In today's competitive market, it is critical to have an omnichannel inventory management strategy in eCommerce to sail through the day-to-day operational complexities. The omnichannel approach enables eCommerce businesses to perfectly align their eCommerce store with the manufacturing or distribution units. As a result, they gain complete control over warehouse operations to efficiently manage their inventory movements and accelerate the order fulfillment cycle.
In this blog post, we shall explore the key benefits of omnichannel inventory management for eCommerce businesses in 2022. First, let us learn the basics of omnichannel inventory management and its significance for eCommerce businesses.
Also, Read WMS Software Development For eCommerce Inventory Management
Omnichannel Inventory Management: An Overview
In simple terms, omnichannel inventory management deals with managing inventory levels across all available sales channels. It includes all the channels where you sell your products including the eCommerce platform, brick-and-mortar store, social media channels, and messaging apps.
To sustain the cut-throat competition in today's competitive market, it is crucial to enhance customer interactions across all communication channels. Adopting an omnichannel eCommerce strategy ensures that customers are able to reach you via multiple channels that are end-to-end integrated. As a result, it significantly improves customer experiences and also enhances the quality of customer services.
A study conducted by Harvard on 46,000 shoppers revealed that a majority of them prefer using multiple channels throughout their purchase cycle. It is, therefore, critical to ensure that you are available to your customers across all major sales channels.
Also, Read The Importance of eCommerce Mobile App Development In 2022
Omnichannel vs Multichannel eCommerce
Most people often misinterpret the terms omnichannel and multichannel because of their similar applications and use cases in eCommerce. Understandably, both omnichannel and multichannel eCommerce models focus on using multiple channels to engage customers along the purchase cycle. However, the omnichannel methodology is more customer-centric and facilitates end-to-end integration between all communication channels. Whereas, the multichannel eCommerce approach is channel-oriented as it focuses on expanding the communication channels for customer interactions regardless of their connectivity and interoperability.
Benefits of Omnichannel Inventory Management
Given below are the main benefits of an omnichannel eCommerce strategy for inventory management and order fulfillment.
Improved Customer Experiences
Omnichannel inventory management in eCommerce ensures that customers are able to find and purchase various products across multiple channels. It includes a custom-designed online store, third-party eCommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, social media platforms, messaging apps, and the likes. As a result, it renders more convenience to customer shopping experiences and is conducive to enhancing customer retention rates.
Maximum Customer Satisfaction
Understandably, customers these days expect their shopping experiences to be smooth, convenient, and multichannel. That said, omnichannel inventory management would be an ideal solution to significantly improve customers' shopping experiences and deliver maximum customer satisfaction.
Better Inventory Visibility
Omnichannel inventory management in eCommerce lets you gain better visibility into stock details and provides real-time inventory availability across all order fulfillment channels. As a result, it keeps you and your customers apprised of the latest information about the existing stock level and inventory availability.
Increased Sales Growth
The main purpose of omnichannel inventory management in eCommerce is to encourage customers to shop online by providing them access to multiple sales channels. In doing so, it renders increased convenience to customers, builds customer loyalty, and significantly enhances the customer retention rate. All these factors directly impact the overall sales cycle and drive significant sales growth across different channels.
You may also like to read ERP Software Development For eCommerce Management
Conclusion
Customers have become more selective these days about how they want to make purchases both online and offline. It is, therefore, essential to optimize your sales strategies and improve inventory management processes to fulfill their online shopping expectations. Omnichannel inventory management is a tried and tested way to deliver maximum value to customers throughout the order completion process. Nevertheless, it is equally important to select the right software tools and tech stack to implement an omnichannel eCommerce strategy in the best possible way.
Why Choose Oodles ERP For eCommerce App Development?
At Oodles ERP, we provide end-to-end eCommerce application development services with a focus on delivering omnichannel customer experiences across web and mobile platforms. Our developers specialize in building custom enterprise solutions from scratch to streamline inventory and warehouse operations for effective eCommerce management. We use open-source platforms like Magento, PrestaShop, and WooCommerce to strengthen brands' online presence by building a feature-rich eCommerce store. For more information, reach out to us at [email protected].
