Glossary A–ZLetter O
Omnichannel
Omnichannel describes a strategy in which a business connects its shop, online shop, app, advertising and customer service so that customers can move between these channels seamlessly.
Information, prices and offers should be consistent everywhere. Customers should not notice that separate systems sit behind the channels.
In such concepts, in-store screens become one channel among several. An offer might run at the same time in the online shop, in the printed leaflet and on the branch screens; a QR code leads from the screen to the product page, and goods ordered online are collected in store. For this, screen content has to be fed from the same data as the online shop and the tills.
Omnichannel is above all a matter of data and processes, not of the technology at an individual screen. Operators should check whether prices and availability on screen come from the same source as at the till; otherwise contradictions arise. It should be distinguished from multichannel, where there are also several channels, but they work side by side rather than together.