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bricks and mortar

The perfect blend: Four capabilities to look for in a liquor retail tech partner

Can your liquor retail business keep up with customer demand for new digital experiences?

Brick-and-mortar sales still dominate the liquor retail sector, with online sales languishing at single-digit percentages of total sales.

However, the move to online is real, with liquor online sales globally estimated to grow 4.5% between 2022 and 2027, reaching nearly US$40 billion by 2027.

This growth in online sales is introducing more complexity into the business, with channels becoming less physical and more digital. And that’s why everyone’s focussed on finding the right systems to rebuild their businesses from the bottom up for omnichannel retail.

But at a time when 2 in 5 retailers (40%) lack in-house expertise to make the most of new technologies, and only 25% of retailers can connect online and store data, they know that working with the right people and the right technologies will make the roll-out of new customer experiences much easier, and deliver results much faster.

So, how do you evaluate a new retail platform provider?

There are four important capabilities they will need to provide:

1.    Expertise across all retail, not just liquor

You’ll want a mature retail platform that supports liquor and convenience, rather than a narrow, liquor-specific POS system.

A partner with experience in highly competitive retail industries - like fashion and big-box retail - will have expertise in disrupting the customer experience, with APIs and a retail ecosystem few can match.

They’ll bring best practice ideas and capabilities from other retail sectors - not just liquor retail - and have POS omnichannel expertise distilled into all the essential modules you need to deliver seamless and differentiating experiences in stores, online and on mobile apps.

And with all the core liquor features you need out-of-the-box - plus localised functionality and the ability to customise – you’ll achieve a faster return on investment.

2.    Real-world customer experience

A strong track record and referenceable customer base means less risk.

You’ll want a partner with recent and proven success in liquor and convenience retail, with a track record of complex, large-scale deployments across multiple stores, multiple formats and multiple geographies.  

They’ll need to understand your environment where fast service is non-negotiable, staff require specialist knowledge and transaction volumes are highly variable. Make sure they have people who can help you plan and implement your projects, so that they deliver now and well into the future.

Their experience in the liquor sector will give them a deep understanding of the trends changing mobility and convenience, and bring you the best of consumer, retail and CX applications and technologies.

3.    Broad product capability and innovation mindset

Choose a partner that can give you a holistic portfolio and expansive retail ecosystem.

Offering a unified customer experience means unifying all the front- and back-end systems that run POS, inventory, ordering, customers and loyalty, pricing and promotions, analytics and fulfilment. You don’t want to be tied to a point player that can only provide segments.

When you choose a partner with a mature platform, they can focus on delivering innovation because the critical functionality you need already exists.

An open architecture and APIs will let you cultivate a modern retail and CX ecosystem that reduces risk and increases flexibility.

And with agile methodologies plus experience working with agile retailers, they’ll have the ability to move to fast and change direction as opportunities develop, competitors act and customer needs evolve.

4.    Local and committed to your success

A local partner means you can have more influence on the product roadmap and expect faster turnaround.

Liquor retailers are creating distinctive omnichannel customer experiences by developing strong brands, offering tailored convenience, expanding the breadth of their product offerings (or moving into specialist categories) and generating new revenue streams.

They recognise the risk that comes with global vendors that have a narrow focus on liquor POS or an indirect model of engagement and support.

A local business means you can enjoy direct engagement with on-the-ground people focussed on your needs, and not distracted by offshore business activity. With direct access to second and third level support and simple processes, you’ll enjoy leaner, faster support services.

Biggest isn’t always best. A mid-sized company will have fewer layers of bureaucracy, giving them more agility and responsiveness.

It also means that you’ll be an important customer of influence to your partner - they will value your business and work hard for it.

Want help to deliver a personalised, fast and seamless CX?

Our product and people are supporting award-winning retailers delivering disruptive, world-first customer experiences that build loyalty and grow sales. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you digitise your business to create the unified experiences your customers now expect.

For more on how to deliver every customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our ebook:

6 omnichannel retail painpoints unified commerce solves

With rising customer expectations for a cohesive and consistent shopping experience, many retailers have hit a wall because their omnichannel efforts can’t meet today’s retail demands. Here Kelly Brown describes six major challenges you will face in omnichannel retail, and how to solve them.

Customers today are delightfully unreasonable, and expect to transact when, where and however they want. They don’t care how you achieve it and will reward you if you have it - or shop elsewhere if you don’t. 

Retailers are responding by building a customer-centric approach to retail, using technology and experiences to enhance the brand, drive sales and grow loyalty.  

However, it’s complicated.  

Many omnichannel retail solutions can look smooth on the surface but have rough patches underneath. They include legacy solutions that are no longer fit for purpose, and channels operating in functional silos. Things can easily unravel.  

And when 75% of retailers are unable to connect their online and in-store transaction data, most struggle to create a unified user experience that traverses easily between online and offline channels.  

If you’re looking at how to keep pace with changing customer expectations, here are the most common challenges retailers face as they build their omnichannel systems, and how they can be remedied with a unified commerce approach. 

1

Inventory that isn’t real time

Managing inventory is a retailer’s biggest challenge — no matter their size. It’s also the biggest cost. Many retailers launched digital commerce channels without getting their inventory right and can only access rudimentary sales and inventory positions. That prevents them from offering the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for them.  

The solution: Optimise inventory and availability  

One of the most compelling benefits of unified commerce is a single view of stock across all stores and DCs. This means you can quickly see where inventory is and therefore the fastest place to fulfil from. You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster. And you’ll increase sales by using ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels).  

