Closing the Gap Between In-Store and Online

Due to advances in digital technology, as well as new pressures brought on by a global pandemic, multi-channel retailing has become standard practice over the years. Consumers browse and shop online and offline interchangeably and demand enormous flexibility when it comes to choosing where, when and how they buy.

To continue fulfilling the evolving needs and expectations of the modern consumer, retailers need to meet customers across all sales channels. Multi-channel retailing is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a must-have for any retailer to remain competitive.

 

What is multi-channel retailing?

Multi-channel retailing is about optimizing your sales and marketing strategy to ensure you’re offering customers a wide range of choice in how they buy your products.

Multi-channel retailing has been a business must-have for years, but with the 2020 pandemic limiting the ways customers could make purchases, it’s necessity has been highlighted in the past year.

Lightspeed offers retailers an advanced solution to adapt to the new world of multichannel retailing.

What can you achieve with Lightspeed’s multi-channel solution?

1. Centralise your operations and data

Lightspeed proves that with the right tools, managing multiple channels doesn’t have to be a bigger challenge than managing just one. A multi-channel solution centralises online and in-store operations and reporting, facilitates business management, and improves efficiency by eliminating manual mistakes.

By centralising your inventory, stock management is automated in real time across all channels. This gives you a clear idea of how your stock is selling, so you know if it’s time to place an order with a supplier or focus on adjusting your offering. From sales data to customer purchase history, in-depth reports provide you with a single view of crucial data to simplify business analysis and fact-based decision making.

2. Deliver a consistent customer experience

With a multi-channel system, you can give your customers the flexibility to browse and shop across different channels, such as ordering online to click and collect. Customer data is stored in the cloud and accessed via one system, so you can quickly retrieve order details using basic customer information.

What’s more, Lightspeed eCom’s customisable, design-lead theme templates can help you translate your brick-and-mortar brand identity online. You can colour your online store to match the colour scheme of your physical shop, for example.

Your theme should:

✅ Represent your brand. Your site should give your customers an idea of your brand at a glance, from colours to photos to font choice. This is doubly important for your homepage, as your brand should wow customers from the first second they see it.

✅ Be easy to navigate. Potential customers shouldn’t be overwhelmed looking at your site. The layout should be logically arranged, with categories and the shopping cart easy to find.

✅ Be desktop and mobile responsive. This means it should automatically detect what device your customer is browsing on and load a version of your theme optimised for that device.

✅ Load quickly. Increasing your website speed by even just one second increases your conversions by 7%.

Be bold and visual-focussed. You’ll capture your customer’s eye with large, high-quality images. Refrain from adding too much text on the homepage and overwhelming your customers; let your product images speak for themselves.

 

3. Increase customer loyalty and sales

By going omnichannel, you can meet your customers’ expectations and make your products available across all sales channels. With an eCommerce store, you can effectively stay open for business 24/7, giving customers total freedom to shop when they want.

To encourage shoppers to come back time and time again, you need to keep them engaged. Armed with a suite of built-in digital marketing tools such as SEO, social sharing tools and a blogging platform, you can build a digital community around their businesses and nurture customer relationships outside of the context of a physical shop.

What’s more, having cross-channel customer data in one place helps you to better understand your entire customer base and adjust your promotional efforts and product offering to create experiences tailored specifically to your customers. This level of personalisation helps improve the customer experience and, in turn, increase loyalty and the likelihood of consumers buying your products.

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Intuitive and Powerful. Lightspeed Retail is the center of your business, online and in store. Save Time, Money and Reduce Error. POS for Smart Retailers.

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