A recent informal GoDaddy survey of consumers and small businesses in the U.S. revealed plenty about how small businesses operate vs. how consumers perceive them. Among other findings:
- While 89% of surveyed consumers said that it’s important for small businesses to have websites, a full 24% of businesses revealed that they do not have one.
- Although 65% of consumers said they’re more likely to make a purchase if they know the personal story behind a business, one in five businesses revealed that they do not share their personal story.
But perhaps most revealing: while 91% of small businesses feel they offer customers a convenient online experience, only 21% of consumers—and just 19% of Gen Z—agree.
Websites, personal stories, and convenient online experiences—they're all key to adopting an omnichannel retail strategy that can both enhance your customer relationships and boost growth for your business.
But in a business landscape full of buzzwords, it’s useful to clarify certain terms.
What is omnichannel retail?
Omnichannel retail is a strategy that provides a seamless shopping experience for your customers across all channels, from online, across social, to in-person and beyond. It’s about meeting your customers where they are.
A successful omnichannel retail strategy lets customers choose their preferred transaction location among channels. When done right, omnichannel retail makes shopping convenient for customers across all aspects of their retail journey.
Omnichannel retail can involve:
- Selling products and services online
- Bringing your in-store catalog to sell online and across social / marketplaces
- Enabling customers to book appointments online
- Enabling customers to buy online and pick up in-store
- Collecting deposits or payments remotely
Omnichannel retail is not:
- A one-size-fits-all solution. By definition, a successful omnichannel retail strategy adapts to many factors, including your offerings, your values, and your brand.
- Just for the big guys. Omnichannel retail strategy has virtually nothing to do with the size of your business or your resources. With the right partner, you can create an omnichannel retail solution that works within your budget.
- Always complex. As with all business strategies, omnichannel retail uses simple tools and elements to enable an environment for business growth.
An omnichannel retail approach helps businesses reach customers no matter where they shop — whether it’s in person, through an ecommerce store, on social media platforms, or through their mobile devices. Omnichannel retail can help engage customers, and make them associate your brand with preferrable and comfortable purchasing decisions.
Omnichannel retail tools let businesses track with consumer demand, raise brand awareness across new platforms, increase sales, and drive repeat business.
Why does an omnichannel retail strategy benefit your business?
An omnichannel retail strategy can be critical to your overall commerce and marketing strategies. Your omnichannel retail approach can empower you to:
Meet customer expectations
Customers expect to interact with your brand on multiple platforms. They expect to see you everywhere, including in-store, through your website, on social media, on mobile apps, and through direct emails. Your omnichannel presence enables you to meet your customers where they are.
Get a competitive advantage
Your omni-channel strategy lets you differentiate yourself from competitors who aren’t as digitally savvy. When you provide a seamless, integrated shopping experience across all your channels, you can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Personalize your approach to customers
When you interact with customers across different channels, you get valuable insights about their behaviors and preferences, which you can use to personalize your offerings and improve your business strategies.
Reach more customers
Your omnichannel retail strategy can help you reach a wider audience. Not all customers use the same platforms, so being on multiple channels increases your likelihood of reaching and engaging more customers.
Increase sales
A study done by Ninetailed shows that customers who engage with companies through multiple channels spend more than those that only engage through one. Offering multiple touchpoints lets you multiply your chances to convert.
It pays to remember that these channels are two-way streets—you need to communicate and engage with your customers to get them to respond.
Steps towards an optimized omnichannel retail strategy
Here are six ways to bring a more seamless experience to your prospects and customers on all your platforms. These range from high-level to more tactical approaches.
Identify your goals
Before you implement an omnichannel retail strategy, it's important to identify your specific goals. Do you want to increase customer engagement, boost sales, or drive customer retention? Maybe all three? Setting clear objectives lets you map out and navigate the complexities of omnichannel commerce. By defining your goals, you can tailor your strategy to achieve the desired outcomes.
