What Is The Difference between Omnichannel and Multichannel?

E-commerce is the trend to revive the economy during COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Vietnam E-Business Index 2021 Report, the growth of revenue of the e-commerce industry in Vietnam reached a stable rate of 18% with 49.3 million online shoppers – the highest in the 2016 – 2020 period. To operate a good selling online channel, these days, sellers often choose one of these two ways: Omnichannel and Multichannel.

So what is Omnichannel? What is Multichannel? Is there any difference between Omnichannel and Multichannel? Which model should sellers choose to optimize their business? Let’s find out!

What Is Multichannel?

Multichannel is a business model for sellers to use different channels so that their customers can have many ways to choose to buy. For example, they can buy goods directly at physical stores or buy online via Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, etc.

This model has been put into use for a long time, but a significant limitation of Multichannel is that customers’ access to products and goods management will be interrupted, disconnected or partially integrated.

A simple instance of this disadvantage is that when the management system is not consistent between different channels, the quantity of goods distributed across the channels would not be reasonable. This may lead to management difficulties or extra costs to improve the system.

What Is Omnichannel?

Omnichannel is also sometimes understood by many people as “multichannel selling online”, but the model of Omnichannel has a different approach compared to Multichannel. In the Omnichannel model, customers are considered as the center to come up with reasonable strategies for whole businesses.

So we can understand that when it comes to Omnichannel, sellers not only operate the channels, but also have to know how to initiate reasonable tactics for each channel and connect them to ensure that the buyers’ purchasing process would not be interrupted and always be consistent as Omnichannel focuses on customer interaction and experience.

In addition, Omnichannel helps sellers solve problems related to management existing in the Multichannel model. Sellers can manage inventory and cash flow more reasonably without any additional outsourcing costs thanks to the consistency of the Omnichannel model.

One of the most typical examples of the Omnichannel is Starbucks. Starbucks allows their customers to purchase gift cards by selling online and then redeem them via a mobile app without having to go to the physical stores to purchase them.

In Vietnam, a number of companies and businesses have also started to apply the Omnichannel model such as Thegioididong, one of the first businesses to operate and achieve good results.

What Is the Difference between Omnichannel and Multichannel?

Multichannel and Omnichannel are both being understood as selling online with different channels. However, there are some differences between these two channels as the table belows:

Multichannel Model	Omnichannel Model
Different Channels that are Separate	Different Channels that are Linked
Customers Find it Difficult to Switch to another Channel	Customers Find it Easy to Switch to another Channel
Focusing on Customer Engagements	Focusing on Customer Experience
Focusing on the Channels	Focusing on the Customers
Offering Customers Choices of Channels	Allowing Customers to Start at a particular Channel and Switch to another one easily

The comparison between Multichannel and Omnichannel above hopefully helps you avoid the confusion between these two channels, which both apply many channels at the same time.

In addition, with superior advantages, today, Omnichannel is an ideal choice for companies, businesses and sellers to promote their sales and revenue, especially during the complicated situation of COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapid growth of e-commerce.

In conclusion, it can be seen that the key difference between Multichannel and Omnichannel is consistency. Thanks to Omnichannel, sellers are able to know the current situation of their customers, inventory and cash flows. That’s why many sellers are choosing Omnichannel over Multichannel these days.

Why should I Choose Omnichannel instead of Multichannel?

Looking at the comparison of the differences between Multichannel and Omnichannel above, we partially understand the superior advantages that Omnichannel has compared to Multichannel. To summarize, sellers should choose Omnichannel for the following reasons: 

Consistency in the Purchasing and Selling Process

As mentioned above, Omnichannel is able to help sellers manage their inventory and cash flow from different channels more easily due to the fact that there is no need to invest in a separate management process, which leads to disconnection of the management process.

Purchasers also feel more comfortable as the information in the sellers’ channels is always consistent with each other, it would help buyers know what is going on with sellers’ channels accurately, which allows them to make a better purchasing decision.

Reduction in the Unnecessary Costs for Sellers

When it comes to Multichannel, sellers have difficulties managing many channels, such as distributing the reasonable quantity of products across numerous channels. Therefore, they could hire a separate management system to enhance their operation, which means that they have to pay unnecessary expenses.

When the management process is not interrupted, sellers would not need to spend extra costs to invest in the management of separate channels, thereby saving a large amount of money and optimizing their profits.

Increase in Customer Satisfaction in Shopping Experience

Multichannel sometimes make the customers unsatisfied because they show different information among different channels or the products they need are still available at physical stores but not on selling online channels, which leads to the interruption of their purchasing decision.

With Omnichannel, customer experience is the center of attention, customers can choose one selling online channel and easily switch to another selling online one to shop. This would make the experience of buyers better, helping the sellers to have more revenue. 

With such great benefits, why don’t sellers start trying to operate Omnichannel this year to facilitate businesses? If the seller is about to convert the current operating model to the Omnichannel model, choose Ginee as a companion to optimize the business!

Choose Ginee to Maximize your Business Efficiency and Create Personalized Experiences for Customers now!

Ginee Vietnam is an omnichannel that enables online sellers or businesses to manage their operations across different platforms at the same time. Thanks to Ginee, sellers are able to control product, price, inventory, etc. more easily.

Moreover, sellers do not have to take too much time to set up as Ginee has some convenient features such as syncing, copying or duplicating online stores. Don’t hesitate to try Ginee now with the Trial version.