The omnichannel strategy uses a combination of multiple sales channels to build an offer for the customer that is perfectly tailored to them. The essence of these activities is the interactions in which the consumer should be engaged. What role does logistics play in this strategy?
Online and mobile revolutions
You need to engage where the customer is most active. The heralded mobile revolution in the e-commerce sector is more visible than in others. E-commerce benefits from the recipient’s increasing attachment to mobile devices. According to research, portable devices have dominated the Polish market of devices with Internet access (82.71% of users own a laptop, and 74.8% own a smartphone)*. Therefore, the omnichannel strategy is based on using this potential in such a way as to focus as much as possible on the customer experience and refining the mobile sales channel.
Not just the Internet
The activities that make up omnichannel are not only online, but also implementations in brick-and-mortar stores and logistics support. The latter, although often overlooked and unnoticed by recipients, play an extremely important role not only in e-commerce. Logistics is an industry that plays a key role in the process of implementing the omnichannel model.
– The omnichannel strategy is characterized by a holistic approach to sales channels, but also to those that can support it. The beginning of changes and transformations in the structure of enterprises should start with investing in a coherent supply chain management system to enable full inventory transparency across all channels – advises Sławomir Woźniak, Sales Director at SOOT. – Integration of individual elements on the product or service path to the customer is the first step to introducing an omnichannel strategy and fully utilizing its potential.
Logistical support for e-commerce thanks to the omnichannel strategy is a component of many activities: online and offline. Even the most innovative technological solutions will not solve all the problems of enterprises in terms of integrating sales channels and improving communication between individual departments. An important issue is system support that helps manage the supply chain in real time. The recipient of a product or service must have the impression that they have ongoing control over their order, which is why it is so important to use the capabilities of the mobile channel to give them this opportunity.
* Report: Wave 8. Everything you wanted to know about content, but were afraid to ask, Universal McCann.