What is Omnichannel Retail?
What is omnichannel retail ? “Omnichannel” is a retail industry term that is fairly new. Before the advent of the Internet, retailers sold their goods through brick and mortar stores or through mail order. There weren’t many other options. Of course, there were outlet stores and wholesale clubs, but you get the point.
Today, retail sellers have a lot more options. You still have those channels that retailers have always had. However, you also have the online channels that are increasingly becoming more and more important:
- E-commerce website
- Mobile
- Third-party websites
- Apps
- More
Omnichannel retailers track and monitor their sales and merchandise through each of the channels customers may purchase by. In order to do that effectively, you need an enterprise resource planning solution that also acts as a retail management solution so you can track your merchandise movements through each of your supply chain links from the warehouse to the customer no matter which retail channel it is sold through. You also need to manage your customer relationships effectively and manage each of your store locations. There is a lot to manage with omnichannel.
Effective Retailing is Competitive
Today’s retailer must manage online as well as brick-and-mortar channels. You may not have all the channels that are available to retailers, but if you do business online and through brick-and-mortar locations, an omnichannel solution will make managing your operation so much easier. Add wholesale and outlet locations and there’s another layer of operational management.
A good operations management solution helps you manage every aspect of retail management, including
- Customers
- Merchandising
- Products
- Pricing
- Store locations
- Website sales
- Point of sale activities
- Messaging
- Budgeting
- Planning
- And more
Effective retailing is about more than just moving product. Today’s retail environment is very competitive. Your competition is selling through multiple channels and managing their customer relationships through those channels. You should be too.