Retail exists in an arena of ever-moving customer demands, with purchases being made across a wide range of channels. Online, social, mobile, and of course, good old brick-and-mortar stores. In the rush to meet these evolving expectations, many retailers have embraced omnichannel strategies as a way to remain competitive, and indeed, relevant. And why wouldn’t they? Omnichannel can certainly offer seamless customer experience across the various retail touchpoints. However, many organisations have found what works during tests and pilots fail to hit those marks when scale is introduced.
The reason for this isn’t poor experimentation and testing at the early stages. The problem arises later when organization and technology fall out of alignment. When retailers add channels too quickly, coordination becomes blurred, and the very promise of omnichannel becomes the problem. And the results can be very bad. The visibility of inventory breaks down, pricing conflicts between channels emerge, loyalty systems deliver inconsistent rewards, and fulfilment expectations aren’t met.
An ongoing issue
This problem is nothing new – according to research from McKinsey, around 70% of complex digital transformations, including those directed at unifying customer experiences across channels, end up falling short of what was expected. Other data tells a similarly sobering story, especially with regard to inventory. While nearly every retailer makes a single view of inventory across all touchpoints a top priority, only 36% have actually nailed it.
The anatomy of scaling (and why it breaks)
When small scale tests take place, retailers can often get away with “good enough.” When the operation involved remains small and manageable, an inventory system that updates overnight, or even weekly or longer can appear to do the job, But, with scale, human behaviour soon starts work! For instance, a customer buys online, reserves it in store, promoted in an app and then tries to return it via a third party. Delays are created, and every second of delay causes increasing problems. Data soon falls out of sync, and it isn’t just a technical issue. The delays have a very human effect – out-of-sync data represents a broken promise to a customer. You’re looking at unfulfilled orders, double-selling, and at the end, a customer that won’t use you again.
Periodic batch processing
Many retailers rely on periodic batch processing to generate critical data. But, of course, digital commerce exists in real time. Without that invaluable, up-to-the-minute data, business end up making decisions based on yesterday’s numbers (or even longer). It becomes very difficult to anticipate customer behaviour, which effects capacity and inventory. This leads to slow, reactive operations.
The friction of internal silos
Internal silos can create havoc. Think of this common situation: promotions are run by E-commerce, store managers handle the local pricing, and fulfilment rules are set by the logistics department. Effectively, you’ve got different players owning different parts of the customer journey. What’s holding all this together (or at least trying to) is IT. Often, these arrangements lack a “single source of truth” that apply across all channels. Then, very quickly, offers and pricing start to go in different directions across touchpoints. What looks like a £20 off promo in one system might not exist at all in another. The result? Margin is eroded, as is customer trust.
The customer
Customers can be complicated beasts. But broadly speaking, they don’t think in “channels.” They just see your brand. You don’t get many chances to placate a disappointed (or angry) customer who has had a poor experience. A recent study found that 70% of customers will walk away from a brand after two negative encounters.
And if a customer switches channels and find the loyalty rewards available online don’t apply instore, then they inevitably feel they’re being punished.
Consistent channels & better decisions
The retailers actually winning right now aren’t just adding more channels; they’re rethinking their entire architecture. They treat omnichannel as a network of dispersed decisions powered by real-time intelligence. Rather than just making things look consistent on the surface, they prioritise “decision orchestration.” Every system is aligned around immediate demand, customer intent, and actual capacity.
Adopting these practices requires shifting to real-time inventory signals, unified business logic, and fulfilment systems that understand and align your current capacity. Many retailers partner with experienced digital product and technology consultancies such as https://www.netguru.com. They can help modernise legacy systems and build the scalable, decision-driven architectures that lead to happy customers and increased sales.