2

Blending physical and digital experiences 

Services such as click-and-collect, ship-from-store, find-in-store and returns anywhere are all just table stakes today. Many retailers implemented quick-fixes to swiftly get new capabilities up-and-running, but now need a long-term unified solution to connect backend systems and deliver the omnichannel experiences customers expect. 

The solution: Create relevant and agile experiences 

With a unified inventory you can increase your purchasing, ordering and fulfilment options to provide customers with frictionless experiences and access to your entire range from any location. A single platform gives everyone across channels and stores the ability to view all customer touchpoints in real time. And you can extend your range across more sales channels such as in-store kiosks, shoppable screens, pop-up stores, concessions and mobile devices. 

3

Obtaining a single view of the customer  

Today consumers don’t think in terms of channels. They now expect a “one-brand” experience that lets them shop at any time, using any channel, from any device, at the best price. But if you’ve got siloed backend systems and processes that mean your customers must deal with inconsistencies and gaps, you simply cannot offer a seamless customer experience.  

The solution: Personalise your customer experience  

The ability to see each customer’s shopping preferences and purchase history across all channels is critical for building personalised shopping experiences. With a unified commerce platform providing a holistic view of your customers, you can better plan your pricing and promotion strategies and get the right offer or message to the right customer, at the right time and right place. By creating remarkable customer experiences that meet or even exceed consumer expectations, you can ensure customers return, again and again. 

4

Integrating data silos

Retailers use multiple customer-facing and back-office systems, spanning POS, mobile apps, inventory management, ecommerce, CRM, fulfilment, finance, marketing and more. Often loosely connected with manual processes and custom integrations, these omnichannel solutions are fragile, inefficient and costly to maintain. 

The solution: Lower cost of ownership 

A single commerce platform gives you a leaner and more flexible architecture that reduces the need for reconciliation and manual processes to maintain and manage data and functions, and there is only one system to secure. Exposing data and functions (rather than moving and replicating them) makes integration faster and standards-based, improving efficiency, decreasing errors and increasing accuracy. Third parties can easily plug in, building the ecosystem of retail software, tools, resources and devices you can add and change to match your business needs.  

5

Adding modern technologies and capabilities  

To keep pace with consumer demands for omnichannel services, retailers need to create and deploy new apps, services and channels. However, connecting legacy systems with modern technologies requires custom integrations, and creating new brand experiences is complex, costly, time consuming and risky.  

The solution: Accelerate speed to market  

With a single platform, there’s less work required to plug in and implement new functions across channels, test cycles are reduced, and you’ll use development capacity more effectively. You can run experiments to test new customer experience innovations and easily move the successful experiments into enterprise-wide operations. These improvements in IT efficiency and flexibility let you launch new tools and services to meet business demands and start seeing revenue benefits faster. 

6

Unifying employee experiences 

After years of underinvestment, many retailers are playing catch-up with the employee experience. Their stores often lack the tools and systems that enable their people to deliver the relevant and personalised customer experiences that match online shopping’s price, speed and convenience.  

The solution: Boost in-store productivity and sales

By arming your store staff with the right customer data and tools, combined with AI-driven recommendations, they can more easily make decisions, provide personalised upselling advice, sell inventory at any location and serve customers faster, anywhere in the store. You’ll enhance customer interactions, improve the employee experience and increase conversions.  

This blog was originally published on 13 December 2022 and updated 20 May 2024

Can you keep up with your customers’ expectations? 

Retailers are unifying their backend systems to create the seamless and convenient experiences customers now expect. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital experiences, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the ability to create a compelling in-store experience harmonised with a digital offering for competitive advantage.

For more on how a move to a unified commerce strategy gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing needs, download our ebook:

Delivering a unified CX: liquor retail's new priority

Can you keep up with consumer demands for an omnichannel retail experience that doesn’t stop when they enter a store? Kelly Brown explains why liquor retailers are overhauling how they plan, build and deliver their CX, and shares three steps to take to remain relevant.

Customers today expect retailers to offer convenience, speed and value throughout the end-to-end shopping journey. They are more discerning and impatient, and don’t care that it can be hard to deliver – they only care about a great experience.  

That is driving a massive shift in how liquor retailers plan, build and deliver their customer experience.  

The retailers making the first move know that a compelling bricks-and-mortar presence blended with an improved digital offering can be leveraged for competitive advantage. And that means seamlessly integrating all back-end systems and channels to deliver experiences that align with customer expectations.   

However, it’s complicated.  

While liquor retail has always been challenging – fast service is non-negotiable, staff require specialised knowledge and transaction volumes are highly variable – this requires a fundamental transformation of the standard business model.  

Liquor retail has been a laggard in creating new digital experiences and investing in technology to improve front- and back-end operations. Many liquor retailers have legacy solutions that are no longer fit for purpose and have bolted on solutions for the digital space that don’t easily integrate.   

Brick-and-mortar sales still dominate, with online sales growing but still languishing at single-digit percentages of total sales-digit percentages of total sales. Change is difficult in a sector with regulatory restrictions on alcohol delivery, age verification requirements and the more ‘sensory’ experience a store can offer.  

And at a time when 75% of retailers can’t connect their online and in-store transaction data, many struggle to deliver the cohesive, consistent unified experiences customers now expect.   

So what steps can you take to differentiate your liquor retail business?  

Here’s a three-pronged strategy that will help create the distinctive omnichannel experiences customers now expect: 

1. Deliver a unified customer experience 

Focus on the end-to-end needs of your customers and revamp the customer journey to expand your relationship beyond quick visits to stock up on beverages.  

