In the second season of the Vincit Talks vodcast, we’ll be discussing the fundamentals of digital business: online stores, web services, customer data, customer experience, and more.
Today on Vincit Talks we talked with retail analyst and host of the “Kaupan Tila” podcast Arhi Kivilahti. The goal was to delve into the retail sector and its trends, particularly omnichannel. What does omnichannel actually mean today? And how is the retail sector going to develop?
Arhi is a retail analyst who has looked at retail from many different perspectives as a researcher, entrepreneur, development director, and consultant. His goal is to keep track of the retail industry around the world as well as in Finland. After all, the retail industry is one of the biggest employers in Finland and is a significant sector in regard to the national economy.
What omnichannel means
So what does omnichannel actually mean in today's context? Fundamentally, it's just a matter of what channels are available to the customer – such as online and brick-and-mortar stores – and how they then appear to the customer as a unified whole.
For the customer, it ideally shouldn’t be apparent what the channel is: the experience shouldn’t feel different in any way. In omnichannel experiences, the boundary between physical and digital becomes blurred, providing a more integrated and flexible experience for the user.
From a customer perspective, the essential thing is that they have a feeling of control. The customer should know where to go to get information, what is happening with their order, and how they stay informed if something occurs.
Keeping the customer perspective
So how do you make sure that customer experience remains seamless? The answer is a relentless focus on the customer and delivering value for them. One example comes from Lean philosophy where the Toyota Production System’s creator, Taiichi Ohno, stated that anything the customer isn’t willing to pay for is waste. By identifying these areas of waste, value can be maximized where customer value is truly created.
Often, the customer gets forgotten as companies grow, especially during rapid expansion or when they become large. This can lead to an internal focus on processes, where handling paperwork becomes an end in itself. Large, long-term successful companies like Costco or IKEA have managed to avoid this by keeping their office employees connected with what’s happening at the front lines. For instance, front-line employees regularly hear directly from customers about what’s working and what isn’t.
Context is also crucial when evaluating customer experiences. Customers may appreciate Lidl for its specific offerings, while they would expect a wider variety and different quality at Citymarket. The context and customer expectations shape their experience, even if the target groups are similar. This highlights the importance of deep customer understanding beyond surface-level observations.
Key trends in retail
When we think about the future and upcoming trends in retail customer experience, we should consider how diverse expectations will continue to shape brand experiences and the kinds of loyalty businesses can cultivate.
Internationalization is going to continue as companies explore expanding out from their home markets. That means there is almost limitless opportunity. At the same time, an aging population is also a huge opportunity to think about how to better serve this target group with digital services.
There has also been a lot of talk about the rise of Chinese retailers like Temu and Shein and how to respond to their popularity. Of course, social shopping in China happens through very different systems than our platforms – though shopping might evolve in the same way in Finland over time.
Continuing to focus on customer experience and delivering a unified omnichannel approach is going to be one of the keys for the Finnish retail sector to succeed.
