Why omnichannel commerce keeps getting more complex

For customers, omnichannel has become the norm. They expect online stock information to be accurate, to be able to pick up or return an order in-store, and to have a consistent experience across every channel. For retailers and brands, making all of that happen behind the scenes is far less straightforward.

Omnichannel has also become more complex in recent years. Alongside stores and webshops, marketplaces, apps, loyalty, personalization, and new payment and fulfilment options have become increasingly important. At the same time, customer expectations have risen. Customers not only expect more options, but also expect all of them to work seamlessly together.

Not every organization needs all of these channels and capabilities. Even with a single webshop and a number of physical stores, omnichannel can already be challenging. Customers want to see online whether a product is available in-store, pick up an order there, or return an online purchase to a store. To make that possible, product information, inventory, orders, and processes all need to work together.

Organizations are also at different stages. Some have added more and more channels, systems, and processes over the years. Others still rely on systems and ways of working from a time when stores and webshops operated much more independently. In both cases, the same challenge can arise: the way commerce is organized no longer matches what customers and the market expect today.

So the challenge is not only that omnichannel has become more complex. Customer expectations have increased at the same time. Organizations need to be able to add new capabilities without making the operation behind the scenes increasingly difficult to manage.

Inventory is more than what is in the warehouse

Inventory may seem simple: a product is either available or it is not. In an omnichannel organization, it is more complicated. Inventory can be located in a central warehouse, across multiple stores, at a supplier, or with a fulfilment partner. And not all available inventory necessarily needs to be available through every sales channel.

You therefore need to be able to determine which inventory you want to sell where. This has a direct impact on both the customer and your revenue. If a webshop shows that a product is available in a store, the customer expects it to actually be there. At the same time, you do not want to show a product as sold out online when there is still sufficient stock available across your stores.

Organizing inventory effectively is therefore an important part of omnichannel commerce.

An order does not always have one logical route

Orders no longer have to be shipped automatically from one central warehouse either. Depending on the organization, stores, suppliers, or other inventory locations can also fulfil an order. Think of click & collect, ship from store, dropshipping, or fulfilment from multiple inventory locations.

Not every organization needs all of these options. But as soon as multiple fulfilment routes exist, you need to determine the best location from which to fulfil an order. Factors such as availability, delivery time, and the composition of the order all play a role.

More and more possibilities are being added

Omnichannel is now about much more than connecting a webshop and physical stores. Marketplaces, loyalty, personalization, apps, new payment methods, and logistics services give retailers and brands more opportunities to reach and serve their customers.

These developments are positive. A loyalty solution can help strengthen customer relationships, marketplaces can extend your reach, and new fulfilment options can improve service.

But all of these elements still need to work with the rest of the commerce operation. A loyalty program, for example, needs to work both online and in-store, while a marketplace order needs to take into account the same inventory as other sales channels.

New possibilities therefore also introduce new processes and dependencies. And that is exactly what makes omnichannel more complex today than it was a few years ago.

Many organizations have built omnichannel step by step

Most commerce environments were not designed all at once. There may initially have been an ERP and POS system. A webshop was added later, followed by a PIM, marketplaces, loyalty, personalization, or additional logistics solutions.

There is nothing wrong with that. With best-of-breed technology, integrations, and custom development, it is perfectly possible to build a strong omnichannel operation. It becomes more challenging when important processes are spread across an increasing number of systems and more technology is needed to keep everything working together.

Inventory may be managed in one system, product information in another, while orders are processed somewhere else. As a result, a new capability may also require additional development, custom work, or integrations. This not only increases costs, but also makes the overall environment more difficult to manage and adapt.

For organizations operating across multiple countries, brands, or business units, this becomes even more relevant. Differences in assortments, pricing, content, inventory, and fulfilment add another layer of complexity and require clear decisions about what should be managed centrally and what should remain local.

Customers do not see that complexity

Customers do not know which systems are running behind a webshop or store. Inventory is either accurate or it is not. An order can either be picked up or it cannot. A return can either be processed in-store or it cannot.

Problems behind the scenes therefore quickly become customer problems. If store inventory is not updated in real time, for example, a customer may see a product as available online, only to arrive at the store and find that it is not actually there.

And that is exactly where the additional challenge lies. While omnichannel has become more complex behind the scenes, customers increasingly expect simplicity at the front end.

From enabling omnichannel to organizing omnichannel

The question is therefore not only:

"How do we connect all our channels?"

But more importantly:

"How do we organize our commerce so that channels, inventory, orders, and data work together effectively?"

This requires a central foundation for the most important commerce processes, with systems such as ERP, POS, WMS, and other specialized solutions connected to it.

The goal is not to eliminate all complexity. Omnichannel is complex and continues to evolve. The goal is to add new capabilities without making the organization behind the scenes increasingly complex.

Built to keep omnichannel manageable

NextChapter was built from the ground up for omnichannel commerce. The multiˣ suite brings the key processes around product information, inventory, orders, and sales channels together centrally. This allows stores, webshops, and other channels to work from the same foundation, while specialized systems and solutions can connect to it.

This enables retailers and brands to add new capabilities and respond to changing customer expectations without constantly introducing new standalone processes, custom development, and integrations.

The complexity of omnichannel will not disappear. NextChapter makes sure it remains manageable.