New in Infinity – November 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.  

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INFINITY API

Enhance control of externally-managed inventory

If some of your inventory is managed outside Infinity, such as vendor-managed inventory, our Stock Receipt API now allows you to receipt stock directly off an invoice, including by matching products being receipted to existing purchase orders. The API can also be used to create, update, retrieve and search invoice receipts.

Automate back ordering for efficient stock management

If you manage master suppliers externally, or you need to provide the procurement rules for a supplier to an external system, the Accounts Payable API now allows you to identify suppliers that will put stock items on back order when you receipt invoices matched to purchase orders. Turning on this flag for a supplier automates and speeds up back ordering if any stock is missing when your staff go to receipt it.

Accelerate integrations by confirming active APIs

The Orchestration Service now lets you retrieve the names and versions of each Infinity API you have configured, allowing system integrators to confirm which API versions are actively deployed and giving you a better understanding of the features available as part of your integration.

Generate physical loyalty cards for customers via external systems

You can now use the Loyalty API to create customers with externally managed loyalty card numbers, as well as card numbers generated by your business. This means if you use physical loyalty cards, you can generate cards and assign them to customers via external systems, such as mobile apps and kiosks.

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INVENTORY

Streamline inventory management by preventing stores ordering obsolete products

If your business maintains its inventory centrally at the Head Office but allows stores to decide which items to stock and sell, you can take advantage of a new Infinity feature that lets you lock items, so that they can’t be activated or deactivated at the store. This gives you greater control over the inventory and is helpful in situations where a product item has been replaced by one from a different supplier and you want to make sure the obsolete product isn’t sold.

Optimise inventory management with holistic view of stock on hand

We’ve made maintaining master item data more efficient by allowing you to sort and view your inventory by stock on hand, giving you better visibility of stock quantities and allowing you to optimise stock pricing, ranging and ordering across your business.

Reduce errors in branch stock transfers with product unit details

Creating stock transfers is less prone to error now that your store staff can now see products’ unit details when they move stock to another branch, meaning they won’t inadvertently send too many or too few items to the requesting store. So, for example, if a store asks you for three trays of Coca-Cola but your store sells them as cans, you won’t risk sending the wrong quantity.

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REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Streamline investigations of inter branch stock transfers

The Inter Branch Transfers Report now shows you the reasons why stock transfers were requested, reducing the overhead involved in investigating why product was transferred to another branch. 

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TECHNOLOGY

Identify problematic SQL connections during Infinity upgrades

We’ve improved the messaging you’ll see when there are problems with closing SQL connections during a manual Infinity upgrade. You’ll be able to identify the connection that can’t be closed, the connection’s host, SQL login and SPID, and the program that has executed the connection, allowing you to more easily manage and resolve these issues.

 Refine email generation to prevent customer spam

The way the Infinity Messaging Service handles customer order email generation has been enhanced so that each email type is now separated with its own processor. This means that customer won’t be spammed by multiple duplicate emails after a processor has failed. 

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

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Retail remix: Six moves to make to match unpredictable consumer behaviours

There's been a significant upheaval in the approaches retailers take to attract, retain and incentivise their loyal customers. And the catalyst for this change is the increasing volatility in consumer behaviours.

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Consumers are defying economic predictions by behaving in unconventional ways. They’re more selective, preferring experiences over products, while also looking to get maximum value from their dollar. And even if something's made sustainably, it must be priced competitively or they're not buying. 

This is keeping retailers on their toes, because all the old approaches for keeping customers coming back just aren't cutting it anymore. 

The retailers that build a clear picture of customer activity, behaviours and preferences – to deliver more personalised and seamless experiences - will be best positioned to succeed. 

Here are six strategies to help your retail business meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s consumers: 

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1. Adjust inventory based on anticipated demand  

Soon, up to half of all online purchases are expected to be fulfilled directly from physical stores, and up to 50% potentially being returned to these locations. Now’s the time for retailers to refine their strategies for inventory management, allocation and replenishment. 

