With the rapid growth of online retail sales worldwide, a casual observer might understandably believe that the future of commerce is online. In fact, the future of commerce is omnichannel—blending online and offline modalities for a seamless shopping experience that allows customers to engage with your brand in person, on their mobile devices, or wherever and however they please.

Bringing an offline business online or translating an online experience to in-person is an important step, but it’s only the first one.

In an era of on-the-go everything, off-the-cuff reviews on social media, and an increasing array of distractions competing for your customers’ attention, customer convenience is paramount. It’s what leads to stickier customer experiences, brand loyalty, and more purchases.

So what does an omnichannel experience look like?

Our customer can offer businesses a fully integrated, frictionless solution for accepting payments in-person and online, with whatever payment method their customers prefer, while providing a seamless brand experience at each touchpoint. On the back end, the platform can unlock new revenue streams from its customers’ in-person sales, while also simplifying and accelerating its global expansion efforts.

Omnichannel means that customers can engage with your brand wherever and however suits them best. It saves them time and makes their lives easier. It’s the friendliest and most flexible way of showing them that you want their business.

If omnichannel is mission-critical, why aren’t more businesses adopting it? Creating a payments system that works seamlessly across online and in-person experiences can be challenging, particularly if your business has historically operated through just one channel.

Customers are growing more accustomed to buying internationally, which creates a huge opportunity for business growth. But global expansion also presents a whole new set of challenges involving regulatory approvals, acquiring relationships, setting up local payment methods, and understanding taxation and regulations.

Taking your business omnichannel, whether at home or across borders, can also result in a muddled and disjointed brand experience where the visual identity is inconsistent or the checkout experience isn’t as easy or convenient as they’ve grown accustomed to. Off-the-shelf solutions don’t offer the level of customization required to create a cohesive experience across channels.

On the business side, creating an omnichannel solution from scratch can take months, as well as resources and expertise in compliance and security, which a company might not have at the ready. To make matters more complex, for businesses that don’t have a single payments stack, an omnichannel approach can result in a disjointed customer master that’s maintained in multiple places. Having siloed data makes it much harder to understand and manage customer loyalty, personalize your approach to repeat customers, and manage inventory across different channels.

The good news for businesses wanting to go omnichannel is that you don’t have to tackle any of these challenges on your own. That’s where MYFUNDBOX and Stripe come in. Together, we can help you deliver a seamless customer experience with a flexible and scalable payments solution, while you enjoy better insights into your business with unified customer data and streamlined reconciliation and reporting across all your payments and cross-channel inventory.

The tools available to you through MYFUNDBOX and Stripe can help you not only bridge, but unify, multiple commerce channels. Stripe Terminal, for example, helps you extend Stripe payments to your point of sale, creating a custom in-store checkout experience that’s fully aligned with your brand—no in-person payments expertise or months of development work needed.

If you’re an in-person retailer, Stripe makes it easy to take your business online and start accepting online payments immediately across borders and with your customers’ preferred payment methods. Stripe allows you to accept all major debit and credit cards from 190 countries, in more than 135 currencies, and offer 45 payment methods, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, more than 20 popular local payment methods like SEPA and Alipay, and buy now, pay later methods like Klarna—all with no additional coding. Meanwhile, protect your customers and your business with built-in fraud protection that leverages the scale of the Stripe network.

There’s a lot happening behind the scenes, but we’ve done the heavy lifting to make your business more accessible and frictionless at every touchpoint in the customer journey. All your customers will notice is how easy it was to do business with you.

Reach out at online chat here to know more about how we can help take your business omnichannel.