Top 4 Omnichannel Challenges

Throughout the weeks we've talked about what omnichannel is and some technologies and strategies that we see companies implementing to take advantage of this new way of doing business. This week we want to focus on some of the largest challenges in creating an omnichannel logistics system. Four of the biggest problems are: inventory visibility, channel specific processes, speed of delivery, and ease of return.

The first, inventory visibility is something we've touched upon over the weeks. In order to connect all the aspects of your business (brick-and-mortar, ecommerce, etc.), the information must be available and consistent across all channels. Otherwise, an omnichannel logistics system will run into problems such as having too much inventory reserved for ecommerce and not enough in the store. One technology that we talked about that can help is RFID, but again there are high investment and setup costs, but those may be outweighed by the benefit of accurate and real-time inventory visibility.

The second are channel specific processes. This means ensuring the customer experience maximizes the channel's capabilities (e.g. physical stores being able to house products and show them off vs. websites displaying products but keeping the brand image), but is still consistent over all channels. This is a challenge in marketing as well as supply chain because while marketing must keep the brand image and customer experience uniform; supply chain must make innovations in the processes used and management of the channels to facilitate an omnichannel presence.

The third and fourth, respectively, are speed of delivery and ease of return. These two go hand-in-hand because the channels through which you're providing fast delivery should have a matching ease of return. The largest action that needs to be taken here is knowing what your customers' expectations are and consistently meeting those. That means, perhaps for an online order they're willing to wait a few days, but for a store pick-up they want it same day. This means that you'll have to create processes that allow for orders only when you know you can fulfill them meeting the customer's expectations, but also processes to actually quickly fulfill the order. Ease of return fits in because just as there are many ways to receive a product; there are many ways to return a product. So again, expectations and the processes a company has in place are the most important. Will your company allow in-store returns of online ordered products? That's a question for your supply chain and how that affects transportation and inventory costs to transfer that from a store back to the warehouse.

These are four of the largest omnichannel challenges in the supply chain, but there are solutions, they're just not simple. We've only taken a small look into the world of omnichannel, but hopefully this post will get our brains thinking in the future's omnichannel mindset.

https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/top-omni-channel-logistics-supply-chain-challenges-ecommerce-founders-must-face