Multichannel selling

It is undebatable that ecommerce is the future of retail. While most businesses are working towards building their online presence strong, they have not given up on their brick-and-mortar stores. Yes, the most popular ecommerce brands like Walmart, Target, IKEA, or Nike run several physical stores across the globe despite making huge profits online. Have you wondered why these brands own their brick-and-mortar stores?

9 out of the top 10 ecommerce brands are operated by retailers with physical brick-and-mortar stores. Further in the United States, even today 80% of retail shopping happens in physical stores. In short, modern customers choose to shop from both your ecommerce stores and brick-and-mortar stores. This brings in the need for your business to reimagine how you can reach and serve your customers both online and offline. Providing a valuable shopping experience on both these retail channels is how your business can attract more customers and improve its sales. This is exactly how multichannel selling helps businesses. Let’s look at it in detail.

What is multichannel selling?

Multichannel selling is a strategy where businesses sell their products through multiple platforms or channels to reach a broader audience. These channels can include:

Physical spaces such as markets, pop-up stores, owned retail spaces, and multi-brand retail stores
Online spaces such as marketplaces (like Amazon or eBay), social media platforms (like TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook), comparison portals (like Google Shopping), and the company’s own website.

For instance, Apple is a globally celebrated brand not just for its technology innovation but also for its successful multichannel retailing. You can buy an Apple product online from their official website, and 3P marketplaces like Amazon, eBay etc. Otherwise, you can visit them at one of their retail stores and shop your Apple product directly from there. Even when you have decided to shop in-store you can do prior research online on the Apple website. This applies not just while shopping but also when you place returns, replacements, or require other device services.

Who should be multichannel selling?

If you're selling products, multichannel selling is a must. Whether you're a small business or a large retailer, reaching customers across multiple sales platforms gives you a competitive edge and opens up new opportunities to grow, even when going head-to-head with bigger competitors. You should be multichannel selling if you are:

Looking to expand your reach
Aiming to boost sales
Facing strong competition
Wanting to diversify risk
Seeking customer convenience

If any of these apply to you, it’s time to start multichannel selling!

Discover how N Brown, a leading digital fashion retailer, transformed its multichannel strategy with Productsup, achieving a 32% reduction in ad spend and a 54% increase in conversions for outlet products within three months. By leveraging Productsup’s Advertising PX, N Brown streamlined their product content management across multiple sales channels, improving efficiency and driving sales growth.

Read the full case study here →

How is multichannel selling different from omnichannel selling?

Multichannel selling is often mistaken for omnichannel selling, but the two are not the same. While the term omnichannel means “all channels”, multichannel refers to “many channels”. Omnichannel selling is an ecommerce strategy where you thread your customer’s shopping journey through all your selling channels by linking their experience across all these channels. Whether a customer starts browsing on your app, add items to their cart on your website, or complete their purchase in-store, their journey is seamless and consistent across all touchpoints.

However, multichannel retailing engages your customers individually with each of your selling channels. Unlike the omnichannel strategy, it does not integrate all the platforms you sell on as a single shopping experience for your customers. For example, a customer might find your product on Instagram but then have a completely different experience when visiting your website.

While in omnichannel retailing the growth of your business and the success of your marketing strategy is measured by your consolidated performance across all the channels you sell on, multichannel retailing measures your success and growth individually in each of these channels.

Looking to simplify your multichannel selling process? Productsup has partnered with Pimcore to offer a seamless solution for managing and distributing product content across all your sales channels. Click here to learn how we can help your business streamline operations and boost efficiency!

How can your business benefit from multichannel selling?

Here is how adopting this marketing strategy can enhance your business operations and growth.

/ Increased visibility and reachability

Only 7% of shoppers exclusively shop online, while 73% engage with multiple channels during their shopping journey. Therefore, the key for any business to expand its customer base is making it easy for customers to find them. Yes, your customers come across hundreds of similar brands, products, and shops when they search for businesses similar to yours and they easily get distracted. Hence, you must always stay on the top of their heads and be visible to them anywhere they look for you.

By selling on multiple channels you are available to them no matter where they are shopping. Multichannel selling makes you easily reachable to your audience, providing them the comfort of finding what they are looking for from where they are.

/ Increased traffic and revenue

Through multichannel selling, you are available to your customers across multiple platforms. This improves your brand awareness among the relevant customers and allows your customers to shop with you from wherever they find it comfortable. By spreading your business across online and offline channels you receive more customer traffic and your revenue across all these channels increases.

It is said that retailers selling on two marketplaces generate 190% more revenue compared to those selling on just one. So, in case your profits seem stagnated in a particular channel, there are still many other platforms you are available on and your revenue flow is always ensured.

/ Better insights into customer behavior

To provide a better shopping experience to your customers, you must understand their preferences, buying patterns, purchase history, and more. By going multichannel you have access to insights into different types of customers like those who shop online, shop from your physical store, do research online before shopping in-store, etc. With insights from different channels, you can gauge the performance of your products in each of these channels and make data-driven decisions to optimize your marketing strategy, pricing, or inventory accordingly.

/ Improved customer experience

Most consumers consider customer service their top priority when purchasing from a brand, and poor service can cost retailers up to $41 billion annually. While selling only a single sales channel works for customers who already trust your business, it often does not retain them nor bring in new customers.

However, when you offer your customers the comfort of shopping with you through many sales channels based on their convenience, more of them consider buying from your business. More ways to shop often attract more customers. This flexibility enhances the customer journey, leading to higher satisfaction, repeat purchases, and stronger brand loyalty.