That means making purchasing online and in stores seamless and convenient through digital payments, endless aisle and ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ services coupled with fast and flexible on-demand delivery options. In-store pickup can drive foot traffic to physical locations. And leveraging data from online interactions can help in upselling and cross-selling.  

Take advantage of the shift in preference for neighbourhood shopping, with local product ranges tailored to each location and community, supported by bespoke promotional programmes.  

Use apps and your website to provide customers with personalised recommendations, invites to virtual tastings or opportunities to reserve products for in-store pickup, increasing their engagement and loyalty.  

The solution: Create a distinctive omnichannel customer experience by developing a strong brand, offering tailored convenience, expanding the breadth of product offerings (or moving into specialist categories) and generating new revenue streams. 

2. Unlock the value in your inventory

As you work towards delivering a compelling in-store experience blended with a digital offering, you’ll need to see a real-time view of all your inventory. If you don’t know the quantity of an item, where it is located, its current price nor status, you can’t offer the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for you.   

However, the average inventory accuracy rate for retailers is estimated at 63%, meaning around one third of inventory records are inaccurate due to discrepancies between physical stock and what's recorded in inventory management systems. And liquor retailers face additional challenges, such as strict regulations, varying product availability and high SKU diversity, that compound these difficulties.  

Inaccurate inventory stems from both systemic and operational challenges. Retailers often rely on traditional ERP systems or custom-built software that can’t provide the real-time updates needed for online sales and instant stock checks. On top of that, legacy systems not designed for real-time data exchange struggle to keep up with the demands of new sales channels, resulting in delayed or inaccurate product availability and pricing information.   

The use of multiple, often disconnected systems for various retail operations further compounds the problem, creating data silos that hinder the development of a unified view of inventory, sales and customer interactions. And when things go wrong, many resort to a quick fix rather than real, lasting solution, which means missing out on chances to really improve the shopping experience and operational efficiency. 

The solution: You’ll want a unified commerce platform that provides an accurate, real-time view of all your inventory and customer data across stores, DCs and digital channels. You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and increase ranging capabilities.  

3. Pivot into retail media services   

To remain relevant and competitive in the future, you’ll want to venture beyond traditional retailing and enter new service categories with a higher level of profitability.  

Retail media networks are emerging as one example in retail. A retail media network is a retailer’s advertising platform where they can sell ad space across all their digital assets, such as their website, apps, social channels and in-store digital screens.  

With the demise of revenue from third-party cookies, retail media helps alcohol brands to advertise to the right audience - people who want to purchase alcohol and are legally entitled to do so - and drive higher conversions that increase sales. And as online alcohol sales grow – 15.2% growth is expected between 2022 to 2030 - so will advertising revenues for retailers.  

The solution: With the alcohol industry’s advertising spend expected to reach $6bn in 2023, create a retail media division (or subsidiary) to capitalise on the advertising revenue opportunity and drive additional new growth. 

Want help to differentiate your liquor business? 

If you want to create distinctive and frictionless customer experiences across all physical and digital channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop a unified customer journey. 

For more on how to deliver every customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our new ebook:  

From bland to demand: 6 opportunities from increasing your IT spend

Are you confident your next tech investment will help achieve your strategic business goals by solving the challenges you face and creating new opportunities? 

In recent blogs we asked if retailers were spending enough on their IT and, if not, how to make the case for increasing spend. We also shared retailer’s top spending goals for 2024 and three investment priorities. 

Now we’re looking at the metrics retailers have set themselves to gauge their success in 2024, and the opportunities unleashed by increased IT spend.  

Even though it’s tempting to press pause during another challenging year, the most successful companies will be those that find ways to differentiate to meet changing customer demand.  

Retailers that are aggressive on growth – creating distinctive omnichannel customer experiences and expanding their product offerings, while also reducing costs over time - are the companies that will create value, meet customer needs and head off the competition.  

The most progressive and driven retailers know that they need to do it quickly. But at a time when only 25% of retailers can connect their online and in-store transaction data, many retailers struggle to create a unified user experience that traverses easily between online and offline channels.  

That’s why unified commerce is now firmly established as the dominant modern retail strategy, with 88% of retailers investing in unified commerce or considering doing so to unify online and store experiences and make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future.     

Making investments count 

So how do you ensure your next investment will drive growth in a muddled economic environment?  

As retailers ramp up their technology investments this year, they’ve put in place critical metrics to measure the value: 

  • Customers at the centre: Most retailers (94%) ranked new technology as a significant driver for drawing in new customers, with 35% citing it as their main driver. The metrics they’re using this year include increasing new customers numbers (54%) and retaining existing customers (47%). The amount customers spend is also scrutinised, with retailers looking for increased sales (48%) or cost savings (48%) that can be attributed to their tech investments. 

But, despite customers being at the centre of ROI metrics, nearly half of organisations invest in technology without thinking about the customer experience (48%). 

  • Empowering employees: Employees are also at the centre of what makes technology work: 61% of retailers ranked well-prepared and well-informed staff equipped with new technologies as the most important factor for a successful in-store experience.  

However, more than 2 in 5 (41%) do not seek or consider employee input for these same technology investments, despite the impact this tech will have on them and the valuable insight they have into how it affects customers.  

