Have you ever considered selling on platforms outside of your web site? Have you noticed advertisements and marketing material from your competitors on social media? What you’re witnessing is the rise and new standard of marketing: multi-channel retailing. This marketing strategy enables e-commerce businesses to target customers and sell products outside of their web site, on channels like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, in addition to their brick-and-mortar store. Multi-channel retailing used to be a rising trend, but now it is the new standard for brands to be truly successful. If you want to know more about multi-channel retailing and are wondering how you can get started, keep on reading.

What Is Multi-Channel Retailing?

When a business has an e-commerce selling strategy that targets customers through channels outside its web site, (ex. social media, in-store, direct mail, etc.) this is known as multi-channel retailing. This solution has evolved to include multi-channel selling, where customers can view and purchase products on marketplaces, social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, and other mediums.

Why Sellers Should Adopt a Multi-Channel Retailing Strategy

Easily Target Your Audience

Success is not based on just one channel—the most successful brands have a presence both online and offline, and they work consistently to optimize both. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, you need to develop an online presence. If your store operates online, find a way to connect with your audience in-person. Aside from being available to your audience, you should also find ways to connect with them on an emotional level. Consider how your products improve their state of living. How does your product boost their confidence, make their life easier, or solve a problem? Communicate these solutions to your customers, and you will establish a stronger bond with them.

Compete Better in the Market

You should always be considering and strategizing how you can compete in the market. You can do this by ensuring your content is optimized, providing polite and efficient customer service, and making sure your keywords and social media optimization is on point. Another great tip that has worked for many brands, is selling your products via Amazon. By using their user-friendly, well-loved platform, you can optimize your business and sell more.

Gain More Control Over Your Brand

Losing control of your success with your retail business is always a risk, whether you have an offline store or an online store. Brick-and-mortar stores need to rely on repeat visits from customers, and can reach out to their local community, but this can be very limiting to increase revenue. Web stores can get overshadowed by competitors or slammed by sudden Google algorithm updates. To gain greater control over your brand, use a multichannel strategy. That way, your web site will pick up the slack when your offline store is struggling to gain new customers, and your terrific in-person presence can be a great introduction point to drive customers to your online store or web site.

How to Create a Multi-Channel Retailing Solution

Choose the Right Retailers

Your products, customers, and channels you use to target your audience will determine which channels you should sell on. Some options include big box retailers and online marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, or Target; or more curated and narrow-targeted retailers like Toys R Us.

Develop a Streamlined Strategy

Getting an omnichannel solution to your marketing strategy is more of the norm now, rather than a new trend. Some of your competitors may have already established themselves online and in-store, which means there’s no time like the present to catch up. This expansion of your presence sounds like a lot of work, but it provides a plethora of new opportunities for growth. The solution can be customized to your brand—so don’t assume there is a one-size-fits-all approach. You can add sales channels, platforms, and inventory in ways that suit your goals. By founding your multi-channel management on a solid foundation, you will achieve success like never before. Make sure the solution you choose takes care of your inventory needs, and adopt a management solution that collaborates between fulfillment, accounting, social media, shipping, and customer service. These management solutions will keep track of all aspects of your supply chain, so you won’t miss a beat.

Choose the Right Third-Party Solutions

Handling all these operational and marketing needs can be overwhelming without the right manpower, so using a third-party logistics (3PL) provider can do a lot for your business. Multi-channel marketing works best when your supply chain is in sync, but it takes a lot of work to get your products on the right channels, without getting stalled by connectivity or system issues between your marketing and your fulfillment. If you want to grow globally, or are expecting a high growth volume this year, you may not be able to juggle all the moving parts on your own. Therefore, choosing the right 3PL partner is the key to streamlining your marketing solutions with your background operations.

How Lean Supply Solutions Can Help

As mentioned, a 3PL provider can help you manage your operations so you can focus on making your business and brand more accessible to your online and in-store shoppers. These providers can help you manage your inventory management, shipping, receiving, returns, deliveries, and more, so you save time and money and speed up your success and revenue. If you’re looking for the right company to partner with, Lean Supply Solutions is the answer. We rise to the challenge of meeting our clients’ needs through our services which include product fulfillment, warehousing and distribution, e-commerce fulfillment, warehouse pick and pack, and order fulfillment. Lean Supply Solutions can offer consistent, accurate, and quality results. To learn more about outsourcing to our 3PL distribution team or to ask any questions, contact us today.

