Product Information Management - Omnichannel Retailing

The Quest for Omnichannel: Tailor your Data for Better
Customer Experience
Traditional retailers have staked their
futures on omnichannel retailing. The
omnichannel strategy hinges on the idea
that providing a seamless shopping
experience in brick-and-mortar stores
and through a variety of digital channels
not only differentiates retailers from
their peers but also gives them a
competitive edge over online-only
retailers by leveraging their store assets.
Omnichannel is a hybrid model which offers a balanced middle-ground between a
full-service, purely sales-driven channel, where the customer is serviced in-person or
through the phone (think to buy a car) and a dedicated self-service portal used mainly
for small, low-value quick orders and product replenishments (like online food or
clothes shopping).
Despite its costs, research shows there is significant economic value to be gained from
providing digital channels to traditional store shoppers, and fusing the shopping
experience across channels.
In a recent Forrester survey, 51% of B2B digital professionals said their omnichannel
customers increased spending with them in the past year; just 7% said those
customers decreased spending. [1] Migrated customers also spend more money as
they interact with more channels, spend more money in offline channels if they buy
online (by a significant factor of 4:1), and spend more money overall if they migrate
online. Research in the B2C shows that when online-only companies open physical
stores, their online sales in the same geographic trade area increase by 300% to 500%.
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Implement an Optimal Omnichannel Strategy
In the Webinar: Building the Optimal Online and In-person B2B Sales Strategy, Glen
Coates discussed the need to combine the self-service (online-centric) and full-service
(offline-centric) mobile and web facilities into a flexible and scalable eCommerce
infrastructure which offers the full spectrum of services, engages the customer on a
deeper level and drives more purchases. Two key criteria for a rock-solid
Omnichannel strategy is investing in the right eCommerce platform and
improving Customer Experience
Invest in B2B eCommerce platform that incorporates mobile order-writing
applications, web eCommerce, mobile eCommerce, and a Web order management
hub (for checking product data and inventory status). When choosing such a platform,
think about the future growth demands of your business. Where do you plan to be in
the next 5 years? What are the opportunities out there? Your platform needs to
flexible and scalable enough to allow you to experiment with different pricing,
product, and promotion strategies [2].
Secondly, you need to know who you are selling to, what their buying habits are what
you can do to lure them onto your platform and maximize sales through a strong
marketing strategy. You can improve Customer Experience by understanding their
touch points and their eventual purchase (value and frequency). Customers need to
ability to discover the products, kits, and bundles by themselves. Customer love
personalized education about new products through rich content, reviews, ratings,
and comparisons.
Enabling Seamless Experience
Omnichannel capabilities drive the engagement of core
shoppers with the retail brand and ultimately draw them to
the physical store. Traditional retailers with physical stores
will do better not only by leveraging the power of the online
world but by synchronizing the physical and the digital worlds
to provide shoppers with a seamless, multi-channel
experience that online pure plays simply cannot match.
Multichannel retailing capitalizes on consumer purchasing
patterns by using various channels—e-commerce, catalogs,
brick-and-mortar stores, kiosks, etc.—to target and engage
©2017 Riversand Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.

customers. Retailers face a challenge of keeping the product and customer
information consistent across all of its marketing and sales channels, as well as across
the enterprise itself. A product information management (PIM) system optimizes
customer experience by allowing a retailer’s digital assets creation team, content
creation team, marketing team, etc. to tailor their content based on the data.
Learn more about how Riversand’s MDMCenter can
make Omnichannel Retailing work better for you and your
customer.
Read more about the Omnichannel strategy at linkis.com
image credit: @samuelzeller @mkwlsn @alvaroserrano
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©2017 Riversand Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.