Most retailers strive to perfect their omnichannel strategies. While the end goal remains the same -- enhancing convenience and relevance for the shoppers, while increasing engagement and streamlining operations for the brand – the goalposts keep shifting. The main driver of this shift are the growing number of sales channels and touchpoints. A customer might research a product online, purchase it in a store, and then choose to return it via a mobile app.

Our 2025 Commerce Relevance Report puts a pin in retailer’s omnichannel challenges: 77% of survey respondents research products online before buying, even for items they buy in-store. We found the same cross channel experiences in social commerce. Social media is great at sparking purchase ideas, with 73% of the consumers we surveyed finding the products they were looking for on social media, but only 37% finished the transaction on their favorite social media apps. While this behavior will most likely evolve over time, for now, shoppers still gravitate toward trusted environments like ecommerce sites, which offer the confidence in secure checkouts, clear pricing, and reliable product information.

Successful omnichannel retail depends on how well brands adjust to the increasingly complex cross channel retail environment and how well brands integrate and leverage data from every sales channel and customer touchpoint. While brands know how many products are available in-store and how many items have been sold, this data is usually not reflected in their ecommerce platform. This is a disconnect that prevents brands from delivering consistent and personalized experiences across all channels and defeats the end goal: providing shoppers with the same level of service, product availability, and brand messaging, regardless of where they browse or buy.