Omni-channel. Years in, we’re still debating what the term even means, but we’re still left wanting more. In order to create an omni-channel experience that delights and attracts, we should look first at what we are trying not to do.
Omni-channel is nothing to do with having a mobile app that reflects the look and feel of the store and the website. It is nothing to do with buying online and being able to return in store. It’s nothing to do with having a view of all your online and offline orders in one place the next time you communicate with a brand. Those are all important steps, and those are the building blocks of a multi-channel experience, but omni-channel is not an evolution of that. It is a revolution in the way retail works.
‘Omni-channel is about the shopper being at the hub, and every brand that wishes to participate being the spokes. Those that choose not to participate will quickly fall behind. ’
Customers have vivid imaginations. The curation of lists and ideas and desires is a pretty accepted norm in shoppers’ interaction with brands today. In a one to one way, brands have responded well with tools and experiences that attract and engage, and facilitate the experience in new and interesting ways.
We’re still in the early adoption phase of omni-channel as a concept, one that brings together online and offline, blurring the consumer decision of whether to buy online or have a physical retail experience. Consumers use mobile in 45% of all shopping journeys today and this is having a huge impact on the integration of on & off-line.
Like ecommerce, some will get it right and flourish whilst other players will find the progress to omni-channel one step too far.
The shopping experience
Omni-channel refers to the use of technology, process, and design to facilitate true continuity of the shopper experience. That continuity is the holy grail of a shopper centric experience. People don’t want to always start at the beginning, not just when they are shopping, but all of the time.
In our life, we learn, we make decisions and changes. We try not to repeat things we don’t like, and do more of what we enjoy or think is right. From a tech perspective, we are constantly writing our own preferences and creating our own cookies.
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With the technology and understanding we have today, we can replicate that in our shopping experience. We can deliver a continuous experience across geographies, brands, channels, formats, devices, all completely tailored to my own desires and my own wants.
Efficiencies in operation costs, reductions in lost sales, the capture of new customers, significantly greater cross-sell opportunities and social-selling integration are just some of the commercial benefits a successful omni-channel strategy should deliver. However, if we are to get there as an industry, we need to put the consumer experience first.
Technology and brands
Not just Burberry. Not just Tesco. Omni-channel is about the shopper being at the hub, and every brand that wishes to participate being the spokes. Those that choose not to participate will quickly fall behind. Creating a superior shopping experience will unlock the commercial opportunities that the omni-channel experience promises. So how can technology and marketing accelerate and deliver on this experience?
Technology must be viewed as an enabler, not the experience in itself. Too many times, expectations on technology are misplaced, setting false expectations at C-level, which the technology alone can never deliver. Promises of software delivering large overnight increases in shopping basket value rarely come true.
However, a well-executed omni-channel experience designed around the consumer behaviour can have long-term lasting commercial impact.
Imagine arriving at a shopping centre. I’ve spent the morning looking at size 9 black brogues on my iPad and now I’ve come to buy them. When I show up, the shopping centres own systems interrogate the inventory system of every brand there. I see a Pinterest type presentation of all of the size 9 brogues on sale and in stock. Some are from brands I’ve never looked at, and I’m interested. One is from Grenson, and I’m sure they are the ones I want, but there is an offer from Patrick Sweeney…
This is hard stuff. Just the idea of allowing my data to be consumed outside of my domain is anathema to most brands. The enabling technology and integration sounds pretty hard to do as well. But – it has started. It’s coming. In return for allowing me as a shopper to consume your data in my own domain, I will give up all sorts of information – my demographics, my location, my purchase history. And more.
Customer behaviour
Omni-channel is about working a better experience around consumer needs and behaviours by identifying behaviour based segmentation and knowing your shopper scenarios to deliver personalised experiences, more appropriate touchpoints and contextual higher ROI marketing.
Until recently, this has been an advantage that ecommerce has had over traditional bricks and mortar, and this was a barrier to true omni-channel. However technology has now caught up, and the physical channel now has many analytical tools at its disposal in the decision making process, removing reliance on static, historical market research, snapshots in time.
The emergence of real-time consumer behaviour analysis with a suite of tools to identify patterns and model future behaviour delivers context, and the ability to monetise behaviour in the physical retail environment.
It allows multi-channel players to converge on & offline to greater effect and deliver more consistently across channels, combining channels to improve performance generally. It allows traditional bricks and mortar retailers to incorporate their social channels much more strongly in to the customer journey.
