Meet Tony! An aspiring business owner. Unlike Tony Stark, he owned a bakery shop. Despite his immense dedication and effort, his sales became stagnant. This made him anxious and hopeless for his future business growth. But where there is a will there is a way, Tony attended a seminar where he was introduced to the concept of “multi channel selling”. Inspired by the idea, Tony revamped the old website, switched to digital marketplaces, and began affiliate marketing and email marketing. Within months, Tony's sales skyrocketed by 10x and he built an entire community of baking enthusiasts! It's not just Tony, multi channel selling is compatible with almost all business models. Even after this, you might think “Will it work for my industry/business model”? We leave it to you. At the end of this blog, you will surely find something to shoot up your business revenue. So? Get ready to 10x your sales with multi channel selling!
What Have You Missed?
Being where your consumers are is imperative for business owners! You need to grab their interest right away; you can't wait for them to learn about your company. Starting a multi channel selling strategy gives you instant access to a more diverse and larger audience. During your multi channel selling adventure, you may encounter well-known e-commerce sites such as Etsy, Walmart, Shopify, Amazon, or eBay. Selling products on different ecommerce platforms is a primary revenue driver to 10x your business sales. What’s more? Let us find out.
How can Multi Channel Selling Help?
In addition to increasing conversion rates, extending your online presence via multi channel selling can do wonders. Here are some top benefits to begin multi channel selling right away!
- More Customers More Revenue: Rightly said, the customer is the king. No matter the type of business, you need people to buy from you. That is what multi channel selling offers you! More customers and ultimately peaked up sales. You can reach out to a larger audience than you could ever imagine from a single sales channel or just via brick-and-mortar stores. Also, a multi channel marketing strategy enables you to target different customer segments that are active on multiple platforms. Diversifying your sales strategy calls for exponential business growth.
- Centralized Database: Once you adopt a robust multi channel ecommerce management system, you gain access to deep insights into your customer's buying patterns and preferences. But what is the need for that? This valuable data can help reveal the top products in various regions or among specific customer segments. This analysis can help tailor ecommerce strategies and maximize product listings on varied platforms to enhance the user experience.
- Lead in the Market: Customers nowadays wish for a smooth product journey. They expect uninterrupted access to the products. Ecommerce businesses need to adjust to this multichannel behavior if they want to stay competitive, regardless of whether customers choose to buy a product online after first seeing it in-store. Not doing so may result in losing business to rivals who successfully utilize a variety of multi-sales channels to satisfy consumers and seize sales chances.
- Less Risk: You are risking your business by relying on one sales channel. Depending entirely on a single channel can hinder your growth. If that sales channel goes down for a while, you will not be able to make any sales. The situation may be temporary but can adversely impact your bottom line.
Challenges of Multi Channel Selling You Need to Conquer
- Management of Channels: Handling one sales channel is easy and simple. The main challenge arises with multi channel selling. Suddenly, your work gets doubled in terms of efforts, order management, and having goods entering and leaving the market through several channels. However, you can overcome this challenge by investing in multi channel ecommerce management software. This software centralizes your data and lets you manage orders, listings, and inventory in one go! MapMyChannel can become your go-to choice. Embracing MayMyChannel ensures order synchronization and inventory synchronization- all in real-time!
- Experience for Customers: As mentioned above, the customer is king. This implies that you need to ensure a positive and happy experience for your customers. Monitoring orders via multiple platforms can make this a tough nut to crack. As a seller, you must guarantee that orders are fulfilled promptly and that customers receive their products on schedule.
- Inventory Coordination: Another challenge encountered with multi channel selling is inventory management. The reason behind this is that every channel works independently. Any change in one channel will not be visible in others unless manually updated. This is how coordination in inventory is impacted and ultimately affects the business.
- Rising Costs: Multi channel selling is a dream come true till we start talking about the costs. Every sales channel will need you to spend on setup costs, customization, etc to handle it. In addition to this, you will have to incur pricey expenses on advertisements and marketing ventures. Therefore, a smart approach would be to start with one or two sales channels and thereafter add more.
- Monitoring and Reporting: Streamlined reporting is vital for multi channel selling. This is indeed a cumbersome process and becomes more complicated with multiple channels. You need to allocate sufficient time every week to revise your reports. Alternatively, you can invest in multichannel management software, which will automatically handle this data and inform you of what sells well and where.
The Secret to 10x Sales with Multi Channel Selling
Here comes the much-awaited part! “10x your sales with multi channel selling”. Let us dive into some amazing strategies to help you reap the maximum potential out of multi channel selling:
Secret 1: Focus on Channels: Every channel is different. A thing that works with your brand might not with others. This is why you have to select what works best for you. You can do so by finding answers to questions like “What type of audience are you targeting via a channel”?, “which shipping and payment options can you offer”?, “who are the competitors on that specific channel”, “What type of customer service options will you offer”? etc. These questions will help you better analyze customer behavior and know exactly what they are looking for.
Secret 2: Inventory and Operations Integration: When you go multi channel selling, you must prepare for logistics and inventory management. This process begins with consistent inventory management. As per data, businesses lose almost $634 billion merely because they upset customers by having stocked-out merchandise. Additionally, they lose $472 billion if they overstock. That translates to a yearly sales income of $1.1 trillion. The reason is inadequate inventory management. By centralizing your operations across all channels, synchronizing the inventory can help mitigate these problems.
Secret 3: Understand Your Customer: To do wonders in your multi channel selling strategy, you need to understand your customers. This means you must know who your target customers are on each channel. For this, you might need analytics tools to understand customers buying behaviors and demographics on each channel. Utilize them to pinpoint and describe your intended audience for every channel, then adjust your approach to best draw them in and foster interaction.
Secret 4: Enhance Online Marketplaces for Sales: Multi channel selling does not guarantee immediate results, it takes time. You must test, adjust, and optimize to achieve the desired results. This entails getting feedback from clients via surveys, follow-up emails, and satisfaction ratings. To ensure the effectiveness of your efforts, combine these results with unprocessed data. With the help of this data, you can pinpoint your target market and obtain accurate input on whether or not your items appear more desirable than those of your rivals.
Secret 5: Data Centralization: Centralized data management forms the backbone of logistics and inventory management. Switching between channels is cumbersome and time-consuming. You need different tools that enable data centralization to formulate better decisions.
Stand Out!
Multi Channel selling is a trend because this is how customers are shopping. You must discover answers to questions such as “What channel will do best for you”? “how will you manage inventory”, and “What your customers are looking for”? Etc. Ultimately, the most important thing is to outperform your competitors, offer exceptional services. Utilize multi channel ecommerce software, MapMyChannel. It provides a center for order fulfillment, inventory management, and list management across all channels. The mantra is not to exaggerate your goods or services but rather just say what is true and value your customers. Sooner you will stand out from the crows and hail towards massive success.