Consider lowering your safety stock levels, while still complying with existing merchandising rules and practices. Implementing this one change alone can lead to considerable savings on inventory costs. To optimise your inventory effectively, focus on the destination of demand rather than just the fulfilment of demand. This ensures that your initial stock placements mirror historical buying patterns as closely as possible. And transform selected stores into mini-distribution hubs. By choosing a handful of well-positioned stores that have the right storage capacities, you can streamline the pick, pack and ship processes which help to maintain profit margins and adapt to the fluctuating demands of omnichannel retailing.

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2. Revamp pricing and promotion strategies  

Most shoppers are concerned about costs and heavily influenced by promotional strategies when making their purchasing decisions. However, with rising input costs many retailers are finding it necessary to increase prices to protect margins. And despite price sensitivity now at an all-time high, 35% of retailers have inconsistencies in their pricing across channels. In addition, few retailers integrate their loyalty programmes and pricing strategies and are missing out on opportunities to create a cohesive and distinct customer experience.  

There are simple ways to provide value to customers while also managing costs. Implementing value promotions can provide compelling reasons for customers to make purchases more frequently. Price pack architectures can be changed to align what consumers want with what they’re prepared to pay. By synchronising loyalty and pricing strategies and developing tailored pricing tiers and product assortments specific to local and channel needs, you can not only address cost of living pressures but also enhance overall value perception among customers. 

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3. Maintain commitment to brand loyalty  

It might seem appealing to dial back brand marketing efforts to focus on performance marketing where results are directly attributable. However, it's crucial to keep investing in strategies that enhance consumer acquisition and foster brand loyalty. Cultivating brand advocacy is critical for standing out from the pack and encouraging wary shoppers to direct their purchases your way.  

Increase your loyalty programme's membership by introducing rewards and experiences that not only retain current members but also broaden its appeal. Implementing exclusive pricing promotions, such as discounts for loyalty members, can significantly boost customer retention. These loyal customers are typically more inclined to make frequent and larger purchases compared to their non-member counterparts. 

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4. Enhance microtargeting capabilities  

Retailers are moving away from putting consumers in predefined and sometimes outdated segments and adopting microtargeting strategies to gain a deeper insight into individual consumer preferences.  

This approach uses detailed consumer data to pinpoint very specific groups of customers with similar shopping behaviours and preferences. Using generative AI, retailers can efficiently scale these efforts, boosting the creativity of their campaigns and automating much of their marketing outreach. By connecting with high-value consumer demographics, such as millennials in emerging markets or affluent seniors, retailers can deliver highly personalised experiences that foster brand affinity, enhance loyalty and encourage repeat purchases.   

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5. Elevate the social-digital connection  

It's critical to actively engage customers via social media and other digital channels. This strategy requires choosing the most effective channels and platforms, crafting compelling content and adapting these strategies to keep pace with consumer needs as they evolve. This is becoming increasingly vital as boundaries between industries blur - for instance, when retail ventures into services such as consumer finance - and as cross-industry ecosystems gain importance.  

We are seeing innovative clients experimenting with new approaches to social commerce to forge deeper local connections. For instance, Cue Clothing is at the forefront of 'contextual commerce', integrating buying options into regular daily activities and settings to make shopping a seamless part of life. And using social media and private messaging platforms like WeChat, retailers can maintain constant interaction with their customers, enhancing engagement and loyalty. 

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6. Refine product assortments  

As consumers preferences become more thoughtful, reassess your product lineup and investment strategies. Consider phasing out products that no longer align with consumer demands or intensifying focus on categories that are seeing increased interest.  

This strategy might involve broadening your range within certain price brackets or popular sectors like health and wellness. In addition, introducing high-end items for consumer segments that indulge in impulse purchases can be beneficial. You could also explore exclusive online merchandising options that vary in size or packaging compared to their in-store counterparts and cater to a distinct online market segment. 

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Want help to modernise your ability to match unpredictable consumer moves?  

As you transform your customer experience to attract and retain loyal customers, your retail systems must transform as well. If you’re looking for help to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s customers, get in touch. We’d love to help you keep pace with changing consumer demands.  

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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. 

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How the move to ‘phygital’ is disrupting point of sale technology

Retailers are shifting focus from ecommerce to their stores to better serve omnichannel customers. Here's how changing consumer expectations are transforming in-store technology and disrupting legacy point of sale (POS).

