【Vienna, Aust】HANDELSVERBAND OMNICHANNEL READINESS INDEX 2020

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Editor’s Note

This article highlights the 2020 Omnichannel Readiness Index for Austrian retail, with hardware chains Hornbach and OBI leading in effectively blending digital and physical shopping experiences.

Handelsverband Omnichannel Readiness Index 3.0 (ORI): Hornbach & OBI Hardware Stores Take First Place

Handelsverband, Google, MindTake, and g-Xperts present the third edition of the report on the digital status of Austrian retail.
Vienna, May 27, 2020
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Researching online, yes, but not giving up on in-store services: The trend of combining both channels – online and offline – in a single purchase process continues unabated. The two hardware store giants Hornbach and Obi serve this trend particularly well, as shown by the Handelsverband benchmark “Omnichannel Readiness Index 2020.” With “Open ORI,” Handelsverband and Google are for the first time making all the criteria of the report available as an interactive checklist.

The Webshop as the “Digital Twin” of the Store

Online shopping just as if you were in the store, only from your sofa, around the clock: Selecting from available items, having items set aside, and picking them up when it’s convenient. Without shipping costs, without advance payment, and with the possibility to try on the goods and, if necessary, leave them in the store. The trend is moving towards the webshop as a “digital image of the familiar store.” The consumer wants to know the inventory without having to drive there. And reliable opening hours to avoid a wasted trip. Advice? By phone with click-to-call directly to the store or online via “ask a question about the product.”
This is the picture painted by the brand-new Omnichannel Readiness Index 2020. Consumer wishes for Click & Collect, Reserve & Collect, payment upon pickup, and the ability to call the store directly are already being served quite well by the 45 retailers examined.
However, a large gap between customer desire and reality is also evident:
81% of consumers wish to be able to filter products in the webshop that are available in a specific store. However, only 13% of retailers offer this – still double the number from last year. A similar situation exists with the function to ask questions about a product in the online shop: Only 11% of retailers offer this.

“Our Omnichannel Readiness Index 2020 clearly shows: The importance of the online shop as a digital copy of the familiar store is increasing, as is the importance of the cross-channel interplay between webshop and brick-and-mortar store. The Corona crisis fuels this trend, as the desire for regional products increases just as much as the appetite for online shopping. Meanwhile, two-thirds of brick-and-mortar sales in Austria are digitally influenced. This value continues to increase during the crisis, as older target groups have also become more digitally savvy during the lockdown. Online consultation is becoming increasingly important. While minutes count in the store, you only have seconds in the webshop to win the customer’s trust,” says Rainer Will, Managing Director of the Handelsverband.

That the consumer is increasingly shopping regionally is also shown by the visits to the Austrian webshop directory of the Handelsverband www.ecommerceaustria.at.

“This year’s ORI study also shows great potential for Austrian retailers, among other things in the use of Google Maps. 3 out of 4 customers who perform a local search on their smartphone – for example, searching for ‘hardware store near me’ – subsequently visit a store within 24 hours. This number impressively shows how important the integration of online and offline is today. We are pleased to see that ORI is being used so strongly – as a basis for the right investments by retailers as part of their omnichannel strategy,” says Judith Dobretzberger, Retail Lead at Google Austria.
Google Maps and Google My Business: The Realm of Untapped Opportunities

New in the third edition 2020 is the detailed analysis conducted by g-Xperts of the 45 retailers examined regarding their performance and potential utilization on Google Maps. Here too, enormous potential still lies dormant.

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⏰ Published on: May 27, 2020