As nonessential retailers, large and small, desperately try to restart their businesses during an international pandemic, everyone from owners of specialty shops to credit agencies has begun to question the virility of today’s retail paradigm. Will the retail sector eventually be able to shrug this off and largely return to business as it was before the pandemic, or will it only be able to return in a different form?

How retailers ultimately fare in the post-pandemic economy is anyone’s guess because we’re not done with the pandemic; in fact, the data indicates that we are far from done with it. The current physically-distanced retail paradigm we find ourselves in may be with us for many more months, and this sort of limbo spells trouble for small and large retailers alike absent substantial federal stimulus measures above and beyond the Paycheck Protection Program.

The May and June U.S. Census Bureau monthly retail trade reports offered a glimmer of hope, with sales bouncing back 18.2% in May and, preliminarily, another 7.5% in June. The June figure was actually 1.1% higher than that for June, 2019. However, the numbers from April through June were still down 8.1% over the previous year. And with the coronavirus making its presence felt in a big way across the country in late June and July -- forcing some states to yank back on their initial opening strategies -- all is clearly not sweetness and light.

One thing is clear: The numbers simply don’t add up for brick-and-mortar boutique retailers to continue to operate given the current restrictions. While their overhead certainly isn’t anywhere near that of a department store, their resources are also far fewer.

Meanwhile, department stores have been taking it on the chin. Their sales have been slumping since the great recession and never really came back to the levels they achieved in the early to mid 2000’s. J. Crew, Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney all declared bankruptcy in May. That’s a trendy fashion store, a luxury department store and an American mall staple, respectively. The fact that such a cross-section of American retail is in serious trouble does not bode well for the industry as a whole.

But some small retail businesses have been coming up with innovative ways to keep their bottom line from plunging too deeply into the red. From adding ecommerce sales to taking over nearby streets and alleys to allow for more patrons than they would be able to service in their shop itself, some small clothing and home goods shops have been able to claw their way back during the reopening.

Indeed, online shopping with either shipping or curbside pickup may be what allows the typical small retailer to survive the COVID squeeze. This is something that may not have made financial sense when they could cram 30 people into a tiny footprint, but now that they can only safely allow 10 or 15, taking the ecommerce plunge is looking like the only way forward for many small shops. With many POS software companies offering deep discounts on subscriptions to their ecommerce packages, going online is a no-brainer.

But it’s not enough to simply add an ecommerce component to a brick-and-mortar store; retailers need to ensure they’re utilizing as many sales channels as possible and that they are all on the same page when it comes to current inventory as well as things like customer loyalty programs.

Omnichannel Retailing: The Way To Survive The COVID Crunch

Some stores grow organically to include an ecommerce component; a few start with an ecommerce component before opening a brick-and-mortar location. If you’re adding an ecommerce component as a way to stay alive and even thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re in a unique position to take full advantage of the omnichannel features found in many a retail POS system.

“Omnichannel” is a term that’s been bandied about for going on ten years now. It refers to fully integrating the ecommerce and in-person sales paths into a system with multiple touchpoints such as email and social media; the goal being a shopper’s ability to easily make a purchase using whatever on-ramp to the sales path is most comfortable for them. In modern parlance, this would mean someone seeing the dress of their dreams in an Instagram post from their favorite shop, then being able to buy that dress in just a few clicks. You can imagine the effectiveness of such a system at raising sales, particularly in a pandemic when channels other than in-person sales are going to be the most heavily used.

While the sale is arguably the most important point of omnichannel retail, the integration required to successfully deploy this paradigm starts in the stock room. Integrated inventory management between the ecommerce and brick-and-mortar operations is essential. Also, of paramount importance is the ability to track customers as they flit about between coming into the shop or making a purchase from their bed. Whether they respond to an SMS blast and order something for curbside pickup or they click strait through from social media, the POS system needs to be able to fully track their activity – not only to ensure that the sale is most convenient but also to appropriately reward them if there is a customer loyalty program.

It may sound like a royal pain to set all this up, but as the future of in-person shopping remains uncertain, there has never been a better time to take the omnichannel plunge. When you decide to invest in making this new paradigm a reality, what you’re really doing is committing to future-proof your business with an omnichannel POS system for retail. Companies like Lightspeed can be of great help in this regard as they provide all-In-One POS Solution for retailers.

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