For retail consumers, convenience is king. According to Linnworks consumer research, nine in 10 shoppers pick a retailer who offers a convenient service, 95% expect a seamless journey where delivery works around them, and nearly two in three will always favor a retailer who can offer next day delivery. Retailers that can create a seamless shopping experience will be rewarded with increased spend and customer loyalty. This was reflected in the research as 59% of shoppers said convenience resulted in them spending more than originally intended.

To continue finding new customers and growing sales, retailers need to be wherever their customers want to shop. Today, it’s essential for businesses to automate processes to drive omnichannel success to deliver a frictionless and convenient experience from product discovery right through to fulfillment—and to keep control of your brand while scaling your ecommerce operations.

A centralized hub can provide all parts of your business with the visibility needed to drive efficiencies and profit, remain competitive, and maintain customer service. Utilizing a central platform to automate processes is how Linnworks customer, Direct Plants, managed to maintain control as they scaled their business up to multiple selling channels. Manually managing inventory and merchandising meant that they struggled to maintain control over inventory management and product listings across multiple channels, leading to overselling, lost sales and disappointed customers. Automating multichannel workflows meant they were not only able to gain control over inventory and selling channels, but could better forecast and meet future demand, helping them to deliver record sales growth in 2020.

Automation is about customers, not just processes. Overselling, wasted marketing budgets, dissatisfied customers, overburdened customer service staff, and lost orders are just some of the outcomes for businesses that don’t scale the sophistication of their operations as their selling channels expand and sales grow.

Automation can play a key part in building a competitive customer experience, allowing your business to capture every sales opportunity and take control of all corners of your retail operations to drive growth. Download the Linnworks Total Commerce Guide to Automation to learn more about using automation to drive business growth.

—Jason Stuckey, General Manager, North America, Linnworks