Multi- and omni-channel commerce offers will be pivotal for merchants in the 2014 holiday shopping season, according to a recent article from Practical Ecommerce.
Great strategies to drive growth, especially during the holiday season, are consumer convenience-driven promotions like free shipping, mobile promotions, in-store pickup and video of products. These strategies are usually only possible for large omnichannel businesses that have agreements with shipping companies, budget for mobile site optimization, brick-and-mortar stores, and money for video production. As a result, the overall holiday e-commerce market is likely to grow by 15.5%, but small and medium sized online businesses shall only grow by 9%.
In this environment, many smaller online-only merchants are opening brick-and-mortar stores. While customers value the benefits of physical stores, like the ability to return online purchases in store, omnichannel commerce can increase fraud risks. Small and medium sized business need extra vigilance when going omni-channel in order to ensure their customers’ data remains safe.