Sweden is the best omnichannel country in Scandinavia

Sweden is the best country in Scandinavia when it comes to omnichannel retail, a new study shows. However, there are still plenty of retailers who are defined as omnichannel laggards. Especially in the furniture and interior industry, companies haven’t fully embraced an omnichannel strategy, while in consumer electronics omnichannel is more common.

The study was conducted by Yougov on behalf of Avensia, after the ecommerce expert company conducted a research regarding omnichannel retail last year. Back then it showed that Swedish companies had not done enough to integrate their online and offline sales channels. Now it followed up with a new report, which shows however Sweden is still the best omnichannel country in Scandinavia.

Intersport and SIBA best at omnichannel
Avensia looked at well-known retailers that operate in each country’s market. It asked questions (or looked for the answers on the retailers’ websites) like “is it possible to see the stock from brick-and-mortar stores online?” and “does your customers receive loyalty points when purchasing both online and in-store?”. The best omnichannel player in Sweden and throughout Scandinavia is Intersport. In Sweden, only 2 of the examined 30 retailers score above 80 and can be called omnichannel, according to the researchers. In Norway, none of the retailers score above 80, while in Denmark only Intersport scores this result.

‘Many company will be overrun by pure players’
“Some of the surveyed companies have been proven very successful in creating omnichannel strategies. Still many companies are stuck in old business models and will soon be overrun by pure players and other more agile companies”, Jörgen Bertilsson, vice president Global Sales at Avensia, says. “Working with incremental change is not enough, consumer behavior changes dramatically and so must the retailers. The landscape development is now moving in a faster pace than the companies are able to adapt to. This leads to a shift of power in the market.”