A man hands a large shopping bag to a woman at a store counter. A pop-up shows "Jane Johnson, Ready for pickup" with a list of items and prices.

“Omnichannel” is sooooo overused these days. What that term has always meant to me was realizing the promise of your respective brand, end to end, across every touchpoint in your entire CX ecosystem.

More anecdotally, omnichannel is catching your customer in one channel and taking them on a magic carpet ride as they traverse the multitude of channels and mediums your brand serves from marketing through selling and post-order services. Drilling down further, omnichannel is not just tying together the physical and digital channels; it’s deeper than that. It’s blending them seamlessly.

Connecting channels across the journey

For many retailers, the challenge is in bringing the power of the physical world to the digital world, vice versa, and everything in between.

Two of my favorite examples, amongst many, are:

Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS), which is exactly what is says, and
Clienteling, which is selling like a store does but in a digital property, 1:1, or 1:many.

Let me explain why I love them so much (I do!). But first, here’s why you need the power of a multi-channel, enterprise grade OMS to make them possible. OMS provides:

Real-time inventory insights across the entire network of stores and fulfillment centers.
A sophisticated but automated order routing capability.
A robust operator console to make no-code changes on the fly.

Why I love BOPIS

BOPIS is an omnichannel retailer’s friend and a true blending of the physical and digital worlds: The purchase is made online, but the “fulfillment” is executed in the store.

Here are a few BOPIS benefits:

There are no shipping fees. Customers pick up the items from the store.
Once you get a customer in a store, and knowing exactly what they purchased (this time and previously), the opportunity for upselling and increasing UPT/AOV are back in the hands of those that do it best: store associates.
During the holiday season, there are no “cutoffs,” save for when the store closes. That’s why you’ll often see a digital push to customers within striking distance of a store in the last few days before holiday carrier cut-offs.

One downside of BOPIS is that labor can be a challenge because store labor is busy with in-store associates and customers. Not every store has personnel dedicated to picking and packing and bagging. However, this is really the only downside I have experienced.

How fabric OMS improves BOPIS

Accurate inventory across the entire network is critical. When a customer shops, offering them a BOPIS option in the selling process (PDP, PLP, etc) relies on near real-time inventory accuracy down to the store level

fabric OMS delivers those real-time inventory insights, and with more accuracy than other solutions.

Granted, there are times where labor shortages could make BOPIS a challenge. But, the ability to turn stores on and off offers critical control. Combined with an app that makes picking and packing a breeze for associates more accustomed to servicing customers, and our OMS is a winner!

Why I love clienteling

Clienteling is one of my favorite channels. In my previous role as Chief Digital Officer at a major retailer, when our stores had to shut down, it literally helped save us from inventory (and sales) disaster.

In its simplest form, we used store associates to communicate with and sell to the customers assigned to their stores. It can and does certainly go broader than this. But bringing the charm of store associates and the personalization to a retail channel makes all the difference to customers. It’s a personalized concierge service that works in a 1:1 or even 1:many, without the overhead of stores to boot.

Clienteling brings the best traits of the store to a digital ecosystem. It’s not just personalized, it’s personal! Your associates have the opportunity to know what customers purchased, new items that fit their fashion, and can even recognize life events. It all rolls into a superior clienteling experience.

However, when these orders are taken, the need to understand where your inventory is at all times still remains critical.

How fabric OMS improves clienteling

One of the other benefits of fabric OMS is sophisticated order routing. Optimizing the location for fulfillment, whether it’s your fulfillment center, a store for pick-up, a 3PL, or a dropship partner, fabric OMS offers the ability for operators to make changes within the control console. Then, optimized algorithms take over to best route orders.

You can change supply dials due to weather, store labor, store proximity to customers, the store’s inventory position at the SKU level, and lowest cost to fulfill. It’s all controlled within fabric OMS and your specified tolerances! Making changes almost instantaneously creates a high level of user-controlled flexibility, especially valued during peak selling seasons.