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Many retailers offer shopping through stores, websites and apps without making those channels work as one. In a 2025 survey of 300 U.S. retail leaders, 87% said customer experience was a high or very high priority, yet 59% said their businesses were failing to deliver a fully unified omnichannel experience. The gap is not simply a shortage of digital touchpoints: it is whether inventory, orders and service context carry through when a customer switches channels.
What a unified omnichannel experience requires
Being present in several channels is not the same as connecting them. A retailer may have stores, a website, an app and pickup service, yet still make customers repeat information or discover that an item shown as available cannot be found at the store.
A useful way to assess the experience is to follow the shopper through four connected moments: shopping, checkout, fulfillment and service. Manhattan Associates and Incisiv use those areas in their 2026 specialty-retail benchmark. Continuity means the customer can move between them without losing relevant product availability, order details or service context.
The benchmark assessed more than 400 specialty retailers across EMEA, LATAM and North America. It placed 7% in its unified-commerce leader category and 33% in its Basic category. These are the study’s own classifications, not a universal grading system, and the percentages should not be treated as directly comparable with results from other surveys. Manhattan Associates and Incisiv’s 2026 benchmark
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Why retailers remain disconnected
Legacy systems and organizational silos
Connecting a customer journey often requires systems and teams that were built to operate separately to share usable information. A 2025 Retail Economics study of 100 senior UK retail decision-makers found that only one in five felt their business delivered a truly unified experience. Respondents identified legacy systems, silos, slow decisions and disconnected teams as barriers. This is a UK survey finding, not a measure of retailers worldwide. Retail Economics’ 2025 study
Store inventory is harder to trust
A website can promise local availability or pickup only if its inventory data is reliable enough to support that promise. McKinsey’s fulfillment analysis, published circa 2021, estimated store inventory accuracy at 70–90%, compared with more than 99.5% in distribution centers. Those estimates illustrate why a store’s stock record may not match what staff can actually locate; they are not a current, universal benchmark.
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Store fulfillment brings extra operational work
Stores can be used for pickup or to fulfill online orders, but picking, substitutions and exceptions add work to locations that may not be staffed or laid out for high-volume fulfillment. McKinsey reported that, for most retailers, store picking typically costs 1.5 to 2 times more per pick than distribution-center picking. It also points to inventory accuracy, forecasting, labor cost and execution quality—especially at peak—as constraints. McKinsey’s analysis of store-based fulfillment
Improving one step does not connect the whole journey
A faster checkout or a new pickup option can help customers, but neither by itself connects shopping, payment, fulfillment and service. If staff cannot see the relevant order or customer context when an issue arises, the customer still experiences separate channels rather than one continuing relationship.
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How far has progress gone?
Several studies point to a gap, but they use different populations and methods. Their results are useful in context, not as a single league table.
| Finding | Population and source | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| 59% said their business was failing to deliver a fully unified omnichannel experience; 87% rated customer experience a high or very high priority. | Priority Software, 2025 survey of 300 U.S. retail leaders. Survey findings | Reports leaders’ views in this U.S. sample, not the share of all retailers or shoppers. |
| 7% were classified as unified-commerce leaders; 33% were in the Basic category. | Manhattan Associates and Incisiv, 2026 benchmark of more than 400 specialty retailers across EMEA, LATAM and North America. Benchmark overview | Uses the study’s categories and specialty-retail sample. |
| 38% of capabilities that differentiated leaders in 2024 had become table stakes by 2026. | Manhattan Associates, 2026 benchmark announcement. Announcement | A vendor-published benchmark finding; examples include basic real-time inventory visibility, digital wallets and cross-channel support. |
| 62% average adoption of omnichannel best practices. | OSF Digital, 2025 Omnichannel Retail Index. Index findings | An index score based on its own assessment method, with identified gaps in personalization, customer service and mobile experience. |
| Only one in five felt they delivered a truly unified experience. | Retail Economics, 2025 study of 100 senior retail decision-makers in the UK. Study findings | A survey of senior decision-makers, with a distinct geography and sample from the U.S. and multinational studies above. |
Taken together, the findings suggest that leaders’ stated focus on customer experience does not guarantee connected execution. They do not establish one universal rate of omnichannel performance: each figure reflects its source’s sample, definitions and method.
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What retailers should evaluate before adding another channel feature
Retailers choosing where to invest should test both what customers experience and what operations can reliably deliver. A feature that looks unified in a digital interface can disappoint if the store cannot fulfill its promise.
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- Operational reliability: Are inventory records accurate enough to support availability promises? Can the operation meet its expected fulfillment speed while accounting for labor, picking costs and exceptions?
These checks help distinguish a genuinely connected capability from another isolated touchpoint. A retailer’s size, store footprint, product mix, geography and existing systems all affect which changes are practical; the available evidence does not show that one architecture or fulfillment model is best for every business.
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Why the target keeps moving
Customer expectations and the meaning of differentiation change as capabilities spread. Manhattan Associates’ 2026 announcement says that 38% of capabilities that differentiated leaders in 2024 had become table stakes by 2026, including basic real-time inventory visibility, digital wallets and cross-channel support. That is a vendor-published benchmark finding, not an independent standard for every retailer. It helps explain why adding a feature may close an obvious gap without, on its own, creating a unified experience.
Quick Recap
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