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These days, the path to purchase is more unpredictable than ever. As shoppers seamlessly and simultaneously move across four key behaviours — streaming, scrolling, searching and shopping — the lines between online and offline experiences blur. This makes most customer journeys truly omnichannel.
For brands and retailers, this complexity makes it challenging to know when a consumer is ready to buy. It’s more important than ever to engage the right consumers at the right moment, so you can drive the most value from your touchpoints. Our new Consumer Behaviour Pulse research with Kantar supports this: Building continuous connections across every channel is your new profitability superpower.
Here’s what we learned to help strengthen your overall store and sharpen your omnichannel edge.
Shoppers don’t fall neatly into an online or offline box, and neither do their purchase journeys
In Australia, 88% of retail sales take place in a store.1 But that doesn’t mean the entire purchase journey happened purely offline. In fact, our survey showed that only 12% of those in-store sales had no digital influence.2
Regardless of where the final sale occurred, omnichannel purchases were the most frequent at 52%, with click-and-collect accounting for an additional 18%.3 This means the majority of shoppers used digital channels to reach their purchase decision — whether using Search to find and compare brands, perusing digital shelves on the retailer’s website or looking at local store inventory. Seventy percent of Australians use their phone for something purchase-related while they’re still standing in the store.4
Consumers are rarely purely offline or purely online shoppers, even within a single purchase journey. Brands should look at their entire shopping experience holistically to stay relevant, influence decisions and increase profitability — all while helping shoppers through whatever path to purchase they’re on.
Shoppers seek a confident purchase decision
While no two customer journeys are the same, what stays constant is this: Shoppers want to feel confident they’re making the right purchase decision.
Confident, informed and empowered shoppers are highly valuable. So, as marketers, our goal is to help omnichannel shoppers move from discovery to decision faster. It’s crucial to understand that it’s not just the moment they’re checking out that counts. It’s all the interactions in their winding maze of exploration, evaluation and comparison too.
Digital experiences strengthen the overall store
Each channel has a specific role to play in enhancing customer experiences, helping omnichannel shoppers fulfill certain needs throughout their purchase journey. This means digital channels are key to strengthening the store overall.
Particularly for the awareness and consideration phases, consumers agree that online channels can be easier and more enjoyable than offline.5 That is, until it comes to things like getting products quickly, contacting customer service for help or returning items, where in-store wins.
Key to building confidence are Google and YouTube — the most trusted platforms for consumers in their purchase journey.6 Google is the No. 1 touchpoint consumers say lets them make smart, informed decisions.7
Search is the ultimate influencer on your customer. When it comes to common consumer behaviours, the act of using Search before going into a store is 2X more common than buying on sale.8 Whether shoppers are discovering new brands, locating in-stock items, or seeing if a product can be collected today, Google Search is where retail curiosity starts, and where they choose between you and your competitor.
So, while in-store sales are critical, a consumer-focussed omnichannel marketing strategy maximises sales across the board. In other words, strengthening the store should start online.
Across all channels, shopper expectations are growing
Meeting customers’ growing omnichannel retail expectations is non-negotiable to drive brand love, loyalty and growth. Shoppers want to feel like they can win, and 73% of consumers feel a sense of accomplishment when they make a decision on an important purchase.9
As shoppers seek more benefits across all channels, their spend often increases when they feel they’re getting a good deal. Positive in-store experiences can motivate incremental spend too, as we found that 68% of consumers are influenced by physical experiences.10
Sixty-two percent of shoppers want brands to do a better job of sharing inventory information,11 which can avoid frustrations like out of stock items. By ensuring inventory data is current and running local inventory ads with accurate stock, you can prevent shoppers from moving back into the research loop.
Just as discovery starts online, baskets grow in the store. Google can support in-store discovery through specific store-focussed campaigns. Performance Max for store goals connects customers with nearby stores, helping you optimise and grow offline sales. Google’s proprietary measurement and optimisation tools like Smart Bidding for store visits or store sales optimise your Search and Shopping activity, driving key store goals like footfall and offline sales, while also delivering e-commerce results. In this new omnichannel world, these strategies ensure your investments are working hard to support your total business outcomes.
How Pandora drove omnichannel results across Australia and New Zealand
For global jewellery brand Pandora, peak season presents unique challenges — like managing a large store network, click-and-collect and delivery cut-off dates.
Since strengthening its omnichannel strategy with Google solutions, Pandora’s Australia and New Zealand region has seen a boost in online traffic, plus a significant increase in both in-store visits and sales. In 2023:
Discovery starts, and decisions are made, on Google platforms
The rise of AI-powered ad solutions across Google Search and YouTube has enabled consumers with new ways to search, discover and shop. You can connect with customers in the perfect moment, and help them find the most relevant options with new Google Search features.
Ads in AI Overviews are blending discovery and decision, while Google Lens and Circle to Search are creating new moments of intent.
With over 20 billion visual searches each month on Google Lens globally,12 1 in 4 have a commercial intent.13 The launch of AI Overviews has also resulted in an increasing volume of commercial queries.14
Serving ads across all Google surfaces — from Search to Display, YouTube and Maps — lets you connect with customers online and ensure the products on your shelves are digitally discoverable. Whether the purchase takes place online or offline, shoppers decide what to purchase on Google and YouTube.
Online and offline sales are intrinsically linked, so measurement should be omnichannel too
As marketers, we’ve historically thought that where final sale takes place — offline or online — matters most. But does it? This classification isn’t how modern omnichannel customers are shopping. So, it’s time to rethink measurement to capture the full omnichannel impact.
According to McKinsey & Company, marketing performance is the top priority for marketing leaders, but they still lag behind on execution.15 To maximise the value of your advertising investments, it just takes one change to your conversion objectives. Rather than setting just an e-commerce objective, widen your thinking and set an omnichannel KPI that reflects your consumers’ behaviour. As you consider return on ad spend and value-based bidding from a truly omnichannel perspective, the same Google AI driving your e-commerce results will now supercharge your total business impact.
Ready to take an omnichannel approach to growth? Think customer-first. Aim for easy and enjoyable offline and online experiences that allow shoppers to flow freely through every phase of their journey with confidence — and ultimately, power up your profitability.
