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.