Omnichannel Is the Future

As in 2018, making a purchase has become easier than before, thanks to the development in technology and social media, omnichannel has become the future for retail for everyone, especially the millenials.

According to an article on HubSpot, Omni-channel experience is a miulti-channel approach to marketing, selling, and serving customers in a way that creates an integrated and cohesive customer experience no matter how or where a customer reaches out. All omni-channel experience will use multiple channels, but not all multi-channel experiences are omni-channel. Whether or not a company is utilizing ominichannel comes down to whether or not the company is well integrated.

In an article written by Vermut on Ad Age talks about how consumers are being more mindful in general before making a purchase. Although half of the millennial demographic still prefers buying in store, 67 percent of them are actually buying in-store after doing online research. Even though it sounds easy to just open multiple social media account for the company to market to millenials, who comprises 75 million U.S. customers with around $600 billion in spending power; it is definitely a challenge when it comes to narrowing down this demographic, because it is about understanding the income, interest and affinity of specific groups within the millenials. It is often hard for companies to identify the actual customers when you do not always see the customers make buying decisions in store. Even for services that require monthly subscription might not get the accurate data because according to an article from Reuters, 21 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds share their streaming-video passwords with people who do not live with them. A way to solve the problem as mentioned in the article is to increase the identity resolution by working with identity and customer-intelligence partners in order to better identify the pattern in the target audience. The Freudian Psychoanalytic Approach is an example of a way to study the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind of consumers.

An experience of mine with a company that utilizes omnichannel would be the UK cosmetics brand Lush. Lush promotes the brand as a highly environmental and animal friendly. They use fresh ingredients to make their products, support ethical buying, they are 100 percent vegetarian, handmade and uses naked packaging. Lush not only has a well developed website that introduces their wide range of products, they also have a Youtube channel which they regularly post How It's Made videos showing the production process of their fresh cosmetics and videos that promotes special product lines such as the Halloween bathing products. Lush also has mobile app that allows consumers to stay updated on their product range, purchase anytime, anywhere safely and look at Lush's social section to see what products other Lush customers love. I think the way that Lush is integrating their marketing campaign has really made the customer experience better since so much of the Lush shopping experience is about touching, feeling and smelling the products. With the website, Youtube channel and mobile app, Lush will be able to close the gap between the retail and digital shopping experience, slowly moving towards the omnichannel way of promoting. Even thoughthe brand is not as commonly known in North America than in the UK and Hong Kong, I still find myself watching their Youtube videos and buying from their website especially as a gift option.

---

Sources:https://adage.com/article/neustar/omnichannel-future-retail-millennials/315054/https://blog.hubspot.com/service/omni-channel-experiencehttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-television-passwords-poll-idUSKBN19W2V0https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/psychoanalysis/https://www.lushusa.com/story?cid=article_introducing-lush-app