Here’s what I don’t think about: A retailer’s legacy systems or the challenges in breaking down entrenched silos between a merchant’s online and offline operations.

Shopping should be simple. If Retailer A operates a website, an app and stores, a shopper understandably should see each of those channels as one and the same. He shouldn’t need to know about the challenges that Retailer A deals with to link its online and in-store inventory management systems or the challenges that Retailer A faces when handling an in-store return when the item being returned was delivered by a drop-shipper.

That places the onus on retailers to work behind the scenes to connect the dots between their online and offline operations. After all, consumers’ use of omnichannel services is growing quickly. Just look at these findings from a July 2018 Internet Retailer consumer survey…

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