As per a report by the IMF, the combined effect of restricted travel and tourism along with long term lockdowns as well as a rapid decrease in demands for oil together resulted in around $224 Bn revenue drop for the MENA economy.  

But as the saying goes – “When a door closes a window opens” and in this case, a rather bigger window of opportunities in the form of eCommerce opened up, which was already in the initial stages of becoming a big factor of economic growth for the GCC regions of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, etc.

While Saudi Arabia and UAE are two of the most successful MENA regions to adapt to the world of eCommerce, other countries did not take long to join in. 

Retailers from all the various regions of MENA are rapidly focusing on amplifying their eCommerce capabilities in order to render the best of services to the consumers, and in their efforts, Omnichannel has emerged to be their most reliable and most successful approach.

In this blog, we’ll take you through the entire spectrum of Omnichannel retailing, right from its core requirements to the implementation of it. Read on to get complete and thorough insights into this newest and most effective technology that not only ensures maximized sales but empowers your customers to shop from anywhere, at any time, thus increasing their loyalty towards your business or brand!

What is Omnichannel Retailing?

When eCommerce businesses or brands use multiple or all present sales channels to provide an unhindered shopping experience to their customers via any platforms, then this method is referred to as Omnichannel Retailing.

By using the Omnichannel strategy, businesses allow their consumers to hop around various shopping channels without the hassle of starting the entire shopping process from the start. 

This approach not only saves time for consumers but also builds a strong sense of comfort in them when making a purchase from a specific seller resulting in brand loyalty in the long run. 

Given how fast eCommerce is taking shape in the region, sellers and brands are focusing on marking their presence across multiple mediums of sales right from building their own websites to integrating on the top marketplaces like noon, eBay and Amazon along with using the power of social media to leverage potential buyers. 

And in order to maintain a smooth check out experience and to monitor sales across all these platforms, Omnichannel has become the go-to strategy for retailers as it provides you with the biggest advantage of being present wherever your customers are.

How Omnichannel Caters to Customer Behaviour?

Consumer behaviour, no matter where across the globe, is ever-changing and Omnichannel is one such strategy that caters to almost all the expected patterns of shopping by users. 

For the Middle East online shoppers, there is a significant behaviour that Omnichannel can solve for sellers and retailers, helping them cater to the customers in a better way.

1. Store Searching, Online Shopping – A lot of consumers in the Middle East still prefer to have the traditional touch and feel experience before buying a product and this leads to their behaviour of going to shops to try items and then ordering them later on via online shopping mediums. 

Omnichannel plays an important role in handling these customer behaviours resulting in better serviceability by retailers and a longer, stronger relationship between the consumer and the sellers.

2. Click and Collect – This behaviour in customers happens mainly when there is a rush to get an item or when they do not wish to pay for shipping charges. Shoppers usually purchase an item via online shopping channels and then go to the store to collect their items, saving them time and money.

Here, adapting an Omnichannel strategy becomes even more crucial in order to have the retail staff updated on the purchase made by a customer so that when they visit the store, they have a hassle-free experience.

3. Online Searching, Store Stopping – Exactly opposite to the first behaviour, customers sometimes browse for products online, check the collection a retailer is offering, check in-stock items and depending on their search results, they visit the stores to make a purchase. Usually, this behaviour happens when customers are not very convinced about the size or quality of a product.

In this case, Omnichannel helps in building a strong trust factor between consumers and retailers, ultimately resulting in higher sales and profits.

Why is it Important to get Omnichannel Right?

Although Omnichannel Retailing can be the game-changer for a business, not all sellers have begun using this method and the reason behind this is a lack of understanding and technological assistance to carry out this process.

In the Middle East specifically, the government within the retail industry is working on bringing more and more new technologies and user-based strategies to increase the economical infrastructure of the region and implementing a complete Omnichannel experience is their top priority.

Over 55% of the Middle Eastern population have already equipped themselves with the workings of Omnichannel shopping experience and prefer to shop from retailers and sellers who have an Omnichannel strategy in place. 

Online shoppers in the region prefer to browse through multiple sales channels as this allows them to compare prices, look for discounts and offers and much more, making Omnichannel even more attractive for them as well as more profitable for the sellers.

