These few questions seem to be on everyone’s mind lately. Owing to the tremendous growth eCommerce has witnessed in the past half-decade, it is evident that businesses will be looking to seek benefits of omni-channel retailing.
But what exactly is omni-channel retailing? Do I need to employ this in my business strategy?
There seems to be a lot of conundrum revolving around this topic. But worry no more because we’re here to answer all the questions surrounding omni-channel. Stick around till the end of this post, and I assure you that none of your questions will go unanswered.

History

Retail in its Nascence

Since Adam, commerce used to be single-channel, meaning the retailers owned a physical brick and mortar store through which sales occurred. This model was a tremendous success considering you didn’t require significant expense other than setting up your store.
Since times evolved, this channel became obsolete as it encountered many limitations.

The Digital Revolution

As the age of the digital revolution befell and smartphones & tablets came in picture – Customers demanded a more comfortable approach. Thus, retailers shifted their focus to a more diversified strategy to broaden their offerings.
Consequently, the multi-channel approach was born. Leveraging multi-channel consumers were able to shop from different channels as per their preference. Multi-channel approach provided the needed flexibility and convenience required for consumers to purchase goods and services.

This approach observed tremendous growth and proved hugely successful. But with time, people started noticing its limitations as well – Although this approach was beneficial having bought round-the-clock access to customers, but lacked in providing a seamless experience across different channels.
And, as more and more data got accumulated, it became relatively critical to introduce coherence amongst different platforms. Moreover, customer service was also a big concern since retailers communicated with shoppers in multiple channels and became perplexed with data synchronization in separate systems.

The Third Wave of Change – Origin of Omni-Channel Retailing

Customers now are more demanding. They don’t want to be limited by their geography and not have access to some commodity that might be available someplace else. Besides, they wish to seamlessly manage purchases across different channels and not struggle with order fulfillment and delay in delivery.
Hence, the arrival of – “Omni-Channel Retail”

Pertaining exclusively to eCommerce, omni-channel retailing is an integrated approach to commerce aiming at providing a unified shopping experience to consumers across all platforms.
Omni-channel retail requires centralized management of data sources to ensure a demographic view of that data. As a result, customers can wishfully use different channels in their shopping process, commencing their search at one and finishing-up the purchase at another.

The Difference between Multi-channel and Omni-channel Retailing

Many people believe omni-channel to be an extension of multi-channel retailing, though this isn’t exactly the case. Both omni-channel and multi-channel follow distinct business models.
Using multi-channel retailers implement as many channels as possible but there is no coherence amongst them, each channel is managed separately.
On the other hand, the omni-channel approach offers an integrated solution where there is centralized management of data amongst all channels, thus establishing a symbiotic ecosystem.

Why omni-channel?

According to a recent study by Harvard Business Review – To better analyze the multitude of omni-channel retailing, it was stated that:

• 7% shopped online exclusively
• 20% were store-only shoppers
• 73% used multiple channels

The above stats clearly indicate an already underlying fact that multiple channels help generate more sales. Harnessing omni-channel efficiently can boost your sales in no time. This is because shoppers that engage with retailers on multiple channels make purchases more often.
Thus, omni-channel is a lucrative strategy which needs to be leveraged right away if you wish to increase sales and retain customers. After all,

Progress is Impossible without Change

Must Read: The Top 7 eCommerce Trends for 2019

Do businesses really need to employ an omni-channel retail strategy?

Since the dawn of the internet and all things related, every business is expected, and in fact, SHOULD, have an online presence. Entrepreneurs who got-on early on this bandwagon, and realized the importance of this extremely lucrative domain are still ruling the roost! (Amazon is a good example, I guess).
Several studies conducted over time have proven time, and again that multi-channel is the way to go. Owing to the fact that consumers nowadays want everything at their convenience, and having an online presence gives institutions that opportunity.
However, the demand now is not just having multiple channels to shop through – Consumers, now, are also looking for seamless integration across the numerous platforms they utilize throughout the day. Hence, it is extremely critical, especially now more than ever, to adopt the omni-channel approach if you want to expand your business.
Businesses who have already adopted this omnichannel approach are flying high. Let’s take a few use-cases to understand better:

• Disney

Disney has gotten the omni-channel experience right to the minutest of details. Disney’s trip planning website works flawlessly across all mediums like mobile, tablet, desktop, etc. Also, it seamlessly integrates across all your devices providing synchronization with the bat of an eye.

