How Omnichannel Retail Can Bridge the Gap Between Fashion Brands and Consumers

In the current retail landscape, fashion brands are increasingly adopting an omnichannel approach to enhance customer experience. This approach integrates different shopping methods available to consumers such as brick-and-mortar stores, online stores, mobile apps, and social media platforms.

For instance, brands like Zara and H&M offer features like ‘Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store’ (BOPIS), ‘Endless Aisle’ (access to out-of-stock or online-only items in-store), and ‘Ship from Store’ (shipping online orders from the nearest store). These features aim to provide a seamless shopping experience, bridging the gap between online and offline channels.

Consumer Expectations vs Reality

However, there’s a gap between consumer expectations and the omnichannel features currently offered by fashion brands. According to a survey by Retail Systems Research, 75% of consumers expect a consistent experience across multiple channels, but only 5% of retailers meet this expectation.

Consumers today expect personalized experiences tailored to their preferences, real-time inventory visibility, and seamless integration between online and offline channels. They want the convenience of online shopping combined with the tactile experience of physical stores.

For example, a shopper might see a dress on a brand’s Instagram page, want to try it on in-store, and then purchase it through the brand’s mobile app. However, many brands struggle to provide this level of seamless integration, leading to fragmented customer experiences.

What are the Current Omnichannel Features Offered by Fashion Brands?

Many fashion brands have recognized the importance of omnichannel retail and have started to implement some omnichannel features in their business models. Some of the common omnichannel features offered by fashion brands are:

• Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS): This feature allows customers to order products online and collect them at a nearby store. This can save time, shipping costs, and hassle for customers, as well as drive foot traffic and impulse purchases for stores.

• Buy online, return in store (BORIS): This feature allows customers to return products that they bought online at a physical store. This can increase customer satisfaction, trust, and loyalty, as well as provide an opportunity for cross-selling and upselling for stores.

• Ship from store: This feature allows stores to fulfill online orders from their local inventory. This can reduce shipping time and costs, increase inventory turnover, and improve customer satisfaction.

• Endless aisle: This feature allows customers to access the entire product catalog of a brand, regardless of the availability in a specific store. Customers can use in-store kiosks, tablets, or their own devices to browse and order products that are not in stock in the store. This can increase sales, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

What are the Gaps Between Omnichannel Features and Consumer Expectations?

Despite the efforts of fashion brands to offer omnichannel features, there are still some gaps between what they offer and what consumers expect. Some of the gaps are:

• Lack of personalization: Consumers expect to receive personalized recommendations, offers, and content based on their preferences, behavior, and history across different channels. However, many fashion brands fail to deliver a personalized omnichannel experience, due to siloed data, fragmented systems, and inconsistent communication.

• Lack of integration: Consumers expect to have a smooth and consistent shopping experience across different channels. However, many fashion brands have disjointed and disconnected omnichannel capabilities, due to legacy systems, complex processes, and organizational barriers.

• Lack of innovation: Consumers expect to have new and exciting shopping experiences that leverage the latest technology and trends. However, many fashion brands lag behind in adopting and implementing innovative omnichannel solutions, due to risk aversion, resource constraints, and lack of vision.

How Can New Technology Solve the Omnichannel Gaps?

To bridge the gap between omnichannel features and consumer expectations, fashion brands need to embrace new technology that can enable them to deliver a truly omnichannel retail experience. Some of the new technology that can help fashion brands achieve omnichannel excellence are:

• Artificial intelligence (AI): AI can help fashion brands to analyze customer data, generate insights, and provide personalized recommendations, offers, and content across different channels. AI can also help fashion brands to optimize inventory, pricing, and merchandising, as well as automate tasks and processes.

• Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR): AR and VR can help fashion brands to create immersive and interactive shopping experiences that enhance product discovery, visualization, and trial. AR and VR can also help fashion brands to showcase their brand story, values, and identity in a compelling way.

• Internet of things (IoT) and smart devices: IoT and smart devices can help fashion brands to connect and communicate with customers in real-time, through sensors, beacons, RFID tags, and wearable devices. IoT and smart devices can also help fashion brands to collect and utilise customer feedback, behaviour, and location data.

How Can 7Looks Platform Help?

7Looks connects major pieces of a customer journey: in-store shopping, online shopping, daily styling and wardrobe management in one place.  And it rewards users to think in looks as a more sustainable behaviour.

Imagine Jane saw a nice jacket online.  Being a conscious shopper she comes in-store to try it on.  She scans the jacket's barcode and sees 7 looks she can curate with it from this store (or from her existing wardrobe).  She goes and tries on different options.  Whenever she buys the jacket now in-store to refresh her existing look or she may decide to buy a new complete look she just tried on but later online - all these journeys are sustainable and reduce returns.  But most important is that such an approach closes the omnichannel loop for Jane as she has the same information about her own fashion world across all channels available immediately.

Omnichannel retail is the new normal for the fashion industry, and fashion brands need to adapt and evolve to meet the rising consumer expectations. By leveraging new technology, fashion brands can offer a seamless, holistic, and personalized omnichannel customer experience that can drive customer loyalty, retention, and value. Omnichannel retail is not only a necessity, but also an opportunity for fashion brands to differentiate themselves and thrive in the competitive and dynamic market.