What Is Omnichannel Retail?
by Jaidyn Farar
A shopper finds the perfect sweater in a store, looks it up on the retailer’s website to find a broader color selection, and has it delivered to their home. Another person sees a social media ad for an electric drill, researches its features online, and orders it to be picked up from the store.
These scenarios are just two examples of how omnichannel retail makes the shopping experience smoother and more convenient for customers. But what exactly is omnichannel retail, and how does it benefit businesses?
What is omnichannel retail?
Omnichannel retail is a strategy that integrates multiple sales channels—such as brick-and-mortar stores, ecommerce websites, mobile apps, and social media—into a seamless shopping experience.
When you offer a true omnichannel experience, customers can browse and buy across different touchpoints, with service and messaging staying consistent. This approach is ideal for today’s online shoppers, who value convenience, flexibility, and personalized engagement.
Omnichannel retail helps to enhance buyer satisfaction and loyalty, which ultimately increases revenue.
Omnichannel vs. single-channel
Single-channel retail focuses on selling products through a single platform, like a physical store or an online website, limiting customer interactions to that one channel.
Omnichannel vs. multi-channel
Like omnichannel retail, multi-channel retail involves selling products on several platforms, including physical stores, websites, and social media. However, with a multi-channel strategy, all of these sales channels operate independently. Because data isn’t shared between them, customers can’t have interconnected experiences, and they might find that moving between channels is jarring.
What are the channels in omnichannel retail?
Omnichannel retail gives customers a variety of options for discovering products and making purchases. With each channel offering different benefits, shoppers can choose the ones that best suit their preferences and circumstances.
- Physical stores. Brick-and-mortar stores provide an in-person shopping experience where customers can see, feel, and try products before purchasing. They can also incorporate high-tech elements like smart mirrors for trying on clothing.
- Ecommerce websites. One of the most important benefits of ecommerce is convenience; with products accessible from any device, people can browse, shop, and compare options whenever they have time.
- Marketplaces. Platforms like Amazon and eBay aggregate multiple sellers, giving customers access to a wide range of products in one place. These channels often appeal to bargain hunters or those looking for niche items.
- Mobile apps. Mobile apps deliver a personalized and user-friendly shopping experience with features like push notifications, one-click purchasing, and rewards. They’re especially useful for linking the online and in-store shopping experiences.
- Social media. Social platforms combine shopping with discovery and community interaction, attracting customers who enjoy exploring curated recommendations or influencer endorsements. This channel is increasingly popular, with 46% of people directly buying products on social media and 67% discovering new brands.
Most people don’t limit themselves to one channel. Instead, they move between channels as they discover products, learn more about them, and decide to make a purchase. The majority of consumers (84%) conduct research online before visiting a store. Others might go the other way, discovering products in a brick-and-mortar store and going home to consider the purchase.
Because customers are accustomed to switching between channels, it’s critical to keep things consistent between them.
Think about it—if someone gets top-notch service online but a completely different vibe in-store, it could create confusion and make them question your reliability. On the other hand, a unified experience tells customers, "We’ve got you covered no matter where you shop."
Why adopt an omnichannel strategy?
Adopting an omnichannel strategy might sound like a lot of work—and it is. But omnichannel brings major benefits, including more effective marketing, a better customer experience, and the ability to optimize operations through data-driven decision-making.
Increase the effectiveness of your marketing
Adopting an omnichannel strategy boosts your marketing effectiveness by letting you connect with customers across multiple touchpoints, creating more opportunities to engage and convert.
For example, a customer might first see your product on Instagram, get a reminder through an email, and then finalize their purchase on your website. Because all channels are interconnected, you can personalize messaging based on their interactions—like offering a discount on a product they’ve abandoned in their cart.
And personalization doesn’t stop at tailored product recommendations. With the data collected through an omnichannel strategy, you can design messaging and visuals that align with your audience’s interests.
Improve the customer experience
An omnichannel approach makes shopping more convenient for customers. It provides flexibility in how they shop and receive orders, letting them choose from options like browsing online and picking up in-store (BOPIS), reserving items to try in person, or having products shipped directly to their homes.
With real-time inventory visibility across channels, you’ll ensure that shoppers know exactly where to find what they need, reducing wasted time and effort. Plus, seamless return processes—such as buying online and returning in-store—simplify post-purchase experiences.
Make your business better with data and analytics
An omnichannel strategy gives you access to richer data and analytics, helping you make smarter decisions to improve your business.
It all starts with tracking customer behavior across channels. What do they browse online? What do they purchase in-store? How do they engage on social media? These findings provide a comprehensive view of their preferences and habits, allowing you to personalize marketing campaigns, optimize inventory based on demand, and identify pain points in the customer journey.
When you leverage this data, you’re not just guessing at what your customers want—you’re making informed decisions, boosting satisfaction, and driving profitability.
How inventory management can make or break your omnichannel strategy
Successful omnichannel retail depends on full inventory visibility across channels. This section will explore common inventory management challenges, the consequences of poor inventory visibility, and ideas for avoiding inventory issues.
Inventory management challenges
Inventory management is all about ensuring that the right amount of stock is available at the right time to meet customer demand. While the concept is simple, execution is anything but, and adding integrated channels to the mix only heightens the complexity.
Omnichannel inventory management is complex because it must account for multiple sales channels: physical stores, online stores, mobile apps, and more. Businesses need to keep track of stock levels across all touchpoints in real time, making sure inventory information is synchronized across the board.
With so many factors to consider, it’s no wonder that retailers only have an accurate view of inventory across their businesses about 70% of the time.
And when inventory isn’t accurate, organizations can face hefty consequences.
