Omnichannel Retail: 5 Expert UX/UI Strategies for eCommerce

Recently, discussions about omnichannel retail have surged, focusing on hyper-personalization, AI evolution, eCommerce growth, and digitally native brands entering the offline space.

We’re experiencing a retail market with increasingly digital-savvy consumers who demand individualized experiences, convenience, and a unified shopping journey - from browsing to buying or delivery to returns.

On top of these imperatives, the abundance of channels available to consumers (digital & physical) raises the stakes for a flawless omnichannel approach, where even the smallest hiccup in the retail experience can prompt customers to switch to competitors.

As a result, top decision-makers prioritize omnichannel retail strategies to provide customers with better experiences across all touchpoints.

Our previous article explored improving the online shopping experience with top UX/UI design practices. Now, it’s time to focus on the omnichannel retail experience and its overall impact on customer experience.

Omnichannel Retail: What Is a 360-Degree Customer Experience

Omnichannel retail combines online and offline sales channels to offer customers a unified shopping experience. It ensures consistency and convenience across touchpoints like websites, mobile apps, physical stores, and customer service points.

A retail omnichannel strategy drives sales, boosts customer loyalty, and helps retail businesses differentiate themselves from the competition while better meeting evolving consumer expectations and market demands.

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What is the omnichannel trend in retail?

The omnichannel trend in retail revolves around brands adjusting to changes in consumer behavior and embracing digital technologies. Nowadays, customers interact with brands through different channels before making purchases. They expect a simple and personalized shopping experience across all online and physical outlets, from browsing to ordering and receiving their purchase. If their brand of choice can’t deliver this experience, it could prompt customers to explore other options.

Why Should You Care About an Omnichannel Retail Strategy

The rise of omnichannel retail has changed how consumers shop, offering them more options and flexibility. Now, customers expect seamless and personalized experiences. They can browse, compare, read reviews, and purchase online, in-store, or via delivery.

Brands that adapt to omnichannel and prioritize customer satisfaction are more likely to retain customers and drive repeat business, thus fostering customer loyalty.

According to a Capital One Shopping study, 73% of retail customers are omnichannel users. Additionally, retailers offering omnichannel experiences retain 91% more consumers than those using only one channel.

The Future of Omnichannel Retail—the Next Big Thing?

An omnichannel approach is how modern retailers build strong and lasting relationships with their target audience and boost their competitiveness. But what is that, exactly? That’s precisely what we’re exploring below.

Understanding the Omnichannel Approach

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The omnichannel approach in retail refers to integrating different channels to provide customers with a holistic shopping experience. Although it sounds simple, this approach goes beyond just having a presence on multiple channels.

To build a top-notch omnichannel retail strategy, you must ensure that all channels blend in a way that provides positive CX at all touchpoints, all the time. How exactly?

Starting with a customer-centric business model, you should first understand the customer journey and identify the different touchpoints where they interact with your brand.

The customer journey in eCommerce is complex and often non-linear, meaning customers don’t necessarily navigate through your sales funnel from top to bottom. Customers may research online, visit stores for hands-on experiences, and then make online or in-store purchases.

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Hence, our next step is diving deep into understanding the customer journey and identifying touchpoints where interactions occur. The entire experience must provide a positive brand experience, regardless of touchpoint, channel, or stage of interaction.

The Importance of UX/UI in an Omnichannel Retail Business

UX/UI focuses on creating a visually appealing and user-friendly interface that guides customers through the purchase journey. That matters more than you think, as nearly 94% of the initial perceptions formed about a website come directly from its design. Moreover, an outstanding 80% of consumers are ready to spend extra for an improved user experience.

With great UX/UI, you’re doing just that – simplifying the online shopping experience for website visitors, which directly influences customer experience, engagement, and, ultimately, conversion rates.

In an eCommerce landscape where conversion rates are consistently dropping, even though revenue per visit is a growing metric, the picture is clear—financially potent users are willing to spend money online. Still, retail platforms aren’t turning them into paying customers.

