Digital

What are Multichannel and Omnichannel in eCommerce: market evolution

Multichannel is a retail model born with the digital revolution. Retailers who adopt the strategy offer customers the opportunity to purchase their products, both via online and offline channels.

Therefore, the multi-channel strategy is more flexible and convenient for consumers to buy goods or services, which helps to increase sales considerably.
Another advantage of this strategy is that it offers 24 hours access to the customer, which helps to retain the brand. Retailers also benefit from the multichannel by improving analysis to understand consumer behavior, as creating a personalized customer experience is a must in the digital age.
However, the way to bring customers a seamless experience across channels and that could help them easily manage the internal process.
As customers became more demanding, meeting their expectations went beyond retailer infrastructure development.

Creating a seamless experience on different channels, while ensuring accuracy and efficiency, was almost impossible.

For example, retailers have difficulty managing purchases from various channels or have struggled with order fulfillment and fast delivery.
Furthermore, customer service was also a major concern as retailers communicated with buyers in multiple channels and merged with data synchronization in separate systems. Even the retailers that adopt multi-channels have encountered problems relating to the internal process. The supply chain must be the first and most important issue to mention. More channels involved in the distribution system required more warehouses available with greater inventory accuracy. This caused a gap between demand and supply that was almost impossible to close without a centralized management system. Furthermore, this business model has also caused difficulties in the measurement analysis during data collection from separate channels, leading to an inefficient strategy.