Online shoppers don’t stick to one sales channel when it comes to shopping. They love to be spoiled for choice and convenience. So why should ecommerce brands sell only on one or a few sales channels?

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Selling on multiple channels has become the need of the 21st century. In fact, a lot of ecommerce sellers are embracing it and generated more than $350 billion in sales in the year 2020. Meanwhile, experts predict that multichannel sales will account for 46% of all ecommerce sales by 2023.

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Does that mean multichannel is the future ecommerce? Well, let’s find out.

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In this blog, you will learn what is multichannel selling, its benefits, what is the difference between single, multichannel and omnichannel selling, the ultimate multichannel selling solution, and is multichannel selling right for your business.

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What is multichannel selling?

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Multichannel selling is a strategy in which a business sells merchandise on more than one sales channel—both online and offline. In other words, multichannel blends the customer experience and gives customers the choice to engage and purchase on the channel of their preference.

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For example, Berrylush sells on its own website, Myntra, Amazon and more sales channels.

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What are the essential sales channels?

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1. Ecommerce websites

Ecommerce sellers can sell their merchandise easily to customers by creating their own website, i.e. online store. There are various ecommerce website builders (also known as shopping carts) that enable ecommerce sellers to build online stores easily, such as Shopify, Magento, Woocommerce, and more.

Usually, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands sell on their brand websites to cut out the middlemen and sell their products directly to their customers.

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2. Marketplaces

Online marketplaces are the ecommerce aggregators that connect sellers with buyers. Well, the most distinctive advantage of selling on a marketplace is that it is the quickest way to tap into a massive customer base of thousands and more, without investing heavily into marketing or advertising. Some of the most creditable online marketplaces are Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Ajio, Nykaa, Tata Cliq, and more.

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3. Social media channels

Long gone are the days when businesses used social media to build brand awareness and drive traffic to their websites. Now, ecommerce brands sell their products and handle their entire purchase journey on social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and more.

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According to research, social media sales are projected to reach $79.6 billion by 2025.

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4. Brick-and-mortar store

Brick-and-mortar refers to a traditional business that has a physical store or stores where customers make purchases in person. After being forced shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic, brick-and-mortar stores began to open up again. While in-store shopping is not as popular as it was, ecommerce brands can use brick-and-mortar stores as a part of their multichannel strategy. For instance, Apple allows customers to touch and play with their new products in-store while giving them the option to buy online and offline.

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The benefits of multichannel selling

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Here are the various benefits of multichannel ecommerce:

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The difference between single-channel, multichannel and omnichannel selling

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Eshopbox: The ultimate multichannel selling solution

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1. Connect with multiple sales channels and manage them with ease

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Eshopbox can help you integrate in the following ways:

• ‍Eshopbox has 2-step integration with marketplaces and shopping carts
• You can manage product listings, orders and returns for all sales channels from Eshopbox’s actionable dashboard

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2. Master inventory management

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Eshopbox simplifies inventory management for multichannel selling for ecommerce brands in the following ways:

• Use the same inventory pool across multiple sales channels, without committing your inventory to specific marketplaces‍
• Sync your inventory across all sales channels every 5 minutes, enabling you to relay accurate inventory levels on every sales channel in real-time and prevent overselling
• Track and maintain optimum inventory levels to avoid under-stocking and overstocking
• Restock inventory to prevent Out-of-Stock (OOS) by ensuring timely replenishment
• Traverses all the fulfilment centres and gives real-time insights into inventory location and volume

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3. Offer a consistent brand experience

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Eshopbox enables you to extend your brand experience through packaging across all sales channels:

• For multiple sales channels, Eshopbox packs your products as per the requirements of every marketplace like using the channel-specific packaging material
• You can set flexible packaging rules for using different packaging materials, highlighting your brand logo and adding marketing inserts such as samples, custom messages, gift cards, coupons, pamphlets and more— creating a great unboxing experience with custom packaging

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4. Delight your customers

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With Eshopbox, you can enhance the customer experience by delivering an exceptional post-purchase experience in the following ways:

• Lightning-fast shipping speed across sales channels by distributing your inventory across India to reduce transit time and shipping costs
• An Amazon-like experience with real-time order tracking with a branded tracking page to give customers complete visibility of their online orders
• Proactive shipping notifications for order updates via SMS and email
• Easy returns and exchanges as customers can initiate a return on the self-service customers portal within a few clicks

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5. Leverage automated reconciliation

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You can track your payments and fees with automated reconciliation across sales channels without any manual efforts and identify:

• Orders for which you have received payment
• Orders for which you are awaiting payment
• Orders on which fees are charged more than provisional fees
• Orders for which your payment is overdue

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Is multichannel selling right for your business?

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Multichannel selling may not suit every single ecommerce business. In some cases, single-channel selling makes more sense—if you have a limited product range or have a niche product. It also depends on several other factors, including— your business’s goals, marketing budget, and capability for control over product pricing and experiences.

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Although, switching to multichannel selling has helped ecommerce sellers to tap into established customer bases, increase sales, reduce operational costs, and build loyalty with repeat customers.

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If you’re doubtful, you can start selling on a single sales channel—rather than committing to numerous sales channels. You can then focus on fulfiling your orders with seamless ecommerce fulfilment. After that, you can start selling on one more sales channel and focus on fulfilment for both channels. Likewise, you can add more sales channels to your selling strategy. But, again, it’s better to test it in the short run than to commit to a long-term strategy.

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Wrapping up

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The thought of selling on multiple sales channels may seem overwhelming in the beginning. But your availability will benefit you and your customers that are scattered across channels. By increasing your touchpoints with a massive customer base, the sales will start rolling in! The only challenging aspect is the management of multiple channels, but with some expert help and outsourcing your order fulfilment to a 3PL like Eshopbox, you can accelerate your sales and capitalise on this revenue-boosting opportunity.