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The greatest problem of all? Retail global eCommerce sales are projected to experience a 39% growth in the coming years. Retailers can no longer postpone this aspect of their business, and investing in UX/UI as part of their omnichannel strategies is a present imperative.

5 UX/UI Strategies to Take Your Omnichannel Retail eCommerce to New Heights

One of the many reasons UX/UI is considered a missing piece in many omnichannel strategies is customer dissatisfaction with poor interfaces, which often show up as cumbersome navigation, slow loading times, and frustrating checkout processes.

So, let’s delve into five expert-vetted strategies to overcome omnichannel barriers in retail.

1. Start with consistent branding

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This goes beyond visual identity. Unified branding encompasses tone, style, and communication, ensuring a holistic experience across all platforms — from your eCommerce website and mobile app to physical stores and in-store customer service desks. Implementing a consistent branding strategy involves:

• Visual Consistency–use the same color schemes, logos, and typography across all channels.
• Tone and Messaging–maintain a consistent voice in customer communications, advertisements, and content.
• Style Alignment–ensure all marketing materials and customer interactions reflect the brand's style.

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Consistent branding ensures that whether a customer shops online, on mobile, or in a physical store, they perceive the same brand ethos.

From a UX/UI perspective, this aspect is crucial as it directly affects how users interact with and perceive your platform. Here are some key aspects to consider:

• Ensure that all interface elements, such as buttons, menus, and dialog boxes, are consistent in appearance and behavior across platforms.
• Adopt a responsive design with interfaces that adapt to various screen sizes.
• Consistency in UX/UI also means ensuring that your digital platforms are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. This means using color schemes that are visually accessible, providing text alternatives for images, and implementing keyboard-friendly navigation, all styled to reflect your brand’s identity.
• Microinteractions, such as button clicks, form validations, or hover effects, should be designed to reflect your brand’s style and tone.

2. Seamless transitions between online and offline channels

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For a frictionless customer journey between both online and offline, consider implementing clear, intuitive interfaces that allow customers to perform:

• In-store availability checks on check product availability at nearby stores and online.
• Online reservations for in-store pickup and BOPIS (buy online pickup in-store) actions.
• Easy returns that simplify the process of returning online purchases at physical locations. Include clear options for selecting pickup locations and times, and provide visual confirmations.
• Loyalty app purchases–within a loyalty app, show loyalty points and rewards in real time, with suggestions on redeeming them. Design personalized dashboards that highlight available rewards or special offers.

All in all, great omnichannel strategies are about finding small yet impactful ways to delight customers. For example, you could use QR codes in physical stores to provide additional product information or online reviews to improve the in-store shopping experience with online elements.

3. Prioritize the mobile experience

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It's a no-brainer that any business should prioritize the mobile experience, yet many websites are still not fully adapted to mobiles. That’s because a comprehensive mobile strategy involves more than making the site look good on smaller screens. It includes:

• Fast loading times
• Responsive design
• Mobile-first navigation
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
• Touch optimization (optimize buttons and interactive elements for touch control and opt for thumb-friendly designs)

Like every proper omnichannel strategy, your UX/UI and mobile solutions require personalized expertise to thrive. Contact us for tailor-made, leading IT solutions.

Zitec has the expertise to develop software applications for various mobile platforms using cutting-edge technologies, ready-to-operate frameworks, and enterprise-level teams.

4. Integrate AI data analytics into your omnichannel strategy as part of UX/UI design

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AI in data analytics allows you to leverage vast amounts of data from diverse sources—online interactions, in-store behaviors, mobile app usage, and more — to gain comprehensive insights into customer preferences and behaviors.

Today, many data analytics tools, such as Google’s Customer Data Platform, allow retailers to create detailed customer profiles that help improve UX/UI efforts, personalize interactions, boost loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value through informed decisions.