Why inventory management matters
Inventory visibility isn’t just an internal concern (although efficient inventory management helps cut costs and improve productivity). If inventory information isn’t unified, it can lead to frustration for customers. For example, you might encounter issues like the following:
- An item is shown as available online when it's actually out of stock.
- You sell the same product to multiple customers via different channels without realizing the stock is limited.
These inventory mishaps can cause delays, canceled orders, and dissatisfied customers, ultimately damaging your reputation.
How to avoid omnichannel inventory issues
When it comes to inventory, you should be able to quickly and accurately assess stock levels, avoid overselling, and manage stock transfers between locations. To achieve this, you’ll need advanced systems and technology, such as cloud-based inventory platforms, to track and update inventory in real time.
Ideally, your technology should include features like automated stock alerts, centralized dashboards for tracking inventory across channels, and integration with order fulfillment systems.
Omnichannel retail implementation tips
In addition to great inventory management, omnichannel retailers need to have solid fulfillment strategies, deep insights into customer characteristics and needs, and fully integrated technology.
Optimize order fulfillment
Customers love the opportunity to choose how they purchase and receive a product. As an omnichannel business, you’ll likely provide some or all of the following types of fulfillment:
- Ship from store. When customers place online orders, their purchases are shipped directly to them from the nearest store location. Ship from store reduces travel time and shipping costs.
- Buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS). Shoppers order online, then pick up their purchase at a brick-and-mortar location.
- Buy online, return in-store (BORIS). If a customer buys something online, they can save on return shipping by bringing it to a store to return or exchange it.
- In-store purchase, home delivery. Popular when buying large products like furniture or appliances, this fulfillment method allows a customer to buy a product in the store and have it delivered to their home.
In addition to the above methods, you’ll likely ship thousands of online orders out of fulfillment centers. With so many fulfillment options, it’s essential to optimize your logistics operations.
To do this, make sure your fulfillment system can process orders from multiple channels without confusion or delay. For starters, you’ll need to implement a unified inventory management system that tracks and allocates stock across all touchpoints. For example, if an online order comes in and a customer has opted for in-store pickup, your system should automatically reserve the item at the nearest store.
When it comes to shipping, finding the right solution is key to getting order fulfillment right. For businesses shipping thousands of orders each day, a shipping slowdown can spell disaster, so choose a reliable platform like EasyPost Enterprise Shipping that offers 24/7 support, 99.99% uptime, and sub-second shipping label generation.
Identify top-performing channels
When a business is getting started with omnichannel, it’s helpful to choose a few channels to focus on first.
- Understand your audience. Begin by analyzing where your target customers are most active. Track website traffic, social media engagement, and other customer data to see where you’re already seeing traction, then focus on those channels. For example, if your core demographic spends a lot of time on social media, you may want to prioritize platforms like Instagram or TikTok.
- Start small, scale gradually. If your omnichannel strategy is still in its early days, don’t try to be everywhere at once. Start with one or two channels where you have the most control and visibility, then gradually integrate additional channels.
- Consider operational capabilities. Make sure your offerings align with your current operational capabilities. For example, if your fulfillment process isn’t yet optimized for fast shipping or BOPIS, focusing heavily on those fulfillment methods might create more challenges than benefits.
Personalize the shopping experience
While some customers hesitate to embrace personalization, worried about sharing their personal data, many people prefer a tailored shopping experience. In fact, one study found that 71% of consumers said they’ll shop more often with companies that offer a personalized experience.
Unfortunately, businesses don’t always take advantage of the power of personalization. One report found that about 70% of brands and retailers think they excel in marketing personalization, while only 34% of consumers agree. There’s also a disparity between online and offline channels; 42% of U.S. customers believe that online channels understand their preferences, but 66% don’t see any evidence that the stores they visit know them as customers.
Personalization starts with collecting data on customer behaviors across channels, such as purchase history, browsing patterns, and past interactions with your brand. This data can be used in various ways:
- Providing custom product recommendations, like showing items related to what a customer previously viewed or purchased.
- Sending personalized offers based on customer preferences.
- Leveraging automation tools like email marketing platforms to send targeted messages, like birthday discounts or loyalty rewards, at the right time.
- Offering customized landing pages or exclusive content for certain customer segments.
Fenix Outdoor: An omnichannel success story
Transitioning to an omnichannel strategy can be difficult, but it’s easier when you partner with top technology providers like EasyPost Enterprise Shipping. To wrap up this article, we’ll look at Fenix Outdoor’s journey to omnichannel fulfillment.
Fenix Outdoor is a holding company for a group of premium outdoor brands like Fjällräven. They wanted to make the shift to omnichannel fulfillment, filling online orders from their distribution centers as well as their retail stores.
EasyPost Enterprise, which integrates directly with Fenix Outdoor’s ERP and WMS, helped make the transition to omnichannel smooth. Now, all warehouse workers need to do to print a shipping label is press a button; the software takes care of the rest, including updating inventory levels in the ERP and sending shipment details to the WMS.
Before the transition to omnichannel, Fenix Outdoor often faced warehouse stockouts when those same products were available at retail stores. Now, if a product is on the shelf of one of the 30 U.S. retail locations, customers can purchase it online. Fenix Outdoor has seen 60% fewer stockouts on the website, as well as a 20% to 30% increase in revenue and transactions on their site.
Read the full case study here.
Fulfill omnichannel orders the easy way
EasyPost Enterprise Shipping is a high-performance shipping engine that offers sub-second label generation, multi-carrier access, seamless integration with logistics solutions, and 24/7 support.
Looking for a way to take your omnichannel fulfillment to the next level?