Having a website alone is no longer enough to sell in 2024, especially for growing and small businesses. Today's customers expect you to be everywhere they are.
This is why it's important—and smart—to promote and sell your products via multiple channels, including your own independent ecommerce store, multiple marketplaces, social media platforms—the big ones being Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok—and even brick-and-mortar storefronts (after all, in-store shopping isn’t dead yet).
According to Statista, retail ecommerce sales are estimated to exceed $4.1 trillion worldwide in 2024, and this figure is expected to reach new heights in the coming years. A large portion of these sales can be yours—if you tap into multichannel ecommerce.
Experienced retailers know that selling on multiple channels is the best way to get eyeballs on your product listings, which helps businesses stand out in the crowded and competitive ecommerce marketplace.
Customers are everywhere, and your business must be too. Multichannel ecommerce is not just about reaching more potential customers (though that's a huge plus!); it's about creating a smooth and consistent brand experience for customers wherever they choose to shop.
Multichannel sales were forecasted to generate $575 billion in 2023—up from $350 billion in 2020, the widely-accepted breakthrough year of ecommerce. Businesses have the potential to tap into these numbers and substantially increase their revenue by expanding to multiple sales channels.
Multichannel selling—much like many other ecommerce trends—has drastically evolved over the past few years, with some of the biggest changes coming from the rise of mobile commerce and the transformation of social media apps into selling channels.
It’s official: browser-based shopping is out and mobile commerce is in. Consumers now use mobile phones more than any other device for online shopping, with 70% of shoppers preferring smartphones for their purchases. As a result, the eCommerce app market is projected to grow significantly as more consumers transition from shopping in-browser to dedicated mobile apps. Nike, for example, was able to link 18% of their annual revenue in 2022 to mobile apps—including the Nike app, the Nike SNKRS app, and Nike Training Club.
Selling on social media used to mean sharing a link to your website and praying people click on it, find your products appealing, and make a purchase. Now, it’s different—and better. Social media platforms have now become the #1 product discovery channel and are as relevant as online and brick-and-mortar stores, especially considering the growth of mobile commerce.
In fact, Hubspot reports that 1 in 4 social media users bought a product through social commerce in the past 3 months. Social commerce is maximizing change by introducing shopping features—like Instagram shop, TikTok shop, and Facebook Marketplace—where customers can buy products directly without leaving their feed.
Selling on multiple online marketplaces is an excellent way to reach a wider range of consumers and increase your online sales. But expanding your online presence to various new online channels will require a greater investment of your company’s time and resources.
Fortunately, you don't have to do it alone—or the hard way. The following ecommerce management software solutions stand out with functionalities that will not only help you execute your multichannel strategy but also lay a solid foundation for your technology ecosystem.
An all-in-one platform for inventory management, order fulfillment, and product analytics, Extensiv brings your full operations into view across all ecommerce sales channels and warehouses—including outsourced fulfillment options like third-party logistics (3PL) providers.
One of the outstanding qualities of Extensiv’s platform is that it’s designed to adapt to your unique business needs—whether you're a new startup or a large enterprise—equipped with over 150 native ecommerce integrations including Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce.
Extensiv is a powerful order management system (OMS) and demand forecasting solution in your multichannel ecommerce business. By leveraging historical trends and point of sale (POS) data, Extensiv provides accurate insights on your sales performance for each SKU, enabling you to optimize your inventory levels and make informed decisions about purchasing and marketing efforts.
As inventory management software, Extensiv monitors real-time stock status for you—sending low stock alerts so you know when to place orders for more goods—for greater inventory control and optimization. You can also automate purchase orders while providing all the product analytics you need to make strategic business decisions including insights on sales trends, inventory performance, and profitability levels.
BigCommerce is the most trusted and most acclaimed ecommerce platform, providing solutions for any commerce model you can think of: B2C, DTC, B2B, multi-storefront, omnichannel, and more. Some of their best features are their comprehensive list of ecosystem partners, including integrations between BigCommerce and Netsuite and the flexibility of their open platform that allows retailers to customize their ecommerce solution without being limited to proprietary offerings.
Trusted by thousands of online retailers worldwide, GoDataFeed is the go-to solution for product data management across multiple channels like Google Shopping, Amazon, Meta's Facebook and Instagram Shops, TikTok Shop, Pinterest, eBay, Walmart, and 200+ others. As a dedicated multichannel ecommerce solution, they streamline, simplify, and automate the process for online retailers to manage, update, and enhance their product listings—offering dynamic repricing, product targeting, and real-time analytics tools to help multichannel merchants succeed.
Gorgias is a specialized customer resource management (CRM) software that streamlines customer support for ecommerce businesses. One of Gorgias's best features is its deep integration with popular ecommerce platforms, particularly Shopify, which allows customer service agents to view and manage customer orders directly within the Gorgias interface without switching applications. It also allows customer service agents to access relevant customer information during interactions, providing response templates for quicker response and resolutions.
Loop is a dedicated customer returns management platform designed to streamline the returns process for ecommerce businesses. It focuses on transforming the often cumbersome returns experience into a more positive interaction that encourages customer loyalty and revenue retention and automates the entire returns experience. Loop allows customers to initiate returns or exchanges easily through a user-friendly portal, and merchants can tailor the returns experience to their brand’s image and policies, ensuring a seamless customer journey.
Expanding your sales strategy beyond a single channel can significantly boost your brand's reach and revenue. However, managing inventory across multiple platforms can quickly become complex. Extensiv's solutions for brands empower you to seamlessly handle this complexity and streamline your ecommerce operations.
Want to learn more about how partnering with Extensiv can help your multichannel ecommerce business grow? Request a demo today!