Omnichannel Scale 2024: How can Hungarian retailers remain competitive?

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

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. //

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