the shopper has bought and loved.
Forrester predicts that overall consumers will get more emails, texts, and push notifications in 2021 than ever before. The most important thing to consider is the messaging and making sure it is responsive. With this kind of approach to clienteling, the customer becomes the point of sale. This is the ideal experience for shoppers looking for both service and omnichannel convenience.
Make sure you download this year’s Omnichannel Leadership Report for further analysis of the state of Omnichannel Convenience. Specifically, check to see where brands rank across our five-point scale: Avoiding, Struggling, Surviving, Evolving, or Thriving. Are they failing to provide what their customers want? Or are they serving customers with excellence? Omnichannel and convenience have long been considered brand differentiators. Moving forward, both must be at the heart of every single customer experience.
And with that, next up we look at Customer Experience. The third and final section of the report assesses how brands are capturing customer hearts with reimagined capabilities, big and small.
