Omnichannel Commerce: 2023 Can be a Turning Point for Retailers
By Frank Kouretas
Chief Product Officer – Orckestra
Insider Intelligence data highlights that omnichannel sales are expected to make up close to 46% of all ecommerce sales by 2023, up from 40.4% in 2019. The commerce experiences that consumers want are no longer linear. Consumers have a wealth of choices and options at their disposal. They are used to getting what they want, how and when they want it. We are now in a truly omnichannel era where the lines between traditional brick-and-mortar stores and ecommerce have blurred. Since consumers are shopping both online and in-store, it is imperative for retailers to create a cohesive, unified ecosystem to reduce costs and promote profitability for both channels.
We are now in a truly omnichannel era where the lines between traditional brick-and-mortar stores and ecommerce have blurred. Retailers cannot afford to treat both channels as separate entities.
Retailers need to adopt an omnichannel approach to create a seamless shopping experience that blends the online and physical retail worlds—and the right omnichannel order management system can do just that. It manages and unifies all inventory sources, customer orders & returns, as well as provides data and reporting across multiple sales channels through a single platform that covers every step of the order life cycle—allowing you to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, maintain a consistent brand experience, and scale operations with ease.
Consumers are now in the driver’s seat of their shopping experiences. Informed, research-driven and digitally savvy, shoppers are holding retailers to a much higher standard. Retail businesses will need to focus more on marrying their physical and online storefronts in order to provide a consistent and seamless experience across channels and maintain customer loyalty. They cannot afford to treat both channels as separate entities. The real key for retailers is being able to provide an omnichannel experience using technology that builds on their existing systems and business processes without significant investment in risky replatforming.
Although 2023 is full of uncertainty with recession headwinds, the retail industry is still expected to grow, and this increases the importance of enabling a more efficient supply chain and fulfillment process. A recent Deloitte report suggests that 85% of retailers expect to invest significantly in supply chain automation, inventory management, and other technology. 2023 is expected to be the year leading to technological innovations in this space, and the retailers who embrace this change will thrive this year and beyond. With order volume and customer expectations growing, the need to enable a more fluid supply chain with true “sell everywhere fulfill anywhere” capabilities cannot be overstated.
Leveraging key technologies in inventory management, order management and orchestration, and omnichannel fulfillment will help retailers deliver the commerce experiences their customers require, while at the same time increasing overall margins for the business. In 2023, technology that we refer to as ‘omnichannel order management and fulfillment’ is going to be a priority on every successful retailer’s roadmap in order to automate and scale their operations.
THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE 2023
JAN 2023
Frank Kouretas: As Chief Product Officer, Frank leads product strategy and product management, driving the next wave of commerce innovation and beautifully simple shopping experiences.
Frank is passionate about building and marketing innovative technology products, and brings over 15 years of leadership experience in product development, product management and marketing.
Prior to joining Orckestra, Frank was VP of Products and Marketing at Radialpoint where he led the development of innovative customer experience products used by some of the world’s leading service providers to support millions of customers.