2 Minute Read

“Omnichannel Commerce.” You’ve probably heard and read this buzzword many times. In your sales meetings, on your favorite marketing blog and occasionally, you might have even dropped the word yourself.

What Is Omnichannel Commerce?

What exactly is it? Omnichannel commerce is a multichannel approach to sales that focuses on giving your customers a seamless shopping experience, whether shopping online from a mobile device, on your website, interacting with live chat, on Facebook, or in your brick-and-mortar online store.

This trend has now made its way into B2B eCommerce and brands need to take notice. 98% of B2B buyers look for the same purchasing experience across multiple channels.

4 Benefits of Omnichannel Commerce

  1. Better Customer Experience
    Customers today want a unified experience. 15 years ago, the average consumer typically used two touch-points when buying an item and only 7% regularly used more than 4. Today, consumers use an average of almost 6 touch-points with nearly 50% regularly using more than four. And they want you to know everything about them, regardless of channel.
  2. Increase in Sales and Traffic
    A Bloomreach study of 46,000 shoppers shows that omnichannel customers spend more money than single-channel customers. Customers who use 4 or more channels spent an average of 9% more compared to those who use a single channel. And with every additional channel they use, the omnichannel shoppers spend more money.
  3. Boosted Customer Loyalty
    Tracking your customer contact over different channels lets you serve them better with more personalized experiences across marketing channels. More consistency instills more loyalty.
  4. Better Data Collection
    50% of consumers use more than 4 touchpoints regularly and 72% of consumers expect companies to know their purchase history, regardless of channel. With better data collection, numbers like these help companies target their customers in a more direct and effective way.

 

This is an excerpt of the information available within
“The New B2B Buying Journey: 6 Digital Trends to Drive Sales.”
Download the entire on-demand webinar.


Starting an Omnichannel Strategy

How do you start a strong omnichannel strategy that will work for your brand?

Learn all you can about your customers and never make assumptions. Take time to research their interests, behaviors, and needs. Identify the sales channels where your target audience is the most active. Is there a channel where customers expect to find your business? Select the channels that make the most sense for your business and make sure you have a clear purpose for all channels - you may use one channel mainly for interaction and another for news updates.

Make sure you implement the right technology to follow your entire customer experience across multiple touchpoints from reading reviews on your website, seeing social ads, window shopping on your website, or purchasing in your brick and mortar store. This is the hard part and only works if you execute it correctly. And then... continue to test and constantly improve your sales strategy to create those loyal customers who keep coming back.

TL;DR

Businesses need to take advantage of the power of the omnichannel approach to centralize multiple sales channels and customer relationships all under one roof. An omnichannel selling strategy remains one of the top B2B eCommerce trends and is only going to gain popularity as time goes on.

This six-part blog series takes a closer look at the components of a B2B eCommerce buyer's new journey. To read more, visit our blog.

 

B2B buyers now have much higher expectations. Let us help you expand your reach and improve efficiencies. Smart Solutions is 100% dedicated to your success.

 

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