Doing It Right is What Matters! Four Key Indicators to Identify True OMO and Accelerate Brands to Develop Competitive Advantages

Featured in Business Weekly (Read original post)

“I have an EC website and brick-and-mortar stores. Isn’t that OMO?” K, the beauty brand manager, asked puzzledly during a retail brand information exchange meeting, prompting agreement from C, the owner of a trendy fashion brand nearby.

S, the founder of a lifestyle brand, also joined the OMO discussion, advising everyone to think carefully before acting. He had invested significant money in developing OMO a few months ago but saw no apparent results despite the expenditure. “OMO sounds like the right direction. How come I feel no difference? Did I miss something?” he said, shaking his head in frustration.

91APP, which has assisted many domestic and international brands in implementing OMO strategies, indicates four critical indicators for true OMO. If the direction is wrong, brands may waste time and resources by taking unnecessary detours. By getting it right from the start, brands can establish long-term competitiveness.

Many brands hesitate to conduct OMO transformation, fearing having to give up existing resources. For instance, brands that rely heavily on physical channels and want to venture into e-Commerce may be advised by vendors to “replace their current point-of-sale (POS) system” to better integrate with the vendor’s EC website. This e-Commerce-centered approach to OMO strategy may lead to hastily replacing professional POS systems with less suitable ones for the sake of EC system integration. This wastes prior investments and fails to consider the future growth of brick-and-mortar stores.

The key to brand OMO operation is to build systems with a “retail perspective” rather than prioritizing specific channels. Integrating omni-channel transaction orders, member data, and systems such as payment, marketing, and customer service with a retail mindset can enhance growth momentum based on brands’ needs and create a complete and smooth omni-channel customer experience.

91APP believes that how solution providers work with brands to assess needs, plan integration projects, and build OMO on existing business foundations is critical to achieving synergistic effects with a retail perspective at the core.

Even when retail brands operate online and offline channels in an OMO way, overall operational strategies may still be bound by existing mindsets, focusing on “bringing traffic and sales performance to specific channels.” For instance, offering benefits only for specific channels or not allowing cross-channel accumulation of reward points frustrates consumers’ cross-channel experiences and may cause organizational conflicts.

True OMO does not presuppose positions. 91APP believes that OMO operational ineffectiveness often results from overlooking the support that e-Commerce can provide for brick-and-mortar stores, which causes brands to only focus on directing in-store customers to e-Commerce. According to 91APP’s observations, cross-channel shopping OMO consumers contribute 2 to 3 times more to brands than single-channel consumers.

The key is that true OMO can promote cross-channel consumption among members. When members flow more actively between a brand’s e-Commerce and brick-and-mortar stores, the brand’s data insights become more comprehensive, helping to enhance marketing and operational efficiency, thus amplifying the synergistic effects of OMO operations.

Brands add new products and services as they scale, such as in-store pickup for online orders, chatbots, and e-ticket sales. When brands lack the workforce or budget to develop new features, and system vendors independently need a long evaluation and wait time to create suitable functions, they can easily miss optimal development opportunities. Choosing systems with flexible expansion capabilities allows brands to quickly introduce functions and reduce development costs through API connections to suitable third-party features or platforms, thereby enhancing growth momentum.

Moreover, suppose brands must sell simultaneously on official websites, APPs, e-Commerce marketplaces, and brick-and-mortar stores. In that case, they can use an order and inventory management system to synchronize product listings across multiple digital channels and manage inventory and orders across online and offline channels in a streamlined manner. This allows for the most efficient allocation of time, funds, and human resources.

Facing mature OMO consumer behavior, brands that can quickly respond to customer needs and efficiently use systems to help teams move forward rapidly will be able to distance themselves from competitors.

Most brands focus their marketing efforts on encouraging repeat purchases after investing in OMO. Consumer responses gradually weaken after a few attempts, making growth stagnation apparent. This may let brands feel that “OMO doesn’t seem very effective,” ultimately returning to price competition in the red ocean market.

To make the most of OMO synergistic effects, brands should use first-party data for precise communication with members to increase repeat purchases and cross-reference it with third-party data to identify potential consumers to drive new traffic. When potential consumers complete their first purchase, it again enriches first-party data, continuously creating a virtuous cycle of consumers and data for the brand. Through data insights, brands can amplify effective traffic. It also serves as the starting point for observing marketing or product differentiation to establish subsequent action strategies.

The four OMO indicators are interconnected and indispensable. Mature brands can implement integration, flow, efficiency, and insight based on their accumulated assets to create their own OMO strategy, leading the way for brand growth.