  • Demanding more from partners: As they put the pressure on themselves to make tech investments count, retail execs are also putting pressure on their partners. Their top expectations of tech vendors include accessibility of solutions (50%), the ability to build long-term partnerships (48%) and ‘cutting edge’ technology (46%). Unsurprisingly, they also demand retail industry expertise (45%) and use cases for technology solutions (42%). 

But 2 in 5 retailers (40%) lack in-house expertise to make the most of these new technologies. 

As you build your foundation for modern retail, are you confident your next tech investment will deliver REAL value for your business?  

There are six important opportunities your retail business can unleash by increasing its investment in IT:  

1. Simplify technology and improve business agility 

A modern infrastructure gives you a leaner and more flexible architecture to deliver greater agility, increased efficiency, more control and cost savings: 

  • Scalability: third parties can easily plug in, building the ecosystem of retail software, tools, resources and devices you can add and change to match your business needs.  

  • Accuracy: exposing data and functions via APIs (rather than moving and replicating them) makes integration faster and standards-based, improving efficiency, decreasing errors and increasing accuracy.  

  • Easier to maintain: a central platform reduces the need for reconciliation and manual processes to maintain and manage data and functions, and there is only one system to secure.  

  • Reduced costs: Reduced maintenance, fewer developer hours, faster integration and scalable infrastructure decreases your overheads.   

2. Meet changing customer expectations  

Changing consumer preferences and rising expectations for omnichannel experiences are creating new growth opportunities. The retailers that deliver a personalised and memorable CX are best positioned for long-term growth and loyalty. With a holistic view of your customers, you can better plan your pricing and promotion strategies and get the right offer or message to the right customer, at the right time and right place. By creating remarkable customer experiences that meet or even exceed consumer expectations, customers will return again and again.  

3. Accelerate speed to market  

Improvements in IT efficiency and flexibility let you launch new tools and services to meet business demands and start seeing revenue benefits faster. There’s less work required to plug in and implement new functions across channels, test cycles are reduced, and you’ll use development capacity more effectively. You can run experiments to test new customer experience innovations, easily move the successful experiments into enterprise-wide operations and adapt to new market demands. You’ll innovate quicker, increase speed to market and build your competitive advantage.  

4. Better data insights for relevant and agile experiences 

A single, unified platform gives everyone across channels and stores the ability to view all customer touchpoints and react to potential issues in real time. With a single source of truth and powerful analytics, you can turn large amounts of data from disparate sources into insights that help you to attract and engage customers in new ways and improve your bottom line.  

5. Optimise inventory and availability  

With a unified retail platform that gives you a single view of stock across all locations, plus the ability to easily move it around the business, you’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster. Your most significant benefit will be increased sales generated by ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels). And by giving customers a range of purchasing and fulfilment options, you’ll enhance your service and increase customer satisfaction.   

6. Boost employee productivity and sales  

By arming your store staff with the right customer data and tools at point of sale, combined with AI-driven recommendations, they can more easily make decisions, provide personalised upselling advice, sell inventory at any location and serve customers faster, anywhere in the store. You’ll enhance customer interactions, improve the employee experience and increase conversions.   

Want help to build your foundation for modern retail? 

We can advise you on the key technology investments creating differentiated customer experiences and business agility. Just contact me at kelly.brown@triquestra.com or get in touch. 

For insights into how a unified commerce approach gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing need, download our ebook:

New in Infinity – April 2024

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.  

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Simplify item data updates to Wedderburn Scales at POS

Businesses using supported Wedderburn scales at the Point of Sale can now send updated item data to the scales via the Atria Wedge software automatically using Windows Task Scheduler, saving you the time and effort involved in updating pricing and other data manually. If you run the Wedderburn integration at the Head Office, price updates made using the Batch Updates function will also be sent to the scales.

INVENTORY

Enhance efficiency of EDI purchase orders

We’ve improved purchase ordering using EDI files by allowing you to identify suppliers that can be sent purchase orders plus items that can be ordered using this method, so you won’t waste time and risk stock shortages by sending EDI orders to the wrong supplier or by ordering products not on EDI.

ORDER MANAGEMENT

Streamline order documents for debtor customer accounts

You now have the option of customising your A4 customer order documents by suppressing the payment section. This feature reduces visual clutter on the documents when you process orders for debtor customers who pay on account.

CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Meet privacy law obligations by anonymising inactive customer data

As part of our programme of giving you options for managing your Personal Identifiable Information (PII) risk, we’ve developed a Windows service that anonymises information for inactive loyalty customers. The Infinity Loyalty Anonymisation Service allows you to anonymise inactive customers’ personal details held in the Loyalty database, as well as details of their order deliveries. It will also delete any messages that were sent to inactive loyalty customers using Infinity Messaging.

Simplify management of fuel discount programmes

If your fuel business operates a cents-per-litre discount (CPL) programme, you can now require that customers spend their CPL balance when they buy fuel, instead of allowing them to choose whether to save or spend it. You can also set a minimum amount a customer has to spend before the CPL discount applies. This simplified offering has the advantage of lowering the overhead involved in managing stored balances while still giving your customers the benefit of fuel savings.

Reduce fuel sales leakage with secure refund options

Fuel businesses wanting to support their commercial customers in reducing fuel sales leakages can now require that refunds be made to a credit card or fuel card instead of to cash or another media. Note that this feature requires the Vault payment and extended returns modules in order to work.

Improve auditing of manual fuel discounting

Your Head Office staff can now add a note when manually adjusting a cent-per-litre fuel balance, allowing you to view and audit the reasons why balances are being adjusted in your business.

