For food and beverage brands, sustained success in the online-first market means standing out from the crowd with an omnichannel approach that creates interconnected customer touch points to deliver a cohesive consumer experience.
But what does this look like in practice — and how do brands get omnichannel commerce operations off the ground? Let’s dive in.
Why Opt for Omnichannel Commerce?
Consumers want a seamless shopping experience. From purchase to pickup or delivery, customer support to order tracking, buyers aren’t interested in jumping through hoops to get the information they need.
According to Salsify’s “2024 Consumer Research,” 49% of customers prefer a blend of physical and digital channels when interacting with brands.
For food and beverage brands, the pivot to omnichannel commerce priority creates both challenge and opportunity: If they can deliver a seamless experience, they can earn customer loyalty in a nascent online market. If they can’t, they risk losing long-term relationships to other, more agile competitors.
Consider a business-to-consumer (B2C) looking to track purchases made online that haven’t arrived. If they need to wade through multiple channels — such as phone, email, and social media — and restate their issue each time, their patience is quickly exhausted.
If consumer data is carried over from channel to channel, meanwhile, brands can create a unified experience that meets consumers wherever, whenever, and however they prefer to shop.
How To Get Started With Omnichannel Options
Opting into omnichannel offers multiple benefits including improved customer loyalty, enhanced personalization, and better customer data — which in turn boosts brand visibility as consumers call out superior service and response.
But how do food and beverage brands make the move? Here, four steps are critical.
Step 1: Know Your Market
As noted above, the digital food and beverage market differs depending on your geographic location. Understanding geographic variations helps zero in on digital market priorities.
Step 2: Find Your Best Fit
Customers may also have different channel preferences depending on their market. For example, Salsify consumer research shows that:
- 60% of shoppers primarily buy new products in retail stores;
- 65% turn to online marketplaces like eBay;
- 27% rely on shopping search engines like Google; and
- 18% buy new products from social media shops like TikTok shop.
Step 3: Define Key Metrics
Even the best omnichannel implementation won’t drive success without the right metrics. For food and beverage brands, this means defining what matters most — this might be new customer conversions, total order volumes, or global brand reach — then collecting and analyzing relevant data to determine if online efforts are working as intended.
Step 4: Deploy the Right Tools
Effective omnichannel implementation starts with centralization. Equipped with product experience management solutions capable of creating a single source of truth for all ecommerce efforts, brands can deliver consistent, connected channel experiences that capture consumer interest.
To succeed in a post-pandemic world, food and beverage brands must navigate the omnichannel shift by aligning business best practices with evolving user expectations to deliver seamless, end-to-end customer experiences — anywhere, anytime.
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