Is your omnichannel strategy missing the point?

Online and offline shopping is blurring. Carly Johnson of Momentum Worldwide explains why the key to winning shoppers is understanding how they move between channels.

Shoppers “appreciate that different channels solve different needs at different moments,” says Johnson (Jazael Melgoza/Unsplash)

Omnichannel marketing has been considered the gold standard for brands navigating an increasingly fragmented media landscape and fluid shopping behaviors. The ambition to be present wherever consumers are – across screens, stores, and moments – will remain the North Star. What is changing, however, is not the ‘why’ of omnichannel, but the ‘how.’ Specifically, what it truly means for a brand to be ‘omnipresent’ in the lives of its consumers.

In December 2025, Momentum launched one of our hallmark research initiatives, the We Know Shoppers Global Study, to better understand how shoppers define themselves and experience omnichannel. One of the most telling insights was how intuitively shoppers differentiate the roles of physical and digital retail in their purchase journeys. Sixty percent of global respondents told us they view in-store and online as serving distinct, purpose-driven functions, rather than interchangeable ones. At the same time, half of those shoppers still expect a seamless experience across channels.

This presents an important reframing: ‘seamless’ does not necessarily mean the same as it used to.

Shopper mindset

As shoppers have grown more fluent in moving between physical and digital environments, they have come to value each channel for what it uniquely delivers. Rather than expecting the same experience everywhere, they appreciate that different channels solve different needs at different moments. Shoppers increasingly understand how each channel supports their decision-making and instinctively lean on them differently depending on how close (or not) they are to making a purchase.

This evolution in shopper behavior raises a critical question for brands: what does effective omnichannel execution look like going forward, particularly in how creative and media are deployed across physical and digital environments?

The answer starts with shopper mindset, not channel presence. Where is the shopper in the purchase funnel at a given moment? Are they in shop-mode, actively exploring and evaluating? Or buy-mode, ready to convert? And which channels – and experiences within those channels – are best suited to move them from consideration to transaction?

Spoiler: the answer isn’t going to be a consistent framework that can be replicated across every brand and category. The era of a single, uniform omnichannel framework is coming to an end.

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Consistency still matters, but sameness does not. As shopper expectations mature, brands that win will be those that differentiate their execution based on a deeper, more nuanced understanding of shopper mindset, how people shop within a specific category, how they move between channels for that brand, and what role each environment plays at different moments in the journey. Omnichannel advantage will no longer come from repetition across touchpoints, but from relevance within them.

Paying attention

The future of omnichannel will not be defined by being everywhere, but by designing each channel to do what it does best and orchestrating them to work together with intention.

Influences that drive purchase (Momentum Worldwide)

The research underscores the importance of this approach. We are doubling down on the role of in-store as the single largest influence in moving consumers from shop-mode to buy-mode (see graph), while leveraging digital media as a powerful mechanism to drive intent and accelerate conversion. In-person shopping fulfills an emotional need (72% of respondents agree) that supports brand choice and fuels future loyalty, effectively bridging the gap between brand activity and commerce.

The data is compelling. Seventy-nine percent of global respondents say they would consider a new brand, and 77% report adding unplanned items to their basket, simply because they were exposed to something in-store that caught their attention. And shoppers are paying attention. Nearly half say they “almost always” or “often” notice in-store marketing, with sampling and branded displays cited as the most effective. Now more than ever, winning brands are those that bring upper-funnel experiences into lower-funnel environments, recognizing that the moment of purchase is no longer just transactional; it is a powerful brand-building opportunity.