OMO (online merge offline) online and offline integration is something that brands doing e-commerce/retailing have to do in recent years. OMO is a part of the new retail model. Its purpose is to enable the interoperability of consumer information collected online . Offline through the integration of virtual and real to meet the needs of consumers in this era .
Picture source: Understand new retail sms promotional campaign with one picture! The latest retail industry business trends and key points in 2024
Starting from consumers : Understand the relationship between “OMO” and new retail
As seen from the picture above. Both OMO and new retail are concepts developed with the consumer as the center . The concept of “new retail” was first proposed by Jack Ma. Founder of Alibaba, in 2016. He asserted: “In the next 10 or 20 years. There will no longer be e-commerce, only new retail .”
A consumer trend survey shows that about half of consumers prefer a mixed online and offline shopping experience, while only 29% prefer to shop solely online, and 22% prefer to only shop in physical stores. In other words, in this era that focuses on personalization and experience, consumers have both online and physical needs, so the purely online e-commerce model will be gradually eliminated.
- Look at OMO’s 6 major consumer trends
Online + offline : In the eyes of consumers, both online and physical channels are necessary
In his speech, Jack Ma mentioned the key role that online and offline channels play in the new retail era:
“The era of pure e-commerce will soon end. In the next ten or twenty years, there will be no e-commerce, only new retail, which means that online and offline and logistics must be combined to create a real New retail. Offline companies must go online, and online companies must go offline. Only by combining online and offline with modern logistics can we truly create new retail.”
If your brand only has online channels and lacks physical stores, the brand owner may wish to think: ” In this era where consumers care about “experience”, purely online product display and remote services can truly satisfy all consumers’ needs. Do you want it? “For example, in the face of the increasingly common consumer behavior of “offline experience, online consumption” such as showrooming , brands that lack offline channel layout can really easily and smoothly complete online An efficient shopping guide?
Online x offline : O2O is not enough and needs to be upgraded to OMO
Jack Ma also clearly mentioned online and offline “integration” in the above speech. In other words, it is not enough to simply “own” online and offline channels. It is also necessary to “integrate” the virtual and the real in order to maximize the overall benefits of online and offline channels.
Most application scenario 1: create a “virtual and real” companies’ imagination and execution of integration remain at the O2O (online to offline) level, that is, trying to divert online consumers to offline. However, in recent years, O2O is often considered by the industry to be insufficient and must be upgraded to OMO.
2. The key to integration: OMO (online merge offline), what three things are integrated?
The industry is talking about OMO virtual and real integration, but few people clearly define the projects being “integrated”.
If we think from the perspective of line data the customer journey and the enterprise, we can clearly use one picture to outline the three projects integrated by OMO, including “customer flow to and from online and offline”, “customer online and offline data and data” Records”, and “the services and experiences customers receive online and offline”.