How to build an effective omnichannel strategy as an e-commerce business

The process of building a seamless omnichannel strategy in 2025 that works effectively is by no means an easy one.

If it were an easy task, this article would probably not outline how to do it.

But, before we dive into some recommendations for e-commerce businesses, let’s take a look at what we mean exactly by:

“An effective omnichannel strategy”

This is all about seamless user experience at every touchpoint a B2C business has with its customers. It means tailoring your outreach and content to provide the exact information they need and the purchase opportunities when they are ready and in the right lifecycle stage.

It doesn’t sound that complex in principle, right?

You just need to make sure you are giving your audience what they want to see and discover at all the right moments. 

Implementing a robust omnichannel strategy can significantly boost customer retention and sales. For instance, companies with strong omnichannel strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, compared to just 33% for those with weak strategies. Additionally, omnichannel marketing can increase sales by 287%. 

Effective omnichannel strategies have become vital for brick-and-mortar stores to stay relevant and keep driving traffic in recent years. The idea is that with a successful system in place, the use of a variety of digital channels differentiates traditional physical retailers from their peers. In some cases, leveraging their store assets in combination with strategies like Local Inventory Ads can give them a competitive edge over online-only retailers.

A Harvard Business Review already showed the importance of an omnichannel presence years ago. In 2017, their study found that of 46,000 shoppers at a traditional US retailer, 73% of them used several channels as part of their shopping journey. And in 2024, about 80% of all store visits directly resulted from omnichannel strategies.

That’s about omnichannel, but, to make it all clear – what’s multichannel?

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel

So, what’s the difference between omnichannel and multichannel strategies? Both focus on reaching customers across multiple platforms, but there’s a key distinction. With multichannel, you engage customers on various channels – like email, social media, and in-store – but they often operate in silos. Each channel works independently, and there may not be a seamless transition between them.

Insight: In 2025, revenue from multichannel e-commerce is expected to reach as much as $800.16 billion in the US!

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On the other hand, omnichannel goes a step further by integrating all these touchpoints to create a unified experience. It’s about connecting the dots so customers can switch between channels without disruption, like browsing online and completing the purchase in-store. 

The goal is to ensure the journey feels consistent, whether the customer interacts with your brand via desktop, mobile, or in person. 

The difference? Omnichannel is customer-centric, while multichannel is channel-centric.

How to build an omnichannel strategy for e-commerce

All right, but before you can begin putting any kind of strategy in place, the first step (as always!), is for e-commerce businesses is to:

1. Understand your audience

First, define your target group and take the time to understand how, where and, most importantly, when they are ready to be engaged with and make that final purchase decision. 

Source: Photo by Emile Guillemot on Unsplash

Omnichannel is about prioritizing your customers, so they should be at the forefront of your focus as you begin to formulate your omnichannel strategy. 

The more specific you can be, the better. It’s relatively easy to use your data to look at your audience’s preferences about your specific products, how often they prefer to be contacted and their interests in pricing. 

Get started in understanding your audience:

1. Go through a full customer experience on your store yourself. Interact through all your channels and submit a ticket to customer support. If necessary, use external sources to help you evaluate the experience. 
2. Talk to your customers as much as you can. Get feedback at every stage of their journey. Give them incentives like discounts and gift cards to encourage responses. 
3. Do keyword research to get ideas on what your audience needs, what they’re looking for. Many tools – for example, Ahrefs or one of its alternatives—can be leveraged for this purpose.

It’s one thing to have a lot of valuable, interesting content for your users, but if a business does not deliver that information at the right customer touchpoint, it’s money and time wasted.

Let’s take an example. 

Say you’re a first-time visitor to my website, KittySupplies.com

If, during our first contact, I tell you how my business is helping to donate to animal rights charities, you probably won’t be interested in my brand at all.

The chances are, you’ll be more interested in who I am, what I’m selling, and whether you can get a discount.

Later on down the line, it may be relevant when you have built some brand affinity. Perhaps you’ve checked out my products, spoken to a dedicated customer service assistant and received a prompt order of your delivery – now you’ll be more interested in my business’ causes.

Remember this:

• Consumer behavior underscores the importance of an integrated approach. Approximately 73% of consumers use multiple channels throughout their online purchasing journey. People just want a cohesive experience across platforms. 
• 74% of shoppers rely on social media now to make purchasing decisions. Maintain a consistent presence across various channels and tell on social media what you are doing in this area.

