Omnichannel Scale 2024: How can Hungarian retailers remain competitive?

By: Trademagazin editor Date: 2024. 11. 04. 11:23

The Omnichannel Scale 2024 study gives a comprehensive overview of how retailers can seize the opportunities, while facing the challenges of implementing an omnichannel strategy.

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2024/10

László Ocskay
author of the book
Standardized Commerce

Mátyás Radó
author of the book
Standardized Commerce

Customers are now free to choose to interact with companies by phone, email, webchat, SMS, direct messaging or even social media. Coordinating these has become an inevitable task for retailers, as shoppers have become accustomed to hybrid processes, expecting the same experience across all platforms.

Value chains are shortening, with more and more manufacturers looking to sell directly to customers in a D2C model. For retailers with domestic operations, the key issue today is to make themselves indispensable to customers and become unavoidable to manufacturers.

To this end, it is essential to adapt an omnichannel approach that allows customers to transact seamlessly at any time, through any channel, while ensuring a consistent and high level of customer experience.

Omnichannel Scale 2024

Inspira Research’s spring research, titled Omnichannel Scale 2024, explores the opportunities for successful retailers to acquire new markets and stay ahead of the global giants in the competition. This was the first omnichannel research focusing on the Hungarian market, initiated by Daktela Magyarország, OANDER Development Kft, Deloitte Zrt. and Ecommerce Hungary. The research showed that a large proportion of domestic retailers follows a multichannel model, where individual channels such as stores, online shops, apps, print catalogues, etc. operate separately. An omnichannel strategy is an integrated approach, where physical and online channels are seamlessly interconnected, allowing shoppers to maximise the customer experience and increase loyalty.

Omnichannel shopping habits

One of the most important lessons from the research is that omnichannel service is no longer a curiosity in the public’s expectations, but a fundamental need. It is really common for shoppers to browse a retailer’s website while in-store, or to register online for a loyalty programme while physically shopping, or to order a product online while in-store. Hungarian companies are significantly lagging behind in implementing an omnichannel strategy – only 36% of the total sample has such a strategy. The research found that 73% of executives surveyed believe technology challenges are the most common difficulty in going omnichannel.

The companies that commissioned the research are also actively working to implement unified retail trade. They have launched the website omnichannel.hu, which aims to educate Hungarian retailers with the help of various educational content, training, diagnostic questionnaires and articles, emphasising the benefits of an omnichannel strategy. //

TOP 3 corporate strategic objectives

According to the Hungarian CEOs surveyed, omnichannel development isn’t among the top 3 strategic objectives, ranking only fifth. At the same time, these managers also see that omnichannel is no longer a “nice to have” capability, but a prerequisite for long-term profitable operation. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that many of the priorities include elements that form part of omnichannel selling. The primary strategic objective among the respondents is to develop/restructure their loyalty programmes. Consumers value many different e-commerce services that require having both online and offline platforms, e.g. for frequent online shoppers in-store returns of their online orders are a top priority. Why invest in an omnichannel strategy? Retailers who think in terms of an integrated ecosystem can’t only reach more customers, but also achieve a higher average purchase value. They can build a more loyal customer base, saving money on reactivation campaigns. This is why omnichannel retail is seen by many as the key competitive advantage, especially against the fast-growing Chinese and US giants. However, it is important to remember that omnichannel is not an end, but a means: it is a means to become a supplier and service provider. //

At what stage is your company in this evolution?

If you want to know more about where your company is on this evolutionary path and what steps you should take, we recommend our diagnostic module at omnichannel.hu for assessing the digital readiness of your company. //