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.

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%). The store remains the dominant sales channel, still generating more than 70% of sales. and continuing to grow at 4% year on year.

And with pressure on consumer spending plus inventory, pricing and interest rate uncertainty, retailers want to leverage their existing investments in stores and staff - 71% cite store operations as top-three driver for their tech investment strategy. 

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As the store shifts to become the hub of the omnichannel customer journey, the point of sale must shift as well. 

But many retailers have hit a wall because their POS technology can’t support their customers’ current omnichannel demands, let alone the ‘phygital’ shopping journeys now expected by digitally savvy consumers.  

They’ve been focussed on ecommerce initiatives, delaying important POS hardware upgrades and the shift to modern operating systems. Some retailers have POS systems that are end of life and about to be sunset, and others are hamstrung by legacy in-house solutions that require custom integrations with modern technologies or are no longer supported. 

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

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If you’re upgrading your point of sale to modernise your customer experience, here are the important shifts in functionality to consider: 

EX aligns with CX  

Today, any store innovation must reduce friction for the store teams, which in turn will drive a great customer experience. Speed and simplicity are now the priority to help people be as productive as possible, wherever they are in the store. 

However, many retailers run multiple systems within stores, forcing their teams to juggle between different apps and screens as they serve customers.  

Retailers are consolidating store technology onto a single POS-based retail system that lets their teams do everything, from sales transactions, customer loyalty, pricing, product and promotions through to virtual appointments and endless aisle access to stock. 

Clienteling gets personal 

Clienteling is becoming more sophisticated as consumer expectations for a frictionless ‘one brand’ experience rise. However, many retailers still 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. 

Leading retailers are helping their in-store teams deliver more personalised experiences by using AI and data from across online and offline channels to create timely and relevant communications, recommendations, offers and rewards.  

Initially provided for customers visiting stores during click-and-collect pickups, retailers like Cue Clothing are extending customised recommendations into other communications with customers, such as e-receipts and shipping notifications. 

They’re taking advantage of the unparalleled knowledge of their store staff to boost digital sales and service by giving in-store teams the tools to connect with shoppers virtually. By integrating video commerce platforms with POS solutions (like Infinity) they’re automating the end-to-end process, from customer communications and data insights to seamless sales transactions and fast delivery. 

Store experiences go digital 

Retailers know that consumers now expect more from stores and are working to match those expectations with new experiences – such as events, service offerings, customisation, resale, repairs and so much more. 

That also means extending digital experiences into stores, such as the ability to look up loyalty points, explore product information or browse and order from the entire inventory. 

Mobility is a high priority and retailers are providing fast and flexible self-service checkouts, mobile point of sale and contactless payments everywhere the customer is - in the store, out in the yard, at trade shows and pop-up stores.  

They’re using multichannel wishlists to let customers add items to wishlists in stores. By capturing both in-store and online shopper interactions they’re able to retarget customers with personalised marketing campaigns that build engagement and grow sales. 

Fulfilment a competitive advantage 

Today consumers make their purchasing decisions based on shipping costs and timings.  They expect options – from slow to fast, and everything in between – plus visibility, communication and tracking, no matter the fulfilment solution. 

However, most retailers struggle to quickly deliver new fulfilment experiences via their POS. 

With modern point of sale systems, retailers are using their stores to support the fulfilment options consumers now expect and positioning inventory closer to customers – the source of demand.  

Endless aisle access to all inventory via the POS lets them offer the fulfilment options consumers expect – such as click-and-collect, store-to-door and scheduled delivery, plus innovative new delivery solutions, such as 1-hour delivery via Uber and Shippit. 

Future proofing an imperative 

In the past, retailers who got behind on their store tech investments frequently focused on catching up to current standards.  

Now, the focus is on future proofing – choosing platforms that speed up innovation, with the flexibility to change direction as opportunities develop, competitors act and customer expectations evolve. 

When it comes to POS solutions that can support omnichannel experiences, look for a platform that provides a unified hub for all your channels – reducing integration, complexity and overheads, and increasing efficiency and accuracy.  