POINT OF SALE

Improve customer experience with faster age validation checks

If you use Infinity’s advanced age check function to make sure you’re complying with legal age requirements when serving customers, you’ll find we’ve made age validation quicker and easier, improving the customer experience and speeding up sales processing at busy times.

Improve permissions for manual fuel price changes at POS

We’ve made some enhancements to the way fuel price changes can be made at the Point of Sale to minimise the chance of the wrong price being applied. You can now use permissions to determine who can make manual price changes, and you can set a maximum amount in cents by which a fuel grade can be manually adjusted.

REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Identify irregularities in fuel prepay sales and refunds

Fuel businesses can use the new Fuel Prepay Refund Report to spot irregularities in the payment medias used in prepay sales and refunds. So, for example, you can see if a prepay fuel card was used to purchase fuel but the refund was processed as cash. It complements the new functionality that requires refunds to be made to credit or fuel cards (see above), but it applies only to prepay sales made using those cards.

Improve financial compensation for stores running fuel discounts

The CPL Redemptions Report gives your stores and head office staff an understanding of cents-per-litre discounts that have been paid out as a way of supporting financial processes tied to discounts and financial compensation. Stores can use it to see what they have paid out in CPL discounts, while head office can use it to audit store activity, and make sure that stores are being adequately compensated for those payouts.

To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

The 7 omnichannel capabilities reshaping stores

There’s a colossal shift taking place right now in how retailers plan, build and deliver their in-store customer experience.

And the prime driver behind this upheaval is the ecommerce boom that is creating new online shopping habits and reshaping consumers’ expectations of in-store experiences.  

Customers today crave convenience, personalisation and a seamless shopping journey that doesn’t stop when they enter a store.  

As more shopping journeys begin online and store visits becoming more intentional, retailers are looking for new ways to elevate the customer experience - by bringing digital convenience to stores, fulfilling orders via stores to increase profitability and delivering personalised and tactile in-store experiences.  

And while the shift towards online retail is real, physical retail is going to continue to grow at 4% year on year and total an estimated 70% of sales by 2027. The retailers that take a unified CX approach are seeing significantly higher profitability and sales growth than their peers. 

Do you have a clear strategy and roadmap towards strengthening your in-store CX?  

Many retailers struggle to support their customers’ omnichannel demands and aren’t equipped to create the shopping journeys now expected by post-pandemic, digitally savvy consumers.   

They have disparate and siloed backend systems that are fragile, inefficient and costly to integrate. Many implemented quick-fixes to get new capabilities up-and-running, but now need a long-term unified solution that delivers a single source of truth across all physical and online channels.  

And they’re under increased pressure to implement change fast but can’t quickly spin up the new “phygital” customer experiences the business demands. 

So what are the new capabilities retailers need to modernise their customer experience for unified retailing?

Here are seven areas where retailers are increasing their focus and investment:

1

Stores that amplify the digital experience

The phenomenal rise of live online customer experiences has migrated beyond social media and live chat to virtual shopping appointments. Retailers are using the unparalleled knowledge of their store staff to boost digital sales and service by giving in-store teams the tools to connect with shoppers digitally. Platforms like Brauz provide the video commerce smarts, while unified commerce solutions (like Infinity) help to automate the end-to-end process, from customer communications and data insights to seamless sales transactions and fast delivery. 

2

Digital convenience in stores

The POS used to be the epicentre of the store technology experience. But today consumers expect unlimited access to information and functionality to inform their purchasing decisions, and demand digital convenience inside the store. Retailers are putting customers in charge of their in-store experience by integrating digital services, such as the ability to look up loyalty points, explore product information and add items to digital wishlists in stores. Shoppable screens provide ‘endless aisle’ capabilities that let customers browse and order from the entire inventory. 

3

Self-checkout expands to self-service

In tandem with the new digital experiences inside stores, retailers are modernising their checkout experience so that customers can transact on their terms. They’re putting customers in control with fast and flexible self-guided assistance, mobile point of sale and contactless payments wherever the customer is - in the store, out in the warehouse or yard, at trade shows and pop-up stores. While self-serve kiosks are practical solutions for larger stores and supermarkets, fuel and convenience retailers taking advantage of new self-service software that can be deployed on any touchscreen terminal, making it simple to create fast and memorable experiences.  

4

Endless aisle for anywhere, anytime orders

Consumers are choosing retailers based on the ease and flexibility of the end-to-end experience. With a ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ strategy and centralised unified commerce platform, retailers can give customers and staff real-time visibility of inventory, order and customer data across the business. That means customers can shop whenever they feel like it, at any time, using their most convenient channel.  And endless aisle access to inventory lets customers order any product and get it delivered to any address. 

5

Flexible omnichannel fulfilment

With ecommerce sales returning to pre-pandemic growth levels, services such as ship-from-store, click-and-collect, endless aisle and returns anywhere are all just table stakes today. Retailers are prioritising capabilities that help them to launch and scale omnichannel experiences faster by improving store fulfilment efficiency and enhancing the store pick-up experience. They’ve created hybrid stores that support the rise in online sales while meeting customers’ expectations for fast pick-up and delivery.  

They’re now introducing ship-from-store capabilities that not only enable ecommerce orders to be shipped from stores, but stores can also ship orders placed in other stores.  And with a unified view of inventory across all stores and DCs they can quickly see where inventory is located and the fastest route to fulfil orders. 

6

Unified channels strengthen personalisation

With more buying journeys beginning online, and store visits become more predetermined, customer expectations for a frictionless ‘one brand’ experience are rising. However, many retailers have channel silos that mean any interaction or activity that the customer had with them online is not available to the customer or staff within the store.  