2. Build trust in your messaging

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One of the major parts of a successful omnichannel strategy is personalizing your content.

Just as you would do when structuring email workflows or social media ads, targeting your message by segmenting your audience of smaller lists makes sense. 

This makes it easier to send personalized messages by having smaller groups based on similar traits. These traits could include:

• Profile data: any information you might have on who your customer is, like demographics, age, gender, marital status, location, etc.
• Campaign engagement: how your customers interact with certain campaigns and channels
• Shopping behaviour: where your customer is in their customer journey, how often they shop, when they purchased last, etc.

You can even combine some segments to create even smaller, more precise ones. 

From this point, you can set up automation to trigger when a customer performs a certain action or goes a period of time without action. This way, you can send the message at any given time in their customer journey. When you make sure that the messages you’re sending are always relevant, your customers will better respond to them. 

Building trust with customers on their way to purchasing is just a successful omnichannel strategy. No matter which channels your customers are coming through, you interact and update them with relevant, personalized content related to their stage in the customer journey.

Let’s take another example: 

You visit my site (yes, it’s still KittySupplies.com 😉), and decide to sign up for my email newsletter.

That’s what happens:

1. I send you a nice, welcoming mail which mentions price reductions for first-time buyers to my store with a CTA.
2. You return to my store, browse some of my products, and sign up for notifications from a pop-up, but ultimately – you do not purchase anything. 
3. From a retargeting ad on social media, you re-visit my store and end up adding some products to your basket…but not finalizing their purchase.
4. I send you a notification about your cart abandonment, you revisit and finish off your purchases. Moreover, you select to receive SMS updates.
5. Your order and shipping details are sent via SMS.

Of course, that’s by no means the end of the customer journey. 

Effective omnichannel strategies should focus on nurturing that customer with promotions, news, and updates to encourage them to make further purchases. 

3. Success comes from within

Shortly speaking, you’re putting your customer at the center of your strategy. 

Every time they need you across any channel, you are there.

But for that to work, you need to ensure that every member of your team uses your customer’s data to deliver the full package. The more your team knows about the customers, the better each member will be able to respond to and engage them.

When you think about it, it makes sense that the whole business needs to be on board with an omnichannel strategy. The whole point is that every member is on-board with the approach you are using, and not just a sub-set who has been assigned to build the strategy.

Again, let’s take an example of how it could affect different departments: 

• Marketers need that data to send the most relevant message to your customers at the right time.
• Product needs the data for merchandising the products customers have the most interest in (take a look at Vision Detection Systems, for example.)
• Customer success requires data to maintain consistent conversations with customers.

4. Test, test, and then test again (and again…)

As with anything, your omnichannel marketing strategy will improve as you optimize it and keep A/B testing your gathered data. As with your online store or digital advertising strategies, you need to continually test different messages, images, subject lines, sending times, etc.

According to a 2024 report, 77% of marketers utilize A/B testing on their websites, 60% on landing pages, 59% in email campaigns, and 58% in PPC ads.

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By embracing a culture of regular testing and utilizing the insights gained, you can continually refine your omnichannel marketing efforts. Thus, test processes regularly and see what responses you get to which kinds of messages. If you track and measure your data regularly, you are bound to find the perfect formula.

Also, remember to update and re-audit your customer experience regularly, of course. Then, you will get the most out of your omnichannel marketing strategy. And use a collaboration tool to track the progress of your activities.

Conclusion: Your omnichannel strategy

At the end of the day, a successful omnichannel strategy is about creating a smooth, connected experience for your customers. 

Through personalized content? Seamless transitions between channels? Or the ability to meet customers where they are? The choice is yours, but every detail matters. By being omnipresent on the channels your customers are using and getting your entire brand behind creating an omnichannel experience, you can give your customers a level of service that will set you apart from your competition.

Here, the main role lies in testing and optimizing your activities along the way, which will help you uncover the perfect combination that clicks with your audience.

It’s the only approach major players like Amazon have used to make their names. Look for new ways to connect to each channel and create replicable experiences for each. The beauty of omnichannel is that it is scalable and available for any business. 

So, keep experimenting, keep improving, and make sure you’re always in tune with what your customers want. With the right strategy, you’ll create lasting connections that make your business stand out and your customers feel heard and valued.