New Study Explores the Four Pillars of Omnichannel Retail Success

For most Americans today, time is precious and shopping seems to take an inordinate amount of time. Fewer and fewer Americans arrive at stores (when they do have to go to physical premises) and are willing to begin their shopping journey from scratch. For the vast majority of us, we begin the process on the Internet.

A recent study by Incisiv, in collaboration with Blue Yonder and Microsoft (News - Alert), entitled, “2023 Omnichannel Experience Index,” found that shoppers are increasingly leveraging digital platforms, with 93% of all shopping journeys now starting online, up from 81% in 2020. For retailers hoping to serve customers and meet their expectations, attracting the ever-evolving shopper is becoming increasingly challenging. To succeed, companies need to put in place foundational capabilities to address these expectations. The absence of these capabilities has a negative impact on not only digital performance key performance indicators, but also revenue and shopper satisfaction.

The report recommends that retailers address four critical areas: inventory visibility, frictionless fulfillment, cost and payments, and 360-degree service. In terms of inventory visibility, shoppers want to know exactly what products and services are available to them. 46% of shoppers check stock availability online before making a purchase and 55% want to browse products online to see what’s available in nearby stores. In terms of fulfillment, the report found that 56% of shoppers have abandoned their carts due to concerns about delivery time. The index also found that 75% of shoppers expect their purchases to be delivered within two days or less, thus transparency about delivery timeline is vital.

For costs and payments, the report found that 45% of online shoppers defect for better deals and 79% of shoppers value unlimited free delivery programs. Finally, shoppers are choosy when it comes to picking retailers with easy and accessible customer support: 86% of shoppers will pay 15% more for a seamless customer service experience.

“To win at the four key findings of this index, retailers need to unify their consumer and operational data that resides in disparate applications. Microsoft is on a mission to help retailers do this by enriching their data with additional data sources, providing access to insights across organizational silos,” said Shelley Bransten, Corporate VP of Global Retail & Consumer Goods Industries at Microsoft. “Blue Yonder’s solutions use Microsoft Azure to help retailers make more informed decisions to power their global supply chains.”

Edited by Alex Passett