Add Clarity and Dispel Misconceptions Regarding Retail Strategy

The state of retail is always evolving, but the last three years have been particularly tumultuous and chaotic. Consumers were already well on their way embracing digital options and eCommerce for convenience and flexibility, but the onset of the pandemic accelerated those trends and fueled more adjustments. Retailers have tried to remain agile, but often find themselves at an omnichannel vs. multichannel crossroads.

Many of the changes and adjustments to meet these challenges in retail are here to stay. And while many retailers believe they have embraced omnichannel to meet shoppers where they are, they’ve actually only taken partial steps and enacted multichannel solutions to issues that demand more integration.

Shoppers want intuitive and seamless experiences, whether they’re browsing through your brick-and-mortar store or your custom app. Flexible technology now allows them to engage retailers when, where, and how they want. But it’s not enough for retailers to offer more channels if they’re not synchronized with a complete strategy.
Trust TRG to Take the Reins: Review eight ways to improve the customer experience, from streamlining logistics to busting lines, and improve omnichannel efforts.

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel: What We Mean, Exactly

When developing a holistic approach to attacking the existing landscape, retailers have been focused on creating more ways to improve their customer experience—and probably thought they were embarking on omnichannel efforts. However, some clarity is needed.

Multichannel Retail

The emphasis here is on selling, marketing or listing products on more than one channel — digital, physical or both. This allows businesses to reach more customers via different avenues with the same product catalog. It’s key to remember this approach is about maximizing exposure for your products and where to get them. The customer’s experience on any individual channel is relatively isolated from other channels.

Omnichannel Retail

Here, the focus is on the customer and synchronizing that customer’s data or experience across multiple channels and optimizing how they interact with each other and the customer. The ultimate goal is to maximize convenience for the customer so that every interaction with a brand across different channels feels like it’s part of one seamless experience.

Integration Matters

A retailer could have a dedicated physical location, an online storefront, a vibrant social media presence and multiple payment and pickup options powered by technology. But without the integration of data across those touchpoints and finding ways to deepen the customer experience along the way, it’s merely a multichannel strategy — not an omnichannel one.

While omnichannel must be multichannel by design — not all multichannel retail is omnichannel. Omnichannel focuses on using integration and a holistic approach to:

• Focus on better serving the customer, not product exposure
• Link data in different channels, instead of leaving it siloed
• Create new customer experiences, don’t limit them to individual channels

TRG Navigates the Omnichannel vs. Multichannel Divide

At TRG, we know figuring out which retail approach you’re using, or want to implement, can be confusing and challenging. That’s why we’re here—it’s what we do. We define the terms facing retailers today, develop plans to tackle them and execute technology transformations to help them embrace an omnichannel strategy.

TRG owns the enterprise mobility space, from strategy to deployment and managed logistics. If you want answers about omnichannel strategy, connect with us today to discuss next steps or set up a meeting with our team at retail’s biggest show of the year — NRF 2023.