Knocking down the silos to make seamless omnichannel possible

View the original Chain Store Age article: Knocking down the silos to make seamless omnichannel possible.

Successful omnichannel execution requires more than just offering multiple points of sale — it demands a unified strategy that aligns inventory, technology, and incentives across an entire organization. Those who fail to do so risk irrelevance.

In the 2000s, e-commerce was treated as a separate profit center, managed independently from physical stores. Each channel had its own P&L, its own inventory management, and often, separate teams that didn’t communicate effectively.

This fragmentation led to missed opportunities. Stores carried unsold inventory while online demand for the same product went unfulfilled. Customers ordering online for in-store pickup encountered indifference and inefficiency at the register because store employees weren’t incentivized to support e-commerce transactions.

Then came the pandemic. Consumers no longer viewed online and offline as distinct experiences. Target, Walmart, and Amazon set the gold standard, training customers to anticipate real-time inventory visibility, flexible fulfillment options, and personalized shopping experiences. Today, any retailer that hasn’t broken down internal silos is at a severe disadvantage.

Can Retailers Afford to Wait?

Despite the clear benefits of omnichannel integration, many retailers hesitate to invest. The most common barrier? Budget constraints. Unlike giants like Amazon or Walmart, mid-sized and smaller retailers operate with limited capital, forcing them to make trade-offs.

During the pandemic, investment priorities shifted toward growth at all costs — getting products into consumers’ hands however possible. Post-pandemic, the focus has shifted again. Profitability is now the priority, and companies are more concerned with optimizing fulfillment and inventory placement than with aggressive expansion.

But neglecting growth can be catastrophic. The retail landscape is littered with examples of companies that struggled to modernize, losing relevance as consumer expectations evolved — such as Party City, Big Lots and Joann Fabrics. If retailers delay their omnichannel investments, competitors who embrace seamless integration will pull ahead.

Online vs. Brick & Mortar Isn’t a Zero-Sum Game

One surprising outcome of omnichannel adoption is its ability to drive total sales growth, even in physical stores.

Retailers who integrate digital reach with physical assets often see sales rise across an entire region. By extending digital offers to a wider radius, a retailer can increase foot traffic to its stores, improving local brand awareness and creating a halo effect. Consumers who might have otherwise ignored a physical location now engage with it because they can see real-time availability and convenient fulfillment options.

Inventory pooling is another major advantage. A shopper looking for a specific pair of jeans may have once faced a frustrating in-store experience — either the item was in stock, or it wasn’t. Now, a well-executed omnichannel system allows customers to check availability across multiple stores, place an order, and have it shipped or held for pickup. The result is not only higher conversion rates but also more efficient inventory utilization.

Beyond Window Dressing

The most common reason for failure isn’t technology — it’s leadership.

Retailers that fall behind often do so because decision-makers resist change. There’s a belief that “we’ve got the basics covered,” without recognizing that incremental improvements aren’t enough. True omnichannel success comes from constant iteration, cross-functional collaboration, and willingness to challenge outdated operational models.

Another common pitfall is focusing only on front-end experiences while neglecting supply chain optimization. A retailer might offer BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), but if inventory allocation is inefficient, customers will still experience stockouts and delays. Omnichannel success requires back-end transformation, not just a polished digital storefront.

Retailers who do succeed tend to bring in leadership with experience from omnichannel leaders — executives who have worked at Walmart, Best Buy or Lowe’s, where they’ve seen firsthand how integration fuels growth.

With New Capabilities, There’s No Excuse

Recent innovations in tech have removed many of the old barriers to omnichannel adoption. Cloud computing and AI-driven automation have dramatically lowered the cost of integrating digital and physical retail operations.

Today, retailers can augment legacy systems rather than replace them, layering modern applications on top of existing infrastructure. The rise of generative AI is accelerating this even further — what once took weeks of software development can now be done in hours.

But the biggest shift on the horizon is the move from static forecasting to real-time. Traditional inventory planning relies on historical sales data, meaning retailers are effectively driving while looking in the rearview mirror. The future belongs to those who can dynamically adjust inventory placement based on live demand signals.

Rather than pre-positioning inventory months in advance and hoping for the best, the next generation of omnichannel retailers will use AI-powered inventory balancing — redistributing stock proactively as sales trends shift.

Read the full Chain Store Age article: Knocking down the silos to make seamless omnichannel possible.