Here’s how data analytics and AI can be used to improve UX/UI and enhance your customer’s journey:

• AI can analyze user data such as past purchases, browsing history, and preferences to tailor the user interface to individual needs. For instance, AI can dynamically alter the layout of a mobile app or website to highlight products or features that are most likely to interest the user.
• Use AI to enhance search functionalities on your platforms. AI can predict what a user is looking for as they type, offering autocomplete suggestions based on popular items, recent trends, and the user’s past behavior.
• First-party data combined with the right technology can help understand how users navigate through your app or website and identify any common drop-off points. This information can be used to improve navigation paths and remove friction from the buyer journey.
• With data at your disposal, you can analyze market conditions, customer demand, and competitor pricing to adjust prices dynamically and maximize profits in real-time.
• Use AI to manage and analyze A/B testing on different UI elements. AI can quickly determine which version performs better and apply these insights to optimize the design and functionality of your platforms.

5. Personalize the shopping experience

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Hyper-personalization is a hot topic among retailers, who are beginning to invest heavily in this approach as part of their omnichannel strategy. Personalization makes consumers feel more valued and likely to spend more while becoming recurring customers. Since 70% of decisions are based on emotional factors, fostering a connection with your audience is THE winning approach for any retail business.

Here’s what you should consider as part of your personalization efforts:

Unified customer profiles

Integrating data from all touchpoints creates detailed customer profiles. This includes purchase history, preferences, online browsing behaviors, and social media interactions. Tools like CRM systems and Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) can help consolidate this data to provide a 360-degree view of each customer.

Segmentation and targeting

Use the data gathered to segment customers into distinct groups based on their behaviors, preferences, and demographics. This segmentation allows for more targeted marketing efforts, such as personalized emails, tailored promotions on-site, and customized product recommendations as they browse. For instance, customers who frequently purchase children's products might receive promotions for back-to-school campaigns.

Contextual and behavioral personalization

Beyond static data, consider the context of each interaction. For example, if a customer often shops late at night, tailor your messaging to reflect late-night browsing habits with appropriate product suggestions or special night-time offers. Similarly, content and recommendations should be adjusted based on the customer's location, weather conditions, or local events.

Do you need help implementing dynamic hyper-personalization in your retail organization? Let’s get in touch —Zitec experts can help.

Dynamic content and real-time interactions

Retailers using tools like Google’s RecommendationsAI (designed to help retailers deliver highly personalized product recommendations at scale using ML) prioritize customer experiences and personalize user experiences based on data insights. Dynamic content that changes based on the user’s past interactions and real-time website behavior works well for retailers.

This could include changing the homepage layout, featured products, and special offers to better align with the individual's interests. Real-time analytics can help adjust these elements dynamically to cater to the customer’s immediate needs and actions.

The Nearshoring Partner that Drives Real Results in the Omnichannel Retail Market

Is your retail organization just keeping up or setting the pace?

In omnichannel retail, staying on top of the game means your tech needs to be as dynamic and user-friendly as your customers expect. Whether you’re struggling to:

• Reimagine mobile apps
• Improve omnichannel experiences between physical outlets and digital platforms
• Upgrade your eCommerce platforms through a fool-proof infrastructure that integrates with all your systems and digital assets

Consistency in user experience is key.

As we conclude, remember that while UX/UI design lays a strong foundation for improving your digital presence within an omnichannel strategy, a solid tech infrastructure is equally important.

At Zitec, we help you improve operations with scalable solutions that boost user experience and position your organization as a retail leader in the market. Using our 20 years of experience delivering over 750+ software projects, we deliver bespoke solutions that enhance your platform’s UX/UI for top-tier customer experiences.

Ready to upgrade your omnichannel retailing strategy? Forget off-the-shelf solutions. Get yourself a trusted retail partner. Our ready-to-operate enterprise-level teams will deliver the fastest, most competitive UX/UI retail solutions while keeping your data safe and your customers returning for more.