Retailers are delivering personalised experiences by using AI and intelligence across online and offline channels to deliver timely and relevant communications, recommendations, offers and rewards across in-store and digital touchpoints, including the point of sale, mobile app, web, email and social. And some are extending these personalised recommendations into other communications with customers, such as e-receipts and shipping notifications. 

7

Unified employee experiences

A great customer experience hinges on a great employee experience. After years of underinvestment and now a labour crunch, many retailers are playing catch-up by making employee efficiency and enablement a top priority this year. They’re giving their in-store teams access to relevant customer intelligence - such as loyalty points and rewards, wishlists and sales histories – to equip them to add more value to their customer interactions. Some are using AI technology to provide personalised upselling recommendations during click-and-collect pickups. And localised pricing gives their teams up-to-date, competitive pricing and empowers them to make better, on-the-spot decisions. 

This post was originally published September 2022 and updated on 14 December 2023.

Want help to modernise your stores for unified retailing? 

As you transform your stores to be the centre of your omnichannel experience, your POS and retail systems must transform as well. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying store and digital experiences, get in touch. We’d love to help you make stores play a bigger role in your CX strategy. 

If you’re driving the CX transformation at your retail business, our unified commerce maturity model is the perfect tool to create your roadmap. Learn about the capabilities you need to create a rich mix of omnichannel experiences. 

How self-service software underpins growth in convenience stores

If queues lengthen and sales slow when your teams are busy making coffee or rolling ice creams, then you’ll be wondering how self-serve technologies can help your convenience business. Kelly Brown explains why many self-serve offerings aren’t suited to c-store formats and describes disruptive new self-serve software that makes it simple to create a fast and memorable experience.

Fuel and convenience stores that become destination stores are best positioned for long-term growth and customer loyalty.  

They know that a customer experience centred on convenience is fundamental to success. And they’re urgently modernising the checkout experience so that consumers can transact on their own terms.  

But as c-stores build a reputation for speed and simplicity, they often struggle to maintain that convenience for customers.   

During peak hours, sales can be lost when customers see long queues and decide not to make purchases. It’s difficult to ensure that there are enough people in the store to handle the peaks without wasting resources during the troughs. And the strain of labour shortages continues to impact all retailers.  

The fix for many retailers is self-serve kiosks. They’re a practical solution for large stores and supermarkets, helping to deliver shorter queues, faster service times and reduced costs. 

However, most self-service kiosks aren’t suitable for a c-store format and don’t provide the services customers seek.  

The high up-front cost of a kiosk is a key barrier to adoption. The large pedestals take up valuable floor space, reducing stock and advertising opportunities, and extending the payback period.  

Theft is a serious concern, particularly for small stores with few staff.  

Many consumers don’t like self-checkouts and want to engage with a store member during a purchase. In addition, some transactions can’t be completed without help - such as age-restricted products - which limits the streamlined experience self-checkout promises.   

So how are c-stores innovating to increase convenience in their stores? 

Disruptive new self-serve software is fast becoming a c-store staple.  

Convenience stores are taking advantage of new self-serve software applications that can be deployed on any terminal or touchscreen display.  

For example, one client is rolling out a touchscreen self-service solution in over 50 stores to provide a simple way for customers to purchase items, order food and make payments.   

Positioned on store counters next to POS terminals, the solution includes a second monitor so that store staff can easily view each customer’s progress, assist and serve when required.  

Customers scan in barcoded items they want to purchase and use the interactive touchscreen to select non-barcoded products from a menu of made-to-order fresh and hot food.   

Developed by application developer Hoodoo, the software takes advantage of Infinity APIs to expose product, pricing and inventory data in real-time and easily add new capabilities. It’s lightning-fast, with an intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface and runs on any hardware device. 

This simple yet sophisticated approach offers six significant benefits for c-stores:  

  1. Speed up service: reduce queues and make it easier for customers to transact in less time to boost customer satisfaction and drive profits 

  2. Redeploy your staff: free up your people for more high-value tasks such as preparing food and engaging with customers. This reduces pressure on them and lifts productivity, creating efficiencies and higher profitability. Some large c-stores will be able to cut their headcount to further reduce costs 

  3. Give customers choice: present all the available options and specials to each customer, step-by-step, and put them in control of their in-store experience 

  4. Increase order accuracy: integrate orders with your POS, customer and inventory systems to eliminate the possibility of errors or miscommunication  

  5. Boost upselling: make it easy for customers to add-on items to grow basket size and increase sales 

  6. Differentiate your CX: provide a modern, intuitive digital experience in stores to amplify your brand and create more memorable experiences. 

Ordering and pickup options are next 

The surge in self-service goes beyond self-serve purchases – consumers want new options for ordering and order pick-up as well.    

Mobile ordering boosts sales and profits by letting customers place and pay for their order in advance using a mobile app. When they reach the store, all they need to do is pick up the order and go. Some fuel retailer apps let customers order items while they fill up, and an attendant delivers them to their vehicles. 

Self-checkout options are extending to online ordering platforms. Convenience stores are drawing online shoppers into their physical stores by offering omnichannel services such as click-and-collect.  

And home delivery has the potential to further enhance the customer service. Home delivery apps let c-stores drive sales and engage with new customers, while continuing to encourage their local communities to shop in store. 

This blog was originally published August 2022 and updated on 13 November 2023. 

Consumers now expect digital convenience from c-stores 

How quickly will you adopt self-serve solutions to differentiate your brand and deliver what customers want?  