No matter how the economy is doing, people will always find a way to shop for the things they want. They will go to the store or shop online to find the products they want and expect to have their deliveries arrive on the predicted date. If you have a brand within the fashion industry, this is both a challenge and an opportunity for you. If your organization doesn’t have optimized supply chain management, you won’t be able to meet your customers’ needs, especially during season changes and peak times of the year. To help you get optimized for success, here are the latest trends that are transforming the fashion supply chain process, and how you can get the services you need.

Automated Supply Chain

Data-driven software solutions and web-enabled technologies provide insight that allows business leaders to make better decisions about their daily operations. By automating your supply chain operations, you will be able to track and report, making your entire process more efficient. Today’s top apparel innovators have dropped manual spreadsheets and turned to automation and data integration to keep up with customer demand. Brands are expected to respond to changes in orders within 24 hours, as customers now presume that every retail operation has the systems in place to deal with last minute modifications and still provide quality and timely service.

Artificial Intelligence

Fashion companies today need solutions that align customer demand with product distribution. Apparel companies need to reduce profit-eroding markdowns while providing data on emerging trends in the industry that will propel them to success. Artificial intelligence (AI) has allowed many apparel companies to improve efficiency in warehouse operations and product design. AI uses deep learning to analyze extensive amounts of data derived from social media and the Internet and provides critical insights. It also analyzes sales to provide information such as which products are more popular and which products stay on the shelf.

Agile Supply Chain Methodology

Building flexibility and using interactivity can help you better respond to changes and disruptions. Having an agile supply chain methodology can help you achieve this goal. It can mean the difference between satisfying or disappointing your customer. In factory production, an agile supply chain ensures that your company will provide solutions quickly to avoid catastrophic delays in production. Some options that may work for you include adding new local distribution centers or growing physical resources to achieve greater agility to meet customer demand.

Wearables and Augmented Reality

Wearables and augmented reality (AR) have been used by consumers for a while now, but there are many benefits organizations have had from using it within the supply chain. AR can be used for order picking, equipment repair, and to enhance safety and quality. Smart glasses, for example, can be used to show the quickest route through a warehouse to get to a certain product, for increased speed and efficiency. It can also prevent employees from being tied to a computer, as information and instructions can be transmitted to them via wearables and AR technology. There are many applications of AR, and now is the time to take it upon yourself to learn how this technology can make your operations more efficient.

Digital Supply Chain

Having a digital supply chain means every process, communication, and connection is working the best it can. Digitizing the supply chain helps you make useful predictions, connect and relate sources of data, generate plans through visibility, improve collaboration, and more!

Collaboration and Communication in the Cloud

Cloud-based technology solutions allow employees to record and share valuable information amongst themselves. As a result, cloud systems improve collaboration with suppliers, condense administrative functions, reduce the cost of goods, and increase profitability. At a fraction of the cost, cloud systems provide smaller organizations with capabilities of larger enterprises to improve workflow and add value to operations.

Transparency

Transparency across all aspects of the supply chain will work wonders in optimizing your operations. Not only does it work well for you, but real-time information also benefits customers. Today’s customers want to know where their order is, every step of the way, so making tracking visible is just one way you can meet demand and boost revenue. You should also make sure your inventory levels are accurately displayed online, so customers don’t end up waiting for back orders. In terms of deliveries, you would benefit from having better tracking on your trucks, such as onboard, real time, GPS-enabled tracking devices.

Right Procurement Tools

More than ever before, the choices companies make today around their procurement systems show just how efficient, quick, and profitable it is. The right procurement tools, or electronic data interchange solutions, can help managers enhance collaboration, streamline operations, efficiently manage cash flow with real-time view, and maintain profits by viewing historical trends and current data.

Outsource Your Order Fulfillment Process to a 3PL Provider Like Lean Supply Solutions

Implementing all these tools on your own can be costly and time-consuming. With spring in full swing, you may be too busy focusing on your sales and marketing efforts to start adjusting your background operations. This is where a 3PL provider can help. These companies will manage your operations, so you can focus on making your business and brand more accessible to your online shoppers. They can manage all the roles above, so you save time and money and speed up your success and revenue.

If you’re looking for the right company to partner with, Lean Supply Solutions is the answer. We rise to the challenge of meeting our clients’ needs through our services which include product fulfillment, warehousing and distribution, e-commerce fulfillment, warehouse pick and pack, and order fulfillment. Lean Supply Solutions can offer consistent, accurate, and quality results. To learn more about outsourcing to our 3PL distribution team, or to ask any questions, contact us today.