The Omnichannel Retail Index powered by OSF Digital's Strategy team, formerly known as FitForCommerce, takes the pulse of the state of digital commerce and omnichannel retail. Launched in 2015 with the NRF, every year the Index depicts how leading U.S. retailers and brands are delivering on the omnichannel promise. The Index highlights industry trends and best practices that can help you build your omnichannel roadmap and make more informed and smarter investment decisions.
Although the past years have catapulted the adoption of critical digital and omnichannel capabilities, the majority of retailers and brands still have miles to go in order to meet continued rising shopper demands for seamless, convenient, and relevant shopping experiences across all customer touchpoints.
When the Omnichannel Retail Index was first launched in 2015, the overall adoption of digital and omnichannel best practice capabilities was 54%. Today, the overall adoption of best practices is 61% – down from 62% in 2021. Although a greater number of retailers and brands have taken giant leaps forward with adoption rates between 72% and 85%, the majority fall below the average, leaving much room for improvement. The industry, as a whole, must do better in keeping up with customer demands.
You dedicate time, resources and budget toward delivering the best customer and omnichannel shopping experience possible. But are you truly meeting customer expectations? And how do you compare to your competition? Based on ongoing analysis of web, mobile and in-store channels, the Omnichannel Retail Index benchmarks key omnichannel capabilities across customer touchpoints. Get your Omnichannel Retail Index score along with industry and competitive insights to help prioritize your omnichannel and digital roadmap.
The Omnichannel Retail Index was launched in 2015 in partnership with The National Retail Federation and FitForCommerce, now OSF Digital's Strategy group. Since 2015, every year, we examine how 100-125 top retailers and brands embrace and deliver digital and omnichannel capabilities.
In January 2022, OSF Digital, a leading provider of digital transformation services to companies worldwide, with vast experience in the retail industry, completed the acquisition of FitForCommerce, highly regarded experts in digital commerce and omnichannel retail. FitForCommerce now operates as the digital strategy consulting arm of OSF Digital.
With this acquisition, OSF Digital consolidates its retail practice, providing businesses looking to start or accelerate their digital transformation journey, with more extensive strategic services and thought leadership resources, including the Omnichannel Retail Index.
Every year, through mystery shopping, our consultants benchmark how leading retailers and brands perform against 250+ web, mobile, store and cross-channel capabilities. The framework of the study remains the same, but as the industry evolves, the criteria that we benchmark against is constantly evaluated and updated as needed. Over the years, we have launched special editions focused on regions or industries such as Grocery and Malls.
Through detailed and extensive mystery-shopping by OSF Digital's Strategy consultants, the 2022 Omnichannel Retail Index examines how 115 retailers (22 of which are online only) perform against 250+ criteria across web, mobile, and in-store. Constantly evolving benchmarking criteria are based on our deep digital and omnichannel experience and knowledge of current best practices across the entire customer journey. We evaluate the compiled data and assess the scores and rankings that serve as the basis for this report.
For more information about the Omnichannel Retail Index criteria and to learn how your company stacks up, please contact us.
While the Omnichannel Retail Index measures the adoption of features and functions, it does not shed light on the implementation or performance of a specific feature. For instance, if Retailer A and Retailer B both include product recommendations on the product detail page, they get the same score. The score does not take into account if Retailer A’s product recommendations are highly personalized to the individual shopper, while Retailer B leverages a basic product recommendation widget. It’s also important to note that a best practice for one vertical may not be applicable to another. For example, the auto-ship/replenishment capability may be a best practice for pet supplies or office supplies, but would not apply for jewelry.
The adoption of best practice criteria does not guarantee retail success; other factors such as merchandise assortment and mix, inventory availability, marketing, acquisition debt, and worldwide pandemics all impact retail performance. However, the criteria and findings do reveal how retailers and brands meet customer demands, and organizations can use these insights to assess current capabilities and prioritize their customer experience roadmap.
Every year, the Omnichannel Retail Index study includes 100-125 leading retailers and brands in North America. Most sell via multiple channels, but the Index does include some online-only retailers to get insights on how both segments perform. The 2022 Index includes 115 companies across 14 different verticals covering apparel, home furnishings, footwear, electronics and more.
While the majority of companies have been part of the Index since 2015, the volatility of the industry slightly impacts the list of companies that are included every year.