If you’d like help to provide a streamlined and fast customer experience, get in touch. We’d love to help you deploy a self-serve solution to shorten queues, reduce wait times and help your team become more efficient. 

For more on how to deliver every c-store customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our new ebook:  

The critical role of stores in digitising the retail customer experience

There’s been a massive shift in consumer expectations around convenience, connected shopping experiences and personalisation. Here’s how to use your stores to elevate and differentiate your customer experience.

For most omnichannel retailers, the growth of ecommerce has meant boosting their investments in physical retail.  

That’s because the store is essential to creating and satisfying customer demand - even if the customer ultimately transacts online. 

Consumers now see both the online and offline shopping experience as part of the same buying journey and not as one versus the other. Investments in unified commerce to unify the store and online experience are gaining momentum, with 20% of retailers heavily investing in it, 32% beginning to invest and 36% considering doing so. Retailers who used unified commerce in 2022 saw a 7% revenue boost over those who did not.  

Omnichannel retailers now see their stores as critically important assets to invest in.

  • Store loyalty captures more share of wallet 

Today’s shoppers are purposeful and discerning. They don’t just compare your service to that of your competitors, but to the best service they’ve ever received, anywhere, any time. They want consistency across your channels, recognition wherever they shop with you and a relationship with your brand.  

With the ability to see, touch and feel products and assess alternatives, stores are important for marketing and customer acquisition. Store conversion rates are typically 20-40% - around ten times more than ecommerce channels (only 2.5-3%). And the store remains the dominant sales channel, still generating more than 70% of sales.  

  • Stores shorten delivery times 

Stores support ecommerce fulfilment and place inventory close to customers - the source of demand. Click and collect, ship from store and return in store are now routine ways to fulfil online orders. Without a store, many online orders would not happen, and would be unprofitable.  

  • Stores set the stage for experiences 

Stores can amplify brands by adding a tactile experience and human factor that isn’t possible online. Store staff build trusted relationships with customers through personalised recommendations. They are often better at acquiring customers and stimulating repeat purchases than digital channels. And self-service technologies can create an easy and fast experience at transactional moments of the in-store journey.  

 

Our client, Cue Clothing, is a remarkable example of how to use stores for competitive advantage. Around 20 percent of its sales are online, but over 60 percent are fulfilled by stores instead of a dedicated warehouse. The introduction of endless aisle increased access to inventory eightfold to 80,000 items, leading to a 70 percent increase in conversions and 130 percent increase in overall sales. And Cue has also launched a range of award-winning in-store initiatives – including virtual styling and in-store wishlists - that are driving up conversions, increasing revenue and boosting customer loyalty.

 
 

So how can your stores play a bigger role in your CX transformation? 

Here are 3 areas to focus on to differentiate your store experience: 

1. Bring digital convenience to stores

Many retailers have relied on convenient physical locations and knowledgeable store staff to entice customers to visit them. But today’s digitally savvy consumers want a ‘joined-up’ omnichannel experience that doesn’t stop when they enter a store.

By reimagining the store customer experience and giving staff tools to connect with customers digitally, you'll bring a rich mix of human and digital interactions into stores.

  • Start by revamping the checkout experience. Offer fast, digital, contact-free point-of-sale transactions wherever the customers are - in the store, out in the warehouse or yard, at trade shows and pop-up stores. Ensure you can provide quotes and take cash sales or charge-to-account orders anywhere, with the flexibility to handle complex split orders, sales and returns. 

  • Put customers in charge of their in-store experience by integrating digital services, such as the ability to look up loyalty points, access product information and add items to digital wishlists in stores. People who use digital while they shop in-store convert at a 20 percent higher rate compared to those who do not use digital as part of the shopping journey. 

  • Localised pricing will let your team offer up-to-date, competitive pricing and empower them to make better, on-the-spot decisions.

2. Use store fulfilment to increase ecommerce profitability

Retailers are working to optimise their processes and remodel stores into fulfilment centres to meet the explosion in demand for online orders fulfilled in stores. 

However, many retail systems weren't built to provide real-time inventory so the challenge of knowing where stock is located across the store network causes missed sales and cancellations of online orders.

  • Create a single view of inventory across stores, online, mobile and warehouses to improve your return on inventory and maximise selling opportunities. 

  • Use your stores as mini-distribution centres to give your customers a variety of delivery options, such as click-and-collect, store-to-door, drop ship and returns anywhere. 

  • Endless aisle capabilities let you sell products not stocked in your current location and have them delivered to or collected by the customer.

3. Personalise customer experiences by extending digital into stores

With more customer journeys beginning online and store visits become more focussed and deliberate, customer expectations for a frictionless ‘one brand’ experience are rising. 

However, many retailers have channel silos that mean any interaction or activity that the customer had with them online is largely unknown to store staff. 

By connecting all your customer engagement points in near real time, you can deliver a holistic and personalised customer experience more consistently. That means treating each customer as the individual they are all the time – one person with one account, interacting with one unified brand.

  • Combine your customer, inventory and sales data from all channels and touchpoints and analyse your customer preferences. Use these insights to develop personalised communications, experiences and offers that drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

  • Make this data available to your store staff. For example, provide your teams with access to relevant customer information, such as loyalty, wishlists and sales histories. Use AI technology to provide personalised upselling recommendations during click-and-collect pickups. 

  • Extend these personalised recommendations into your other communications with customers, such as e-receipts and shipping notifications.

