The much-circulated expression of marketers that “customer is king” sounds surprisingly banal in an omnichannel world. This is the true age of customers as they wield colossal influence than ever before. With technology becoming their alter ego, today consumers have stepped into the shoes of a mercurial dictator who doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about channel-specificity and enjoy shopping the way they like to. Consumers want their preferred stuff when, where, and how they want them. Retailers who dare to swerve from this customer-ordained track will shoot themselves in the foot.
By virtue of the nature of their business, fashion retailers have to deal with hundreds of transient trends and styles in every season. So, to give the informed and tech-reliant fashion buyers a glitch-free unified experience across all thinkable channels, they need a right-performing omnichannel strategy with the key components embedded.
Five core norms for running the show and making it a grand success.
Apparel retailers have understood the critical role of the omnichannel strategy in satisfying the hyper-knowledgeable shoppers with an always-on, everywhere-accessible, and touchpoint-neutral experience. But, the strategy will yield optimum output if only the following basic elements work in unison.
- Ultra-wide angle inventory visibility: Enterprise-wide inventory visibility is the starting point from where the omnichannel concept takes off. For a better inventory management and a faster and sensitive supply chain, it is imperative to locate stocks accurately round the clock. According to a Forrester report, 71% of consumers feel that the ability to see inventory information for physical store merchandise is vital. The report further reveals that 38% of customers actually researched on their mobile devices about inventory availability en route to a brick-and-mortar outlet. Thus, to streamline inventory movement in real-time, fashion houses must deploy the latest industry standards like EPC-enabled RFID.
- Transparency in pricing: To prevent the omnichannel strategy going out of kilter, pricing visibility is equally important as inventory visibility. For shoppers, it’s now as easy as falling off a log to find out which fashion retailer is over-priced and which one is under-priced. This puts pressure on people engaged in fashion retail to develop a consistent pricing plan that bolsters margins throughout channels. Lack of uniformity in this connection will have a deleterious impact on brand image, conversion rates, and customer loyalty. But, there is no room to believe that price consistency is as simple as fixing the same price for all channels. Retailers should utilize intelligent pricing solutions to arrive at the best pricing strategy.
- Readiness for the virtual marketplace: Clothes are one of the top three selling items in the e-shopping domain. A Moody’s report anticipates that in 2014 online apparel sales in the US will reach $45 billion. Similarly, figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that online sales for clothing in the UK jumped by 12.9% in January 2014 compared to the same period last year. The above numbers solidify the significance to enhance the suitability of products for web-based transactions. To get things done for this purpose and bring assortments briskly to the e-market, fashion retailers need superior quality standardized information and images of products.
- Fulfilling customers’ expectations through omnichannel fulfillment: The Forrester study mentioned earlier says that 93% of retailers who offer ship-from-store to customers have increased their online revenue to a great extent. On the other hand, 88% of retailers have bettered their customer satisfaction metrics by courtesy of ship-from-store. Providing customers with a range of flexible and agile fulfillment options is essential to move the omnichannel strategy with the perfect tempo.
- Making data predict with predictive analytics: Huge amount of consumer data is scattered among various sources, whether social media conversations, online reviews, or in-store purchases. By installing advanced predictive solutions, fashion retailers can tap this data and extract meaningful insights out of it. This way, they can create a seamless experience that’s fully compatible with customers’ moods and sentiments. With the use of real-time and predictive analytics, fashion retailers can be completely in control of their retail situation along with a deep understanding of the behavior of various marketing and sales channels. These insights can prove to be the most powerful weapon while building an omnichannel retail strategy.