Is your brand attempting to see how it needs to change to, endure, however flourish in the present quickly developing eCommerce environment? Online industry was at a point of forceful ascent before the worldwide COVID-19 emergency – and its fame soared during lockdown. Internet shopping practices created during lockdown will harden, bringing about more noteworthy quantities of customers getting more willing to consistently purchase items online in the long haul.
So, is physical shopping dead? Absolutely not. There will, in any case, be a lot of hunger for actual shopping in the New Normal. The test for brands and retailers will be to make Omnichannel techniques and approaches with eCommerce at their heart that consistently mix digital and physical to make extraordinary customer encounters
Omnichannel was brought into the world from the requirement for (generally) physical brands to rival web-based shopping. At the point when retailers attempted (and neglected) to contend with setting up eCommerce goliaths, for example, Amazon by basically launching webshops of their own (Multichannel retailing), they made it one stride further.
Rather than beat the likes of Amazon at their own game, retailers started accomplishing something Amazon (at the time in any event) couldn't do – utilizing both their physical and digital channels, not separately but rather as one. For this to work the association between these channels ought to be pretty much as consistent as could really be expected, so it quits being the brand's online experience seeping into the physical, or the other way around, and it basically turns into a single brand insight.
This move towards omnichannel can emerge out of the two headings, as lately we have seen unadulterated eCommerce brands venture into stores. Amazon for instance is building modern stores which utilize clients' current amazon accounts rather than checkouts, and are loaded up with cutting edge retail innovation, obscuring the line among physical and advanced. In addition to the fact that this is a special illustration of an omnichannel offering it shows the way that an omnichannel approach isn't only for physical retailers attempting to remain serious, even the 'disruptor' e-tailers are repositioning to an omnichannel offering.
Ship-from-store is proving decisive in the online-centric New Normal
On the other side of the omnichannel coin, we’ve seen many retailers absorb the eCommerce bump through the use of ship-from-store. Simply put, ship-from-store involves fulfilling online orders using store stock, effectively leveraging stores as miniature distribution centres. The benefits of this under normal circumstances are already significant, such as cutting down on last-mile fulfilment and offering customers more stock. During the pandemic, however, ship-from-store was a lifesaver for many, allowing brands to not only capitalise on increased online orders but to leverage quiet or even closed stores to prevent unsold inventory piling up.
What do retailers need in order to offer a strong omnichannel experience?
So, what are the requirements for retailers attempting to offer their customers these services and experience? Whilst it does depend on how advanced the offering is, the fundamentals are digitisation and integration across all channels.
Expert Chris Walton says there are three foundations to omnichannel retailing:
Cloud commerce: The cloud is required for the sharing of data, both between the retailer's two channels (the store and webshop) and between the retailer and the client.
Real-time Data Capture and Applications: The information catch is imperative for these administrations to be precise as to offer items in-store to online clients, retailers need to know precisely what is available in their stores to an individual item level.
Location and Context Analytics: Real time delivery data and RTOs help retailers understand the sentiments of the region and the customers. This helps retailers predict future delivery quality and arrange expectations accordingly.
At Vamaship, we have always believed in staying a step ahead on the current trends. We prepare for the future so that our processes and technology are already in place when the customers demand it. Vamaship had already predicted the popularity and the feasibility of omnichannel presence and had started offering services to aid this well before anyone could even mention the concept of omnichannel service.
Vamaship currently offers the following services to eCommerce retailers to keep them ahead in the never ending race to customer delight:
Multi point pickups
Auto sync orders from different sources for ease of fulfillment
Branded tracking page and notifications to reflect brand ethos
27,000+ pin code coverage across India
Our dashboard gives real time insights
Automated NDR (Non Delivery Report) responses are sent to the delivery partners
Real time tracking is second nature to us
A temporary blip, or a permanent shift
The key question is of course, how temporary is this change? As things start to get better around the world, will brands who have bent over backwards to reposition to the ‘new normal’ only find themselves at a loss if things completely revert back to normal? While the drastic increases to eCommerce will fall off to a certain extent, in the long-term it will remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. The report from Nosto suggests that this is now levelling off to an average increase of 7%. Not only does this mean the business case for omnichannel services is still stronger than it was at the start of the year, but as customers have relied on services like online and curbside out of necessity, in the future they will continue to demand it of a preference for convenience.
About Vamaship:
Vamaship is a logistics aggregator specialising in eCommerce deliveries. Vamaship is India’s largest e-commerce logistics marketplace, facilitating easy and cheap shipping to over 26,000 pin codes and 200 countries. Working with thousands of businesses across India, Vamaship is recognized for its contribution by the most respected global associations through awards and coverage. Backed by BVC, Vamaship is setting global benchmarks in stakeholder satisfaction and aims to be the world’s shipping partner.
To know more on how Vamaship can help you reduce delivery time and achieve customer loyalty, you can visit: www.vamaship.com?utm_source=Vamaship%20Blog&utm_medium=Blog&utm_campaign=Omnichannel%20Services%20as%20the%20new%20normal
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