• Starbucks

Starbucks is also leading the herd when it comes to providing one of the finest omni-channel experiences. Standing in line to get your morning cup of Joe and realizing you don’t have enough balance in your account, is the side of the town where nobody ever wants to get to.

Starbucks has now made it possible to check and reload your card via phone, website, in-store, or on the app. Any change to the card or your profile gets updated across all channels, in real-time.

• Zomato

With omni-channel, it’s all about making the customer’s life easy. It becomes especially frustrating when there isn’t seamless integration amongst platforms of the same application. For instance, imagine yourself ordering food from your favorite restaurant to discover half-hour later that the restaurant hasn’t even received your order yet.

A situation like this nullifies the whole point of adopting this medium in the first place.

Zomato (an Indian food ordering service) seeks to eradicate this frustration with its flawless user experience. You can easily track your delivery guys’ movement in real-time across multiple platforms. Plus with its easy-to-navigate tools that provide on-the-go ordering access, Zomato does a wonderful job at that too.

Since you now understand why it is crucial to implement the omni-channel retail strategy in this day and age, let us now understand as to how exactly can you do it.

How to develop an omni-channel retail strategy

Get a comprehensive understanding of your customers’ persona

The first step that goes into establishing a seamless omni-channel retail strategy is in clearly chalking up your target customer’s persona. This includes understanding which devices, platforms or medium your customers utilize regularly.

Sieve through your Google Analytics report and develop a clear elucidation of your customers’ demographics, geography, and concentration.

Secondly, try and analyze how customers are discovering your business. Once you gather and analyze all this data, you can proceed with implementing strategies accordingly.

Analyzing this data will help you gain a broad understanding of the most important touchpoints for your business.

Providing Seamless User Experience by bridging Online & Offline Shopping experience

Now that you’ve nailed down specific platforms to streamline or improve, it’s time to build off of that understanding for an omni-channel buying experience.

You need to bridge the gap between the online and offline shopping experience because customers now, don’t like wasting time visiting your store if they aren’t sure whether their desired product will be on the shelf.

To address this, you can integrate your eCommerce platform with Google. Applying this will assist the user to directly go from keyword search to product location to buying it and picking it up in-store.

Concluding View

It is no secret that technology is rapidly evolving. We have come so far from the phase when you needed a desktop to access the internet. The inception of the first iPhone was a total shift in paradigm where your handheld device was able to seamlessly access the then growing realm of the internet.
No one has been able to make it big, all by himself! Teamwork goes a long way in ensuring the overall success of any organization.  Especially, in case of omni-channel retailing, you need to strictly ensure that all the cogwheels of your supply chain are working coherently.
EngineerBabu specializes in designing some of the best seamlessly-integrated eCommerce solutions out there, and we are more than willing to share our substantial domain expertise for the benefit of your organization. You can also contact us for a free consultation.
Feel free to drop your comments in the section below, in case you have any doubts.

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The post What is Omnichannel Retailing? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

This is a simple business model that’s extremely easy to over think. There are many moving parts that can feel tricky, and even confusing at times. Therefore one must remember,

“Everything is Simple, till you make it complicated.”

Here’s the basic game plan to start an eCommerce Business

1. Select a product to sell
   1. Find a product to sell
   2. Evaluate your product
   3. Conduct market research
   4. Obtain your product
   5. Prepare a business plan
   6. Sell some samples
2. Set up your business
   1. Find a name and create an engaging logo
   2. Structure your website for SEO
   3. Build your store
   4. Select a sales channel
3. Identify KPIs for your business
4. Acquiring Customers
5. Market extensively
6. Collect feedback

STEP 1: Selecting a Product

In this section, we will highlight some key strategies one can apply to get going with your product.
1. Selecting a product to sell
The first step in building an ecommerce business is to know what products you want to sell, and this is generally the place where most entrepreneurs get themselves stuck in.  If you don’t understand what you’re doing, it’s easy to get lost in the Gulf of Product Research.
With so many businesses and sellers looking to one-up the other – It is essential to target a niche market segment, in case your product is mainstream – remember to keep your quality high, and pricing as competitive as possible.
2. Evaluating your product
Once you get a product idea in mind, how do you stipulate it will sell?
Here market research comes to action.

