A single retail management platform positively impacts your entire business in so many ways.
1. Simplify your technology
A single commerce platform gives you a leaner and more flexible architecture to deliver greater agility, increased efficiency and more control. By centralising data and systems you can expect many IT efficiency improvements, including:
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 (rather than moving and replicating them) reduces integration - improving efficiency, decreasing errors and increasing accuracy.
Easier to maintain: the single centralised 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, management and integration of data and systems decrease your overheads.
2. Accelerate speed to market
These improvements in IT efficiency and flexibility let you meet business demands faster and innovate much more quickly. 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. Teams currently tied up in building and checking integrations can be moved onto more innovative, customer-centric initiatives.
3. Optimise inventory and availability
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).
With a single view of stock across all locations, plus the ability to easily move it around the business, you’ll reduce your inventory costs and overall stock requirement. And by giving customers a range of purchasing and fulfilment options, you’ll enhance your service and increase customer satisfaction.
4. Boost in-store productivity and sales
You’ll benefit from lower shipping costs and increased sales when your ‘click-and-collect’ customers pick up their purchases at stores, with research showing nearly 50% of users bought additional items when picking up purchases.
Foot traffic has declined, and store closures are increasing. By arming your staff with extensive product details and providing shoppers with experiences that entertain and entice them to linger, you’ll enhance customer interactions, improve staff productivity and ultimately increase conversion.
5. Mobilise and personalise your customer experiences
The ability to see each customer’s shopping preferences and history across all channels is critical for building personalised shopping experiences.
With a holistic view of your customers, you’ll be able to 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.
6. Use data for business insights
One of the most compelling benefits of unified commerce is the value that comes from using all the centralised data to obtain insightful or actionable information and have it available when and where it’s needed.
A single, unified platform gives you 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.
For more on unified commerce and why it’s the future of retail, download this free ebook.