By adapting an Omnichannel approach to render services to the audiences, businesses can very well expect to:

• Double or Triple their Annual Revenue
• Decrease the Cost Per Customer Contact
• Increase Customer Retention Rate
• Engage with Wider Audiences
• Provide Seamless & Non-Stop Services

These factors can have a huge impact on any eCommerce business looking to expand their customer base or already serving people in the Middle East.

Post COVID restrictions were lifted, a lot of offline shops have started to see footfall similar to that in pre-covid times. Majid Al Futtaim’s Mall has seen an improvement of 80% in-store sales while their other malls have seen a recovery of about 40%, after strict safety norms and proper sanitization processes have been assured by retailers, and brands. 

According to Mr Chowhan of Lulu Groups –  “Trust is what is bringing people back into the stores.” 

Some other well-renowned retailers in the Middle East such as Alshaya, Apparel Group, Chalhoub Group and Landmark Group have also established distribution partnerships with 3rd Party eCommerce service providers while setting up their own brand websites and integrations to other marketplaces.

In addition to Majid Al Futtaim, Al Tayer and Al-Futtaim have also worked around launching their own e-commerce channels, making the Omnichannel approach in the Middle East highly recommended. 

According to a report published by Bain & Company, when asked about the importance of establishing an Omnichannel approach to a business, Patrick Chalhoub – CEO, Chalhoub Group, said  “We realized this is not about digital transformation; it’s about transformation, period.”

But even as the eCommerce players move ahead in adapting the Omnichannel Strategy, it goes without saying that there always are some key factors to look at before transforming the outlook of any business. 

What are the Challenges Associated with Omnichannel?

As per data, over 80% of users in the UAE and over 70% in Saudi Arabia already prefer Omnichannel Retail specifically for product segments of Electronics, Fashion and Home.

But even the implementation of the right Omnichannel Strategy can have some roadblocks that can be solved only with proper technological assistance!

Some of the most common challenges that sellers might encounter while transitioning into Omnichannel Retailing include:

1. Increased Cost of Operations to Tackle Multiple Sales Fronts – 

When you sell through multiple channels, the cost to meet the demands of consumers also increases and this can lead to higher operational costs as you would need to employ more warehouse and retail store staff to pick, pack and dispatch items without any errors or integrate an automated system for your inventory and warehouse management. 

2. Amplified Returns & Cancellations due to higher Sales – 

As sales increase, returns and cancellations will increase too. No matter how perfect a seller or brand’s serviceability is, these two challenges will always persist as consumers can and will order items either by mistake, make errors in choosing the right fit, or just change their minds at the last moment. 

These two challenges can make the process a little tough but using an appropriate system that not only helps in performing the right inventory, order and warehouse management but also ensure optimum Omnichannel capabilities for an e-commerce business can make a huge difference.

Biggest Omnichannel Retail Trends and Predictions

1. Marriage of Online & Offline Sales – 

It goes without saying that the biggest Omnichannel Retail Trend will be to establish an equilibrium between offline and online stores.

Focusing on amplifying the advantages of both worlds can prove to be the most effective way for sellers, retailers and brands to increase sales and maintain a sturdy relationship with their customers and virtual reality will play a vital role in helping brands achieve this.

2. Leveraging the power of Social Media – 

The next biggest Omnichannel trend to expect will be Social Media where every online business will focus on strengthening their Social Media presence as this platform can provide a customer pool like no other. 

By using social media platforms and collaborating with Influencers any e-commerce business can reach out to a wider and bigger audience that will most likely make a purchase from them. 

By curating simple yet attractive content, businesses can capture the attention of customers who would then click through a post and be redirected to the seller website where they could browse through all the products and make a hassle-free purchase.

3. Targeted Promotions for Higher Sales

By running audience-centric ads on multiple platforms will be the next ‘to do’ thing for sellers, retailers and brands. 

Targeted ads can be run by researching and maintaining customer data such as their interest, previous purchases and wishlist items which would help businesses make suggestions to the buyers as well as make them aware of any offers, or discounts being given on their preferred items.

This will ensure higher sales and also give e-commerce businesses the advantage of being always in the customer’s eyes!