• Brainstorm and research about the different types of products you can sell.
• Take into account every possible anomaly.
• Validate your product idea by asking people to purchase before you start on making or importing them.

Pre-sales is a powerful strategy that could help ensure there’s a real demand for your product. Pre-sales helps reduce assumptions and gets you moving forward quickly with your business.
3. Find the Right Vendors
Once you’ve decided on a product, you will need to source that product from a distinguished supplier. It can take quite some digging to find them, but there are ways to ensure you dodge the scams and increase your odds at finding an awesome supplier.
You’ll have a lot of competition selling products online, so it is in your best interest to obtain the best quality and best prices for the products you wish to sell, or materials you use to create your products. Look around with patience until you find a vendor you want to do business with long-term.
The DON’Ts

• Don’t proceed to buy in bulk from a factory until you have their samples in your hands which you absolutely LOVE.
• Don’t let any supplier tell you that they can’t ship small sample orders; they are just trying to squeeze you.
• Don’t purchase with any other method but Trade Assurance or PayPal for the first few months with your supplier. This eradicates a ton of risk.
• Don’t buy from someone that won’t accept PayPal or Trade Assurance. What it really indicates is that they were closed down due to complaints.
• Never buy counterfeit products. Not that there isn’t money to be made, it’s just a bad business to be in and ILLEGAL.
• Never buy a lot of inventory in the beginning.

STEP 2: Set up your business

Besides from finding an actual product to sell online, another challenging decision is determining your business or brand name and choosing an appropriate and available domain name.
1. Find a name and create an engaging logo
The right name can prove to be a brand’s valuable asset, driving differentiation and speeding acceptance. On the other hand, the wrong name can cost millions in workarounds and lost income over the lifecycle of the brand.
Thus, it is immensely important to find the right name when setting up your online store and help your business stand out from the crowd. Here are a few pointers on how to find that killer name.

• Keep it short & simple
• Be different
• Put on your creative thinking hats
• Be original
• Never lose the essence

2. Structure your website for SEO
To make sales, it is vital for any online venture to rank well on search engines. Therefore you need to understand the basics of search engine optimization so that you can adequately structure your site and pages for Google and other search engines.
Here are a few pointers that can help you rank well on popular search engines like Google:

• Carry out extensive keyword research
  • You can use keywords research tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, Moz etc to understand which keywords are trending.
  • Choose the right keyword for your store
• Ensure your site structure is simple, but easy to scale.
• Try keeping every page of your site as few clicks from the homepage as possible.
• Leverage On-page SEO for the product category and product pages
• Take advantage of LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)

3. Build your store
After having a better understanding of search engines, it is now time to build your store. The two most crucial aspect of delivering the best user experience is – Captivating product descriptions and Beautiful product photography
Recommended Read: 5 Things to Keep in Mind for Building an eCommerce Website
4. Select a sales channel
It is a smart approach to leverage already build sales channel instead of creating new ones. Therefore one of the best ways to target new customers is to choose sales channels where they already shop. The right combination of sales channels will depend on your products and your target customers.

STEP 3: Identify KPIs for your business

Key performance indicators or (KPIs) are like landmarks on the road to online retail success. Examining them will help eCommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals.
KPIs should be selected and monitored depending on your unique business goals. Specific KPIs support some goals while they’re irrelevant for others. With the idea that KPIs should be different based on the goal being measured, it’s likely to consider some performance indicators for eCommerce.

For instance, these could be some of the key KPIs for different sectors:
For Marketing

• Site traffic: Site traffic is the total number of visits to your eCommerce website. More site traffic means more users are visiting your store.
• New visitors vs returning visitors – New visitors are the first-time visitors to your site. Returning visitors, on the other hand, are those who have been to your site before.
• Total Time on site: This KPI tells you how much time visitors are spending on your site. Ideally, more time spent signifies they’ve had deeper engagements with your brand. Generally, you’ll want to see more time spent on blog content and landing pages and lesser time spent through the checkout process.
• Bounce rate: The bounce rate denotes how many users exit your site after viewing only one page. If the bounce rate is higher, you’ll want to investigate why visitors are leaving your site instead of sticking around.