Knowing your customer behaviour from initial online search to online purchase has been a reality for some time. Now add in the ability to track that through to a physical retail purchase, and knowing how the consumer shops in the physical environment.
Facebook have just recently improved location aware advertising that can track an ad view in Facebook to a physical store visit. Whilst Movvo provide Movvement IntelligenceTM to shopping centres which enables them to understand how visitors shop, what is their customer journey, and which stores they visit and for how long. For example, knowing a consumer’s journey around a shopping centre prior to stepping in to your store is something many shopping centres have access to via simple dashboards. Knowing the consumer journey is actionable insight that marketing can act on in real-time. Joining up the technology available will enable a marketer to know that a customer who visited your Facebook page, is now in the shopping centre your store is located. Image a marketing tool that then allows you to converse with that consumer, before they reach your store, before they visit your competitors store and influence their behaviour.
It all stems from clever analytics now being delivered by companies such as Movvo in the physical retail environment. But it will require shopping centres and retailers to work more closely together in the future to share data.
Physical shopping trips are becoming experiences and the influence on shopper behaviour from the environment around the outlet is having a greater influence. From centre events such as fashion shows through to the greater mix of leisure and retail, shopper behaviour is changing and centres that proactively use technology to measure consumer behaviour, and share this with tenants be it reports or data integration will attract more savvy retail tenants. It will deliver new methods of marketing to consumers, more consumer touchpoints outside the traditional boundary of the retail outlet, thus delivering stronger omni-channel experiences.
Collaborating omni-channel with instore
A recent Strategy& survey revealed that companies with leading demand analytics capabilities demonstrated higher commercial performance levels. Companies that invest in big data and deploy the resulting knowledge strategically appear to gain a consistent competitive advantage, resulting in financial performance.
Oasis is one UK retailer that has a well-published omni-channel experience which started to roll out in 2012. They armed their bricks and mortar sales assistants with tablets, fusing ecommerce with physical retail. Whilst their mobile app enables a more convenient checkout process and a ‘find in store’ function that takes you straight to the item instore, that you have been viewing in the app. So how could Oasis take this further?
In a perfect omni-channel world, the retailer would know that a potential shopper was in the vicinity before they entered the shop. As many retailers often group together such as apparel shops or electrical retailers, knowing your customer and connecting with them when they are in the area, but before they spend money with a competitor would be a particularly appealing touchpoint. Link this with data from the app that tells you what items they have been viewing prior to the visit and you now have an enviable marketing opportunity. Oasis has the data on consumer intent from their app whilst shopping centres have the data on consumer behaviour and location in an anonymous form. By stronger collaboration in the future, shopping centres and retailers can create a win-win commercial opportunity.
What does the future hold?
A recent ICSC marketing conference in Berlin asked attendees to dream a vision of a bricks and mortar shopping centre if it was operated by Amazon. What would the customer experience be, how would it mix bricks and mortar with ecommerce and how would a combination of rich physical & ecommerce consumer analytics delver a fused ‘e-bricks’ concept.
Visionary idea’s enabled friends to shop together, whilst being in different stores at the same time, having items viewed online (possibly on your journey in) ready for you to try on as you enter the changing room and rewarding you with a glass of your favourite Sauvignon Blanc in the onsite bar at the end of the day, where your friends are then alerted to join you. Does this sound like a shopping experience you could deliver today?
As marketers & placemakers focused on achieving true omnichannel success, I have 3 tips when it comes to applying technology to enable omnichannel
Think outside the box – By box, I’m referring to the four walls of a retail outlet. There are invaluable data sources and technology available beyond your own today which you can use to harness your vision of the shopper journey and deliver new contextual touchpoints. Being able to incorporate shopper journey analytics from beyond your physical store or ecommerce environments by working with shopping centre management, will deliver personalised marketing opportunities that earn you greater footfall. Collaboration between centre & retailer is key to success.
Don’t be complacent – If it doesn’t exist, request it. There are huge advances in retail technology taking place, often by tech startups with small marketing budgets. Put your idea’s out there and it is likely you will be rewarded by some 5-man startup that contacts you to let you know the technology already exists.
Know your shopper tribes – Marketers are on a journey of data integration which will create the customer touchpoints of the future and deliver better shopping experiences. You can use technology at all stages of the customer journey to understand your shoppers, sync with their purchasing, lifestyle and behaviour and deliver personalised experiences. Your data, big and small will help identify tribes, groups of behaviour and the experiences they demand; enabling you to deliver customer journeys experiences from end to end which delight them and create strong brand association.
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