With agile methodologies and APIs to easily plug-in new apps and systems, your new POS will be your platform for innovation – a springboard for adding new channels and services at a speed and scale that would be unachievable within a traditional omnichannel model. 

This blog was originally published on 28 Feb 2023 and updated 7 August 2024

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Want help to modernise your point of sale?  

As you transform your customer experience to deliver the seamless and personalised buying journeys your customers crave, your point of sale system must transform as well. If you’re looking for help to shape your strategy and extend your omnichannel capabilities, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the solutions you need now and guide you to where you’re headed next. 

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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 new ebook: 

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Why unified commerce is the nirvana of omnichannel

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There’s a profound shift unfolding right now in the way retail technologies are assessed, implemented and integrated. And the primary force behind this upheaval is changing consumer expectations for a “phygital” shopping experience.  

Many retailers have had to take a ‘just get something done’ approach to creating seamless customer experiences that span digital and physical channels. Now they’re struggling with omnichannel set-ups that only link systems together and can’t keep pace with changing consumer behaviours.   

Many also face a technology cliff, with legacy solutions so old that they’re no longer fit for purpose or unable to support their phygital ambitions.  

In addition, around 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 to create the omnichannel experiences consumers now expect.  

But omnichannel should not be the end goal. It’s just one approach to getting a single view of your customers that will help you deliver unified experiences.  

Instead, a unified commerce approach will break down your channel silos and move your retail business toward the holy grail of holistic, real-time, personalised customer experiences spanning in-store, online and everywhere in between.  

To help explain why unified commerce is the nirvana of omnichannel, here’s a look at where we are now and where we’re going. 

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Multi-channel

To keep pace with new technologies and changing consumer demands, retailers are giving customers access to new mobile and online channels. In a multi-channel approach, each touchpoint and channel operates independently, with separate people, processes and technologies existing in functional silos.  

But when you only add and don’t actually integrate new channels with the rest of your organisation, you create bad service experiences that frustrate internal teams and customers.  

Silos mean that your customers have to deal with inconsistencies and gaps, such as incomplete sales histories, different tones of voice or having to start conversations afresh in each channel. These silos inevitably lead to disappointment and frustration, a lack of trust and even a sense that your organisation is incompetent. 

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Omnichannel

With an omnichannel approach, you’re connecting numerous backend systems so that customers can seamlessly interact with your brand. However, your channels are still operating in functional silos.  

That means most attempts to offer unified experiences fall short.   

You’re likely to be struggling with legacy technologies that have been customised and are infrequently updated, and then you bolt on new solutions that don’t easily integrate. These omnichannel systems are fragile, inefficient and costly to maintain.  

And things can easily unravel. Adding new channels and tools requires additional custom integrations that are complex and slow, adding significant costs and curbing the agility and scalability you require. 

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Unified commerce 

Unified commerce provides a central hub that breaks down the silos between channels and backend systems to deliver truly seamless experiences, while also solving omnichannel’s biggest weakness – operational complexity. Rather than building custom integrations to unify different systems, you can easily use all the tools and services within a single unified platform.  

With a unified commerce approach, you can achieve retail nirvana by creating immersive and frictionless experiences for customers across all channels, touchpoints and locations. It gives you a single source of truth for inventory, order and customer data. With this one view of the customer, and all channels and engagement points connected in real-time, you can deliver a personalised and consistent customer experience.   

You can also quickly respond to changing customer expectations and new technologies by using microservices and APIs to expose data and connect third-party services.  

Unified commerce has been a game changer for our clients.  

It eliminates the customer journey pain points and amplifies the ‘wow’ moments. Now you can treat each customer as an individual, all the time – one person with one account, interacting with one brand.    

Unified commerce can benefit your business in many ways:  

1. Simplify your technology 

   A single commerce platform gives you a leaner and more flexible architecture to deliver greater agility, increased efficiency, more control and cost savings.  

2. Accelerate speed to market  

   These improvements in IT efficiency and flexibility let you launch new tools and services to meet business demands and start seeing revenue benefits faster.  

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).   

4. 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.   

5. Personalise your customer experience  

   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.   

6. Create relevant and agile experiences 

   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.  

