A shopper may discover a product on a phone, check its availability online, buy through an app and return it to a store. To the customer, these are not separate channels. They are different parts of the same shopping journey.
This is changing what omnichannel retail means. A website alongside a store network is no longer enough. Orders, payments, inventory, customer information and returns increasingly need to work across those environments without creating extra effort for the shopper.
Buy online, return in store, often known as BORIS, provides a clear example. A customer can return an ecommerce purchase at a physical store instead of sending it back through a parcel network. The proposition is simple.
Making it work reliably is not. Returns make this challenge commercially important. The US National Retail Federation (NRF) and Happy Returns estimated that 19.3% of online sales would be returned in 2025.
Their research also found that 71% of consumers would be less likely to shop with a retailer again after a poor returns experience. A reliable cross-channel returns service therefore depends on more than a flexible returns policy. Order records, payment systems, point-of-sale technology and inventory data need to recognise the same transaction.
Store employees need access to the relevant information, while returned products need to enter the correct inventory and reverse-logistics process. For retail leaders, this represents a broader shift. The competitive question is becoming less about how well individual channels perform and more about how effectively the entire retail operation works as one.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