Find your voice
Finding and refining your brand voice is critical to your omnichannel retail strategy. Your voice should tell your unique story and reflect your brand's values and personality. It's not just about what you say, but how you say it. Using a consistent voice across all channels makes your brand relatable and helps build a strong connection with your customers.
Establish your brand identity
Your brand identity is the image your business presents to the world. It includes everything from your logo to your mission statement. In omnichannel retail, your brand identity must be consistent across all platforms. This consistency builds trust, enhances the customer experience, and increases brand loyalty.
Refine your digital storefront
Your online store isn’t just a place to sell products—it's the digital face of your brand. So you need to ensure it provides an ideal and easily navigable user experience. With GoDaddy, you can easily get your domain and website created and start selling online, in person, and across different social platforms and marketplaces within minutes.
Create a color palette
Visual consistency is a major component of a successful omnichannel retail strategy—and that includes a unified color palette. Colors evoke emotions and perceptions, and can greatly influence your customers' shopping experience. When you maintain a consistent color palette across all your platforms, you can reinforce your brand's identity, making it more recognizable and memorable to your customers.
Use high-quality photos
In the digital world, visuals are key. High-quality photos both realistically represent your products and enhance the visual appeal of your online store. This can positively influence purchasing decisions because customers are more likely to buy a product if they can see it in detail and perceive it to be more professional. A picture is worth a thousand words, so invest in high-quality images.
Expanding with social commerce tools
To reiterate, a successful omnichannel retail strategy requires a consistent brand voice, clearly defined goals, a strong brand identity, and a focus on personalization. But another hugely important key is social commerce.
A recent study by Accenture found that the $492 billion global social commerce industry is expected to grow to $1.2 trillion by 2025. That’s triple the expected growth rate of traditional e-commerce.
Why? Consumers have turned to social media not just for product discovery, but for complete shopping experiences. This shift opens a new world of opportunities for businesses to connect with a gigantic range of customers across various platforms.
How do you tap into this trend? By integrating social selling tactics, creating shoppable social media posts, and encouraging customer engagement through reviews and loyalty programs. But remember, it's not just about selling—it's about creating meaningful connections that inspire loyalty and preference for your brand.
Finding and knowing your target audience
The first step in expanding your business with social commerce tools is to identify and understand your target audience. This crucial step enables you to tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to meet the specific needs, behaviors and concerns of your customer base. The more accurately you can segment your market, the more effectively you can reach and persuade your customers.
Knowing your target audience involves more than just understanding their demographic characteristics. You also need to understand their motives and pain points, the platforms they use, and other factors. Social commerce tools can give you insights into customer behavior and preferences that let you tailor your offerings and communications to better meet your audience’s needs and expectations.
Different businesses have unique target audiences. Using social commerce tools effectively requires you to identify the key segments of your audience. You can base your segmentation on factors like age, gender, location, interests, income, occupation, etc. Understanding these different audience segments, their pain points, and their buying motivations can help you create more personalized and effective marketing strategies.
Social commerce: the benefits
Identifying your target audience lets you develop your products, services, and communications to meet the specific preferences of your customers, boost their satisfaction and loyalty, and increase your sales.
But it goes deeper. Social commerce isn’t just about selling products. It’s also about providing value through content. By creating and sharing helpful, relevant content, you can build credibility and trust with your audience, positioning your brand as a go-to resource in your industry.
Social media platforms let you engage with your customers more personally. By actively engaging with your audience through comments, likes, shares, and direct messages, you can build stronger relationships and foster loyalty. By connecting your socials with shoppable links or pay links, you help your customers learn and shop the way they want.
According to the previously mentioned GoDaddy survey, an overwhelming majority of young consumers said that it’s important that small businesses have storefronts linked to their social pages for easy shopping. But small businesses are primarily using their social accounts for brand awareness over sales: only 25% of them use social to sell physical products, and 19% to sell digital products.
