3 Omnichannel Ecommerce Mistakes to Make Sure You Avoid

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With omnichannel selling, retailers need to focus on creating a cohesive experience between several ecommerce realms and the traditional brick-and-mortar store, providing a positive customer experience at any and all touchpoints throughout the customer journey.

This is true whether they start in-store or online, whether they interact with you on social channels like Pinterest or on marketplaces like Jet, and whether they’re using a computer or a mobile device.

If your retail business isn’t truly omnichannel yet, you’re missing out on major potential for more customers and more profit. On the other hand, if you rush into the adoption process without doing your homework first, you could be fostering the exact opposite outcome – sending customers away in favor of your competition.

Here are three mistakes to avoid as you move toward omnichannel retail.

1. Adopting the Wrong Channels for Your Audience

The key to successful omnichannel marketing is to make sure you are available in all the places your customers are. While Facebook remains the most popular social network, simply having a Facebook Page is often not enough for a brand. And creating a social presence everywhere to cover your bases isn’t the ideal strategy either, because you create additional work in maintaining all the channels, and may not be reaching as many people as you think. 

That’s why it’s important to know where your audience is, so you can develop a strategy that includes those channels, allowing you to focus on putting your best foot forward on all of them. There’s no sense in being everywhere if it means you sacrifice quality. Think about your ecommerce, customer engagement and acquisition channels as a type of moneyball. For example, Baby Boomers aren’t likely to be shopping on Snapchat, but that’s the best place to reach Gen Z, according to recent research from BigCommerce.

Once you know the channels you need to be on, then you can come up with a plan for the content, messaging and selling solutions you want to put forward on each platform. As you work through your strategy, remember that customers mainly want two things from your brand, regardless of channel: prompt customer service and personalization.

2. Honoring Too Few Payment Options

While credit cards are still the main payment method for large online purchases, generational differences in consumers mean that brands need to start expanding their payment options. Younger cohorts like Millennials and Generation Z are more than twice as likely to use a mobile wallet than older audience segments.

However, keep in mind that many of shoppers’ payment method preferences are specific to their countries of origin. For example, if your core audience is Canadian, then you can cover 91% of demand simply by accepting credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards, according to the latest data from Payments Canada. 

Of course offering the ability to pay with a mobile wallet is a great way to increase convenience and reduce checkout friction, but for brands that really want to provide their customers with flexibility, consider also offering financing options, such as AfterPay, Klarna and PayPal Credit.

Gen Z consumers are increasingly ready to use “buy now, pay later” options to make their purchases, while Baby Boomers are the only generation with more than 50% preferring to avoid online financing to cover their purchases, according to the BigCommerce study. For many consumers in the younger generations, having financing options available means they’ll make larger purchases they wouldn’t have otherwise considered.

3. Failing to Offer Online Ordering with in-Store Pickup

“Buy online, pickup in store” (BOPIS), also known as “click and collect,” combines the ease of online shopping with the convenience of finding and getting what you in need in a brick-and-mortar store. For customers, it allows easy online searching and price comparison and gives them gratification when they can go pick it up in the store within a couple of hours instead of waiting for it to be shipped.

As 73% of online shoppers prefer picking up an online order to avoid paying for shipping, failing to offer this convenience for your customers could cause you to miss sales. Shipping costs remain one of the primary reasons, aside from cart functionality issues, for shopping cart abandonment. In this sense, BOPIS allows retailers to keep the customers who would otherwise be most likely to bounce during the final stage of the sales funnel.

BOPIS also helps raise trust and confidence with consumers, because it allows people to check the products and decide on the spot if the purchase was worth it. This removes the hassle of returns, which are always a possibility after the shopper orders when the products are shipped to their home or office.

But managing BOPIS is fraught with challenges, as the above data from Signifyd demonstrates. For it to work effectively, you must make sure your physical stores carry the majority of your products and keep them in stock. You must also focus on an implementation that makes it easy for both your store staff and your customers, so there is less potential for long lines and fulfillment mistakes at pickup.

When working this into your plan, dedicate additional resources to ensure positive customer experience at pickup. Designate a clear pickup area with signage so people know where to go, and this will go a long way toward customer satisfaction.

Many retailers, such as Walmart, Best Buy, and Kohl’s allow customers to pick up online orders within hours of placing the original order. Depending on the item, however, customers who want to pick up items in store may have to wait a few days for the item to ship to their branch of choice. These retailers are also adding an extra layer of convenience by allowing online orders to be returned in-store, to avoid the hassle of having to pack items for return shipping.

Focus on Strategy First

When it’s time to implement your omnichannel strategy, approach everything methodically to ensure nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Begin with capturing data, tracking conversions, and targeting your messaging. Make sure everything focuses on making both customer and user experiences a priority. Automate actions where possible, such as sending personalized recommendations based on shopping history, to keep things running smoothly.

Remember, adopting more channels requires accessibility via more platforms and devices, so experiences must be designed to run flawlessly regardless of the touchpoint. Ensure you have enough resources and technology to allocate to the process – from financial investments to the appropriate staff. And most importantly, conversion is only the first step. You must be able to deliver on your brand promise consistently, or you won’t be able to foster brand loyalty.