Unified commerce is undeniably a hot topic, but few understand its importance. For a broader view, let’s revisit the roots of contemporary retail.
In 1852, the Parisian shop “Le Bon Marché” opened its doors to sell apparel, household items, decor, sewing materials, and furniture. With four sections, 12 employees, and 300 square metres of floor space, it was the world’s first department store. Customers could come in, browse to their heart’s content, and leave with whatever they fancied.
Fast forward to 2021. Online-only retailer Amazon has announced the opening of 97 brick-and-mortar stores across the U.S.
After famously dominating global retail with its vast e-commerce value-adds since 1995, Amazon is now giving shoppers the privilege of trying on, sampling, and inspecting the goods before closing a sale: the same novel concept that Le Bon Marché made popular in the 19th century!
‘Why this? Why now?’ you ask.
The answer is simple. Between 1852 and 2021, and features like same-day delivery and click and collect, the modern retail customer has maintained a habit of constantly shifting needs.
Nearly 150 years on, the customer is still always right - and it’s up to businesses to leverage a customer experience strategy that makes them truly happy.
There are many benefits of transitioning from multichannel commerce to a unified commerce model. The key to this is the adoption of intuitive software that facilitates customer experience management and information exchange across all business units.
Multichannel commerce uses marketing channels like email, social, and direct mail combined with sales channels like the brick-and-mortar store or online store. However, each channel continues to operate independently. As a result, crucial items like customer profiling, communications, offers, point of sale, and inventory are disjointed.
Unified commerce, on the other hand, involves using a tightly integrated technology stack to build a customer-driven ecosystem that takes care of the entire customer loyalty lifecycle: from marketing to order fulfilment to after-sales care.
The goal is not only a ‘single view of customer’ and a free flow of data from all angles but also a ‘single view of brand’ for each and every known customer. Allowing them to pick up where they left off regardless of which experience they are engaging with at this moment
A customer data platform CDP that integrates the storefront and back end typically only makes 360-degree view of CUSTOMER possible. It weaves across the entire buyer journey to provide insight that informs and improves business decisions.
However, customer experience platforms that unify commerce experiences can holistically map the customer journey. It provides transparency into purchase history, channel preferences, promo use, and more, to enable true personalisation.
Connected to your broader technology stack, you can provide visibility across the supply chain, order and inventory, and fulfilment options, streamlining information for the customer to shape the experience they want from purchase through pickup.
And the numbers themselves don’t lie. A study by Kibo Commerce uncovered that brands who engaged in some level of unified commerce were 600% more likely to have an increase in either commerce or e-commerce revenue.
Further, 31% of businesses in the advanced stages of their unified commerce journey point out that their e-commerce platform, as well as its capabilities, is a central tool to their customer experience strategy.
So how do you design a unified e-commerce system that is effective, gives you the data visibility you need and ultimately, leads to a better customer experience?
The best unified commerce models comprise four main parts:
Interactions
Interactions in unified commerce refer to both the business’ interactions with their customers, as well as the business units’ interaction within and amongst each other as they collaborate to deliver a personalised and satisfactory customer experience.
Channels
In the unified commerce ecosystem, each customer engagement channel is capable of giving an authentically delightful customer experience that flows continually and isn’t interrupted should the customer toggle between multiple channels.
Systems
Core to the unified commerce model is the use of a loyalty software that interlaces all customer-facing and backend retail management systems and processes. This all-encompassing coverage spans point of sale (POS) systems, e-commerce platforms, order and inventory management and fulfilment, and channel and marketplace management.
Products
Product information across channels is key in realising unified commerce. Customers should be able to encounter a consistent message, whether they are asking for the details in-store, over social, or on the website.
The following are crucial steps you need to take to prepare for your switch to unified commerce.
1. Review your interdepartmental tech
Take time to survey how much of your current technologies already speak with one another. Explore and determine where the silos are, and study the potential negative impact this has on your other operational areas.
2. Audit your buyer journey
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and take a deep dive into the customer experience your business currently offers. If you want to give it a complete overhaul, you want to make sure you completely understand it and then, develop strategies for improving it. Technology should never be a limiting factor, only your ability to articulate what you want your customer’s to experience.
3. Optimise your data management
Unified commerce puts data integrity at the forefront of its success. Figure out how you can map your business so that you are able to collect, analyse, and extract insights from the customer data that your platform gathers at every customer touchpoint, in the best possible way.
4. Find the right technology platform for you
If you aspire to become a self-contained unified commerce unit, you need to move at a pace that stays one step ahead of the customer, anticipating their wants and needs.
Core to this strategy is having customer relationship management software on hand that can establish data visibility, hygiene, and management in order to deliver a consistently satisfying experience throughout all key points within the customer journey.
The ideal customer experience software supports partner integration and operating system optimisation at speed and scale while undoing the application entanglements typical in legacy IT systems.
Further, staying ahead of the customer experience curve requires that you use a platform wherein you can easily upgrade and add new features and functionalities in a manner that is quick, easy, and cost-smart.
Don’t get too tied up on the differences between the terms CDP, CRM and CXP, as there is often a lot of overlap in what platforms badged as such achieve for your brand. Focus on your desired customer experience - our take on these terms could be summarised as:
Unified commerce isn’t the future of retail. It’s the present - and in many ways a reinvention of its past. If your business isn’t keeping up, your customers may leave you behind.
Going through these four stages of review is important for you to be able to dream up your vision, lay down your goals, and map out your strategy for your journey to unified commerce.
Chat with us today and learn how Omneo’s integrated customer experience software can help you transform your retail flow into a fully integrated unified commerce business.