Customer reviews also play a critical role in online purchasing decisions. Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, shows that you value your customers' feedback and are committed to improving their experience. This can help build trust and credibility and enhance your brand's reputation.
Create an amazing customer experience
A great customer experience goes beyond the point of purchase. It involves every interaction a customer has with your brand, from the initial awareness stage through to post-purchase. By focusing on creating an amazing customer experience, you can differentiate your brand, foster customer loyalty, and drive long-term business growth.
Be findable
You need to ensure that both your prospects and your customers can find you, both in-store and online. You can make it happen through SEO, social media, or even partnerships with other businesses. The goal is to create multiple touchpoints through which your customers can interact with your brand whenever and however they want.
Use testimonials
This is critical to your marketing strategy. Positive testimonials are pure gold. Prospective customers who see real-life reviews are more likely to trust your business. It pays dividends to gather glowing customer reviews of your business and show them off everywhere – on your website, in your social media, even in your physical store. It's all about creating a buzz about your brand.
Refine your website
It’s your 24/7 storefront, whether you’re currently selling directly on it or not. It should be more than just a digital brochure. Your site should engage visitors, answer their questions, and guide them towards making a purchase. Consistency is key to an omnichannel experience, so make sure your physical and digital presence are aligned.
You should have a clear goal for your website. Is it designed simply to be an online presence that tells your story? Do you want to also make it capable of taking payments or making appointments? Further, do you want to enable customers to buy online and pick up in-store—and if so, are your technology and inventory in sync across your online and offline channels?
Here are some questions you can ask yourself about your business:
What does the customer experience look like for my customers?
- How long does my website takes to load?
- Does my online experience match my in-store experience?
- How easy is it for customers to navigate and find the products they need?
- Is my website secure?
- Does my web/payment provider offer 24/7 support in case anything goes wrong?
How does my site integrate with my in-store business and technology?
- Does my online and offline inventory sync?
- What different systems and management tools should I use? Or should I use a unified commerce solution?
- How does the point of sale (POS) solution differ between my online store and my in-person store?
- How can I accept payments online on my website, across social, in-person or over-the-phone/text?
- How technically experienced does my staff need to be?
Online payments and marketplaces
Online payments and marketplaces offer additional channels for your customers to interact with your brand. Whether it's through a third-party platform or your own ecommerce site, embracing online commerce is key part to mastering omnichannel retail. It’s about imagining your products being available across different sites at a click of a button—from eBay to Amazon to Instagram and Facebook Shopping and beyond.
How GoDaddy can help you with your omnichannel commerce journey
Your omnichannel retail strategy is about removing barriers and making the buying process as smooth as possible. Partnering with GoDaddy enables your customers to pay quickly and securely, no matter which channel they're using.
GoDaddy helps you sell anything, anywhere, and helps you manage many facets of your strategy. That includes your domain, website, social marketplaces, and your payment acceptance process—all in one place.
Our Point of Sale solutions—which include Smart Terminal and Smart Terminal Flex—let you provide the best in-store customer shopping experience possible. Imagine syncing with your offline and online inventory and enable customers to shop online and pick up in store with a simple, one-click online ordering page. We even have a free mobile app so you can start selling in minutes with Tap to Pay or send Pay Links with no hardware required.
The bottom line
It all boils down to a few key points.
- Personalize the commerce experience across all platforms. Make each interaction with your customer count and make it unique to them.
- Expand your reach with social commerce tools. Meet your customers where they are.
- Aim to create an amazing customer experience from the first click to the final purchase and beyond.
Omnichannel retail isn't simply a buzz-phrase—it reflects a crucial set of tactics available to businesses of all sizes. Consistency and personalization are key to an effective omnichannel retail strategy. Quick responses to your customers and easy payment options can make or break the customer experience.
Most critically: With the right tools and the right partners at hand, omnichannel retail can bring your marketing and selling power to the next level.