4. Focus on Personalization

Although customers like to have options, too much of anything can do more harm than good and the same goes with sellers and retailers trying to gain more sales via customers.

 And so it is important to customize options and then communicate with the buyers using various methods to provide assistance to them while they look, review and purchase an item. 

Asking for the purchase requirements, running a small questionnaire, providing filtering options based on price, size, quality, etc can be really helpful in creating a wholesome and personalized experience for consumers.

Developing Your Omnichannel Strategy

The right Omnichannel Retailing Strategy will always help you keep your customers at the core of your business and give you the ease to provide better, faster and seamless services. 

Omnichannel lets you create a strong database of your customer journey and gives you the most effective methods to handle their expectations and demands which ultimately result in increased profits and overall higher ROI for your business. 

Make the most for your business by following these latest Omnichannel Retailing Trends of 2023 and get the right technology assistance to accelerate your business growth.

Explore our platforms:

• Integrated logistics management system
• Automated payment reconciliation system

Discover Unicommerce’s Success Story with Leading Brands –

• How Dubai-based Vidiwell achieved 230% sales order growth?
• How Kuwait-based Toyfull streamlined Warehouse Management Operations?
• How YZ Buyer Demonstrated 2X Growth in Sales?
• How Oryvo Achieved Maximized Efficiency and Minimized Workload?

Related read –

• How does Warehouse Management System Works?
• Role of Warehouse Management in the FMCG Industry in India
• E-commerce Apparel Industry: Trends, Challenges, Opportunities & Solutions
• Logistics vs Supply Chain Management: Key Components, Benefits, Comparison

The post Omnichannel Retail Trends in the Middle East: Get the Best of Both Worlds! appeared first on unicommerce.com.

To enable businesses have a complete understanding of all the best possible solutions that can help them grow and scale-up profitability to larger extents, Unicommerce brings yet another unique virtual discussion for demystifying e-commerce with 2 back to back webinars getting experts to talk about best practices of Omnichannel and Direct to Consumer (D2C) E-commerce Platform.

The first webinar focuses on discussing best practices around technology, organization design, execution, metrics etc. when it comes to implementing omnichannel while the second webinar focuses on discussing best practices around product market fit, marketing, culture, marketplaces and many more such topics for building a large Direct to Consumer brand.

Happening on 24th and 25th August with the first day dedicated to Demystifying Omnichannel Best Practices and the complete order of it includes:

Webinar Agenda 

Topic:    Demystifying Omnichannel Best Practices

Timings: 24th August- 3 PM to 4 PM

Brands- Bestseller India, TCNS Clothing, and House of Anita Dongre

Speakers : 

Ranjan Sharma, CIO and Head of SCM, Bestseller

Saurabh Bansal, Head-Omni & Ecommerce, TCNS Clothing

Dipankar Sikdar, Head of E-commerce, HOAD

Why the Need for an Omnichannel Webinar?

As eCommerce businesses are adjusting to the new normal of things, the surge in demands and the increasing need to meet up to customer expectations have given way to new-age technologies shaping the industry. 

Omnichannel Retailing is one such technology solution that is changing the way eCommerce has been operating so far. The seamless management of eCommerce sales across multiple sales channels (marketplaces, own websites, exclusive store outlets, multi-brand store outlets etc.) and the associated positive impact it has on customer experience is making it one of the most sought-after solutions in the current times.

The webinar: Demystifying Omnichannel will help eCommerce businesses understand the best practices to constantly be present at every single platform where your customers exist. 

Being wherever your consumers are, gives you the opportunity to sell across channels and provide a centralized experience to your customers and that is what our esteemed speakers will educate you upon. 

What will the Omnichannel Webinar include?

As Omnichannel Retailing has become a top prerequisite for a sustainable business, our Webinar Demystifying Omnichannel Best Practices is designed to share growth levers and strategies LIVE from a single platform by the biggest Industry Leaders that sellers, retailers and brands can incorporate in order to cope with the shifting methods of doing eCommerce business. 

Apart from this, these webinars will outplay a little differently this time as we are encouraging eCommerce sellers to share their success stories of implementing and working with Omnichannel and or D2C Selling mechanisms.