This post was originally published June 2022 and updated on 25 September 2023.

As you transform your stores to be the centre of your omnichannel experience, your POS and retail systems must transform as well. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying store and digital experiences, get in touch. We’d love to help you make stores play a bigger role in your CX strategy.

If you’re driving the CX transformation at your retail business, our unified commerce maturity model is the perfect tool to create your roadmap. Learn about the capabilities you need to create a rich mix of omnichannel experiences.

New in Infinity – August 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels and deliver to changing customer needs. 

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality. 

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Streamline stock sorting by setting preferred sort criteria 

It’s now easier to sort and find stock items in Infinity using the criteria that makes the most sense to your business. When you browse for items in the inventory, your previous sort selection will be retained for the next session. So, for example, if you prefer to sort items by description, they will automatically be sorted in that order the next time you open Infinity.   

Empower store staff to control stock at new stores 

We’ve streamlined the effort involved in creating a new branch by providing a choice of which stock items will be sent to the store. When inventory items are copied from a source branch to the new branch, you can choose to only send the active items, or decide to set them all active and send them all. This empowers store staff to decide which items they want to keep, giving them more control over their stock. It also means your Head Office staff no longer have to be involved in setting up the inventory for a new store.  

Manage financial risks by setting store-specific cash limits 

Keeping cash in the cash drawer can be one of the most important financial and security risks your stores face on a day-to-day basis, and those risks can differ across branches. You can now empower stores to handle those risks in the way that meets their needs by allowing them to set their own cash drawer limits.   

Keep promotions running smoothly during franchise ownership changes 

Changing franchise ownership in the middle of a promotional cycle can be disruptive and potentially cost your stores valuable revenue. You can now minimise that disruption by easily transferring existing pricing and promotions when a store moves from one cluster in your organisation to another. This saves you having to recreate the promotions and means offers keep running without missing a beat. 

INVENTORY

Make supplier searches easy with non-case sensitive name check 

We’ve improved the user experience when creating purchase orders and receipts by making the supplier name check non-case sensitive. This means that you will find the supplier without any trouble when there’s a difference in the capitalisation of their name on the item record and the supplier record.   

CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Speed up loyalty prepay enquiries with full transaction info 

Your Loyalty support staff can answer Loyalty prepay customer transaction enquiries more quickly now that they can see more details about those transactions, including the date, the receipt number and the external transaction code.    

Improve efficiency during cents-per-litre rule searches 

Searching for specific cents-per-litre rules has been made more seamless and less time-consuming now that fuel administrators can easily filter and sort them.   

Customise error messages when external fuel balances unavailable 

Your Loyalty program administrator can now be warned that a customer’s external partner cents-per-litre fuel balance is currently unavailable using an error message that meets your customised business needs.  

POINT OF SALE

Boost sales by providing customers with estimated arrival dates 

Securing a sale can sometimes come down to being able to tell the customer that the item they really want to buy will soon be available. Infinity now allows your store staff to see more details about the estimated arrival date of goods on purchase orders, as well as quantities on draft orders, allowing them to drive sales by giving customers the information they need to make purchasing decisions.  

Seamlessly switch POS stations for faster transactions via auto-logout 

At busy times, your sales staff may need to switch between POS stations to process a high volume of transactions quickly, while also allowing you to keep track of who processed the sales. To meet these simultaneous needs, Infinity can now log users out after a set amount of time, rather than locking the entire station. This keeps the sales process moving while not compromising on the audit trail. This feature is also useful between shifts if a user forgets to log out and means the next user can log in without having to involve a manager in unlocking the station.  

Customise age-check policies store-by-store 

If your business sells items that have an age restriction and you use Infinity’s advanced age check module, age policies can now be set on a store-by-store basis. This is especially useful if your stores operate as franchises and franchisees want to apply different policies. So, for example, one store can decide to age-check everyone who looks under 30, while another store decides to check everyone who looks younger than 25.  

Enhance fuel transaction monitoring by identifying legitimate test deliveries 

Monitoring fuel transactions using Digifort DVR is easier now that the video footage identifies the pumps used for test deliveries to ensure they were legitimate. 

INTEGRATIONS

Republish cloud event sales invoice transactions effortlessly 

Cloud event sales invoice transactions can now be republished to either RabbitMQ or Azure should they need to be resent to the system that consumes them, ensuring that all transactions are sent and accounted for.  

TECHNOLOGY

Support for latest Microsoft technologies 

Infinity now supports SQL Server 2022, the latest SQL Server version available from Microsoft. Note that SQL Server 2016 and higher require a 64-bit operating system.  

Faster POS setup with accelerated data replication 

Infinity Point of Sale will be ready to use much sooner following improvements to the setup process. Accelerated data replication can reduce the time it takes to perform the initial setup data synchronisation down to just a few minutes, depending on network speeds and the amount of data involved.  

Reduce costs with enhanced Wishlist integration 

Infinity’s integration with the Wishlist company now supports a multi-tenanted back-end.  

Effortless safety sheet distribution with API integration 

If you sell dangerous goods, distributing material safety sheets across your business can now be done via an API back-end, optimising the management of these documents and saving you the trouble of having to make them available on a site-by-site basis. 

To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

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How to smash your channel silos to create seamless customer experiences

How to smash your channel silos to create seamless customer experiences

Most retailers are feeling the pressure to add new physical, online and mobile channels to keep pace with new technologies and changing consumer demands. But if you’re only adding and not actually integrating these channels with the rest of your organisation, you can end up with silos that frustrate your internal teams and customers.