2020 and 2021 have been the most unusual for retailers. Some businesses saw opportunities to grow and others had more obstacles to overcome. With 2021 coming to an end, every retailer must reflect on their year to understand their strength and weakness and realize market opportunities and threats. We will look at 4 different angles for your omnichannel business to reflect on and help improve in the coming year through this post.

Technology and data analysis

First and foremost, to understand your year, you need to understand your business tools and data.

Technology and tools

An excellent way to start is to understand your business’s tools and how they solve different bottlenecks. Some questions you could ask your team leaders could be:

• What are the current tools we use, and what bottlenecks do they solve?

• How are the existing tools performing, and what is the return on investment?

• Is this technology up-to-date?

• Are there better fits for our business model?

• What current bottlenecks do we still have?

• What tools do we need to avoid these bottlenecks in the future?

• What is the cost-benefit analysis of these tools? (will it make more money than it will cost us?)

After looking at the tools, you should look at the data you have gathered through the year. This could be anything from Google Analytics to your data set tools.

Omnichannel retail data

Your website and tools gather unstructured data through your different touchpoints and turn them into clear insights on your omnichannel retail business and customers. Data is essential in today’s retail environment as customers have built specific expectations such as speed, sustainability, personalization, integrated touchpoints, and others. The only way to know if your business is doing well on all sides is through data. Questions to think about before analyzing your data could be:

• What KPIs are needed for us to meet our goals?

• How will we measure these KPIs?

• Do we already have pre-set goals or expectations?

• What do these KPIs indicate?

• What factors affect our KPIs? Are they internal or external?

• How can we measure and manage these factors?

• How will we use this data to optimize our omnichannel retail strategy?

• What are next year’s KPIs and goals? How will we measure them?

Your business data could be a great foundation for building your omnichannel business strategy. Try understanding your data, what causes it, and how you can use it to improve your business and customers.

Data analysis is an essential step in understanding your business’s annual performance. You will need this data for the following four points.

Omnichannel marketing & sales strategy

Sales are the main source of revenue for retail businesses, and reviewing your sales and marketing efforts first could give you a clear picture of your performance in 2021. Before looking at your marketing strategy, a few things you need to have in front of you to understand your year fully:

• Previous years and the 2021 marketing and sales reports

• 2021’s marketing and sales strategy

• 2021’s marketing and sales goals

• Steps and costs of solving 2021 problems and the results

Once you have all the information you need, get a business analyst on board to help you compare and understand the 2021’s sales performance.

This step is essential because it helps you understand your business performance and customers the best. It tells you what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t. So, start your annual review by looking at your omnichannel retail business commercial performance.

Once you understand your sales and marketing performance, looking at your customer experience could help you understand your business’s marketing & sales performance.

Read how Packaly helped Lush boost its local sales with sustainable and fast last-mile delivery.

Omnichannel Customer experience

Since this decade started, the omnichannel retail industry has been rapidly changing and growing at the same time. The growth and change are caused by several factors, such as the rise of mobile commerce and the covid-19 pandemic. The rising demand for omnichannel retail and market disruptions have considerably impacted customer experience, creating new retail challenges.

In 2021, there are several clear trends and expectations from their retailers, such as journey personalization, convenience, and fast and sustainable delivery. These trends seem to be continuing for the 3rd year in a row. 2022 will have higher customer expectations, and your business needs to meet them to survive in the competitive industry. So, look at how you implemented most customer trends, what makes your customers happy (or mad), and optimize your plan for the upcoming year.

Read the biggest eCommerce customer trends in 2021.

Innovation and adaptability

The ever-changing trends, technology, customer expectations, and growing competition make it vital for you to understand how these changes were applied to your omnichannel retail business and their effect.

One of the positive aspects of omnichannel retail is the adaptability in a scalable way to technology because of the integrated business model. Therefore, if you are unable to apply and adapt to technology on a full omnichannel scale, the change might be causing more harm than good. Understanding and analyzing your business’s ability to innovate or adapt to innovation could be done in different ways and varies from one company to another. 

At Packaly, our mission is to change the way we think about logistics, one parcel at a time. Our business model is built around giving you innovative technology, such as our Delivery Dashboard, integrations, and API. 

We give your customers the ultimate last-mile experience by offering fully CO2-neutral, express, same-day, and next-day delivery to meet all the market trends and boost your sales. Sign up with Packaly and boost your omnichannel retail strategy with sustainable last-mile delivery.