The best entries done via social media channels in the form of comments will be picked up and the sellers will get a chance to share the screen with leading brands such as Bestseller India, TCNS Clothing, and House of Anita Dongre.

Why be a part of this Omnichannel Webinar?

With the chance for you to feature LIVE in the discussion, the webinar will be focusing on answering some of the major questions by the biggest names in the eCommerce industry such as:

• What are the top Omnichannel practices that worked for these leading brands in India?
• What are the key results/outcomes of implementing Omnichannel Strategy that triggered business growth post COVID-19

Attending the webinar will not only allow you to lead by example of these brands but also help you grab highly insightful knowledge about the intricacies of adapting  Omnichannel for your business, ask businesses specific questions from the experts, LIVE in session and have the complete recording of the webinar to rerun at your own time in the future.

So don’t miss out, join us LIVE on 24th August and intensify your business growth with the best Omnichannel practices and strategies at your disposal.

The post Demystifying Omnichannel: Learn Best Practices to Upscale your eCommerce Business appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Businesses will need to adapt to the new reality of consumers taking on online shopping, and expecting doorstep deliveries, to restructure their operations that’ll help them bounce back to maintain flow of profits and avoid any more distress than there already is.

Once eCommerce operations resume, companies would require strict and rapid processes to ensure no more disruption is caused in their order processing and delivery. Any more delays will straightaway shift consumer focus to competitions, making the situation much worse. 

Analyzing the situation of over 500,0000 retailers represented by Retailers Association of India (RAI), CEO Kumar Rajagopalan said “If somebody does a Rs 500 crore of turnover, the loss of sales is expected to be in the range of 50-60 percent, which could be around Rs 250-300 crore. This could be that deep”

Consumer Behaviour Indicates a Strong Need to go Omnichannel

Customers have constantly been moving to the digital databases as shopping offline is not an option due to the lockdown in place, making them rely on online platforms until the lockdown is over.

But even after the lockdown is lifted, consumers are sure to avoid physical retail due to the high possibility of being infected by a simple handshake.

And so, as customers find the online arena full of options and easier to handle, they are moving on to eCommerce more than ever and so the need for omnichannel solution has grown exponentially worldwide in the past few months.

As per a study released by Deloitte, consumer behaviour analysis indicates that they would most certainly want out of store shopping experience, increasing the trend of no contact demands, boosting online sales further. 

Source: Deloitte

Public gathering may still be avoided to eliminate any possibility of contracting infection fueling delays in offline shopping and further increasing the need for integration of offline stores with online marketplaces.

 All of these and the constantly changing customer expectations cannot be managed if your business serves only via a single platform. 

Why is Omnichannel retailing going to be the future of offline retailers?

The changing customer preferences are necessitating the offline brands to consider their omnichannel strategy seriously and invest in omnichannel technology and supply chain.

One such case that has been seen is of the giant offline supermarket Big Bazaar, that transformed its two decade old format of offline sales into an online marketplace. 

In an article by the Economic Times, Bharati Balakrishnan, senior VP, digital commerce, Future Group said that “We were able to launch BigBazaar.com within ten days and since then we’ve scaled it to about 10,000 orders a day. We’re running online wherever we’re allowed to operate stores. Some of the stores are adopting online orders faster than others,”

At a smaller level, even the Kirana stores have transformed their day to day operations by tying up with local brands for inventory, to fulfil the demands and provide doorstep deliveries of orders.

They have enabled methods of keeping the flow of business intact by successfully merging their offline operations into an online business model.

All other brands need to learn from these examples, similar for a big retailer or small Kirana stores, that understood the importance of how a low footfall can cause inventory turnover to decrease, making it difficult to justify running stores and so, with omnichannel, they got to drive higher utilization of their outlets by shifting their business online.

As the consumption of internet grew rapidly, brands that have adapted omnichannel solutions in their model of business operations, have been able to put that need of consumers into perspective.

They managed to revamp retail behaviour and went on to engage consumers by creating an online presence via own websites or mobile apps as well as listing on omnichannel marketplaces, that provide store like experiences ensuring customers to not only stick around but also to keep the sales afloat.

How Businesses Around the World are Dealing with the Lockdown?