For Sales:

• Sales: Ecommerce retailers can examine the total sales by hour, day, week, month, quarter, or year.
• Average order size: Sometimes referred to as the average market basket, the average order size tells you how much a customer is typically going to spend on a single order.
• Gross profit:  This KPI is determined by deducting the total cost of goods sold from total sales.
• Average margin: Average profit margin or average margin is a percentage that represents your profit margin over a specified duration.
• Number of transactions: These are the total number of transactions. Use this KPI in union with average order size, or the total number of site visitors to get more profound insights.

For Customer Service:

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score: The CSAT score is measured by customer response to a ubiquitous survey question: “How satisfied are you with your experience?” This is usually answered using a numbered scale.
• Net promoter score (NPS): The NPS KPI provides insight into your customer relationships and brand loyalty by describing how likely customers are to recommend your brand to someone in their connections.
• Hit rate: Calculate your hit rate by accounting the total number of sales of a single product and dividing it by the total number of customers who have contacted the customer service team for the said product.
• Customer service email count: Are the number of emails your customer support team receives on a daily basis.

For project management:

• Hours worked: The total hours worked tells the total time a team has put in a project. Project managers should also measure the inconsistency in estimated vs actual hours worked to calculate better and resource future plans.
• Budget: Budget depicts how much money has been allocated for a specific project. Project managers and ecommerce business owners would want to ensure that the allocated budget is realistic; if you are repeatedly over budget, some adjustments to your project planning needs to be done.
• Return on Investment (ROI): This KPI tells us, how much your efforts have earned for your business. The higher the number, the better.
• Cost variance: Just as it is helpful to compare real vs predicted timing and hours, you should examine the total cost against the expected cost. This will help you comprehend where you need to reel it in and where you may want to invest more.

STEP 4: Acquiring Customers

Acquiring customers, in the beginning, requires focus and time. With hundreds of channels and means to promote your business, it can become difficult to find the ones that make better sense for your business.
One needs to identify some key marketing tactics that you are planning to leverage and implement them for the first few months. Identify some KPIs to analyze whether the tactics that you narrowed down are working or not. If not then you should tweak your marketing strategy.
It’s easy to fall prey to endlessly altering your store in pursuit of perfection, instead of spending that attention into the most significant activity – Getting people to the store.
Try this challenge: If your store had already launched, focus your next 30 days exclusively on getting targeted traffic that’s likely to make a purchase.

STEP 5: UP Your Marketing Efforts

Once you are in the business for a quarter or two – It is time to shift your focus to a broader marketing initiative.  It is likely that by thi time you have a few sales under your belt. It’s time to get serious and focused. Try implementing the below strategies to drive hoards of customers to your door –

• E-mail marketing
  • Run email campaigns
  • Send promotional and transactional emails
• Content Marketing
  • Create engaging blog posts
  • Post relevant and crisp content
  • Leverage significant players of the industry
• Social Media Marketing
  • Utilize Instagram to drive traffic
  • Try your hands at Pinterest
  • Create short YouTube videos.

STEP 6: Gather feedback

To stay relevant in ecommerce, it is crucial to learn from your mistakes.

I have observed that almost everyone in the ecommerce domain never follows up on their customers’ feedback. Collecting feedback shouldn’t be your only goal; instead one needs to follow up diligently on the customers’ shopping experience and implement strategies to improve the same.
Several major ecommerce players swear by this strategy.

Wrapping Up

Building your own eCommerce business or for that matter, any business whatsoever is as appealing as it is challenging. At a rapid pace, you need to learn a tonne about choosing a product, assessing its viability, figuring out how to get it sourced or produced, building the online store, marketing and selling to new customers. The process doesn’t even end here, you need to constantly improvise and improve your offerings or someone will get ahead of you.
The process can feel quite tedious as if you’re solving a head-scratcher of a puzzle, but it’s rewarding at the same time. We wish following this resource roundup helps provide you with a clearer road-map.

We hope you found this post valuable. Let us know in the comments below what you would like to learn next about.

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The post How to Start an eCommerce Business appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.