Businesses all around the globe, especially in the US, China and European markets have gone through or undergoing similar circumstances and the solutions that they turned to can serve as leading examples for your business to manage and better operations post the lockdown period is over to minimise losses. 

As one of the biggest retailers in the world with a huge dependency of supply from the Chinese market, Nike CEO John Donahoe threw some light on their initiatives to cope up with the outbreak and how they plan to take on the economic challenges about to occur in the next few months.

The retail outlets of Nike have been closed around the world and they currently depend on digital sales. As the operations were on hold, Nike tried to connect with the customers and incorporated a shift of inventory via technology to serve consumers demands.

Nike determined a strategy that included a 4 step process based on the impact it saw in China soon after the Coronavirus outbreak. The steps included 

• Closing retail stores until contamination due to virus stops
• Focusing on eCommerce marketplaces till the lockdown continued
• Changing business practices keeping in mind all the restrictions
• Ensuring consumer engagements digitally to increase retaining growth

How to Adapt the Omnichannel Retail Solution for Your Business?

The omnichannel retail solution is designed to not only manage sales on multiple channels but to integrate the channels together so that customers experience an uninterrupted shopping experience with businesses being able to fulfil all demands from each of their stock keeping areas.

Building an omnichannel strategy helps the brand with 360 degree operational management including focus on technology driven solutions, complete supply chain management, and organizational processes that require proper training of store staff to help be able to handle online orders, and rerouting demands by analyzing all stock keeping outlets.

With this solution, you can manage all your business operations via retail as well as online sources, increase inventory turnover, run operations with higher efficiency and experience better unit economics, reducing the damage to a significant low.

What business specifics can you get out of Omnichannel retailing?

Well, integrating your business to Omnichannel retail, can offer you a plethora of support, some of which include:

•  Integrated Communication and Analytics 
•  Maintaining Customers Relations intact no matter the mode of shopping 
•  Obtaining consistent and useful Data via every transaction 
•  Customized creation of the products as per target audiences 
•  Experienced and Service Focused Shopping 
•  Strong customer support & communication management 

This lockdown has pushed brands to emphasize on being omnipresent, and that can happen only when you have Omnichannel solutions by your side, but you don’t need to go too far to find a platform that offers you all that and more!!

Unicommerce has been a pioneer in cloud-based technology platforms that offer a highly robust OmniChannel Solution through Uniware. With Unicommerce’s omnichannel solution, your business gets an instantaneous and centralized cross-channel order and inventory management system.

These solutions empower your retail brand to engage customers with a consistent quality service across various channels of markets; online marketplaces, physical stores or a company website.

Renowned brands like Being Human, TCNS, House of Anita Dongre are managing their online and store sales through Unicommerce and have seen significant growth in their overall business.

Unicommerce’s omnichannel solution is a sophisticated retail software with key features to optimize and maintain the scale of growth for your business that includes: 

• Dynamic Order Allocation to ensure routing of online orders to nearest offline store
• Endless aisle to enable store to store transfer for avoiding lost sales
• Enabling “Deliver from Store” or “Click & Collect” for reduced logistics costs
• Seamless integration with the brand website, Point of Sale as well as ERPs to ensure full data visibility
• Ability to capture customer journey across all touchpoints for improved customer experience
• Comprehensive omnichannel returns management (Buy Online, Return Offline Or Buy Offline & Return Online)
• Centralized inventory management across offline stores, website and marketplaces
• Point of Sale solution to cater to basic retail use cases

Our Omnichannel offering aims to reduce your operational and manpower costs and help you increase your business profitability.

Learn from the experience of other businesses- 

• How Chumbak streamline retail over 100 categories across 50 stores pan India, a web store and 5+ marketplaces, all via Unicommerce’s robust omnichannel solutions

• How India’s leading eyewear marketplace is enabling Omnichannel Retailing across 400+ stores 

• How Fashion Brands AND & Global Desi are improving their Warehouse Operations experience

Know how Unicommerce can help your brand manage Online & Offline operations efficiently.

Request a Demo, now! 

The post Why Retailers Want to Implement Omnichannel Retail Strategy in COVID-19 appeared first on unicommerce.com.