The result is the ability to deliver the personal, ubiquitous and unified experiences your customers expect, fostering loyalty, driving growth and improving profitability. 

This post was originally published on 3 March 2020 and updated on 08 August 2024.

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Want help to plan your next steps? 

We can help you define your goals, develop a business case and create your roadmap to deliver the unified experiences that are best for customers, and most profitable for you. Get in touch. 

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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:  

New in Infinity – August 2024

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team unify physical and digital channels to provide the convenience, speed and variety customers now demand. 

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

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INFINITY API

Expand purchasing options using Products API 

The Products API now lets you retrieve information relating to alternate suppliers. This is useful if you ordinarily buy a product from one supplier but there are alternatives. So, for example, if you are a convenience retailer who ordinarily purchases Coke 355ml cans from Coca-Cola, you can use this new functionality to purchase them from a local supermarket or wholesale distributor.  

Filter product search results by purchasing rules 

The Products Search API now lets you restrict the scope of your search based on the product's purchasing rules, ensuring that products that should not be purchased are not returned in search results. 

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INVENTORY

Streamline reporting and ordering with custom item searching 

You can now use additional custom fields to search for items, meaning you can search the inventory using criteria that make the most sense for your business and allowing you to better target item searching. Taking full advantage of this change will reduce the need for more complex reporting and allow you to make more informed stock ordering decisions.  

Protect profits with enhanced PO receipting details 

We’ve enhanced the information you see when receipting purchase orders by optionally adding the target gross profit margin (TGPM) and the current gross profit margin (CGPM) to the receipting screen. Having these details front and centre allows you to make timely updates to retail pricing and to protect against an unexpected reduction in profit.   

Manage refunds efficiently by restricting open department returns 

If you use Infinity’s extended returns function, you can now optionally block the return of open department items. This means you won’t have to accept the return of products that you can’t easily on-sell to other customers. It’s also useful if you manage the refunds for those items outside Infinity, such as direct from supplier. 

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ORDER MANAGEMENT

Expand printing options for Pacific region’s TaxCore documents 

Businesses in the Pacific that use Infinity’s TaxCore registration module now have more flexibility in choosing how to print relevant documents. The latest enhancement allows you to print traditional order and quote documents to A4, while still using a thermal printer for all other documentation.  

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CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Speed up sales transaction reviews with customer names displayed 

We’ve streamlined how you can use the Sales and Credits function to monitor customer transactions by adding customers’ first and last names to the information displayed. This saves you having to manually search by customer code if you want to identify the person involved in a transaction, improving the time it takes to investigate a range of sales activity.  

Customise CPL discounts at branch and sale levels 

Fuel businesses with cents-per-litre (CPL) discounting programmes now have even more flexibility in shaping the offerings. You can allow customers to redeem their discount even if a transaction is below the minimum spend. You can also operate save and spend options on a branch-by-branch basis, so that one branch might allow customers to save or spend their discounts, while another might allow them to spend and not save.   

Additionally, you can choose to discount only the first fuel line in the sale up to the maximum volume regardless how many fuel lines are in the sale, or to discount all fuel lines in the sale up to the maximum volume. Where multiple lines are discounted, the discounts are applied based on the line volume in the order they are added to the sale. 

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PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Quickly calculate profits for single product promotions 

If you use rules based pricing to run single product promotions, you can now quickly and easily identify an item’s gross profit based on those promotions. Note that this excludes items offered as part of an active multi-product, multi-buy product set, such as buy-two-get-one-free.  

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POINT OF SALE

IStreamline cash handling with recycler dispensing capability 

Businesses that use Infinity’s cash recycler integration can now dispense notes and/or coins from the cash recycler machine, further streamlining your cash-handling tasks and giving you the ability to use the recycler in the same way as a cash drawer for things such as petty cash.   

Accelerate item searches for faster sales 

If you use our advanced item search function with a large number of items and pricing rules, you’ll find we’ve enhanced the speed at which search results are returned, allowing you to complete sales more quickly and offer a more seamless customer experience.    

Provide unique customer booking numbers with agency module 

If your business sells products on behalf of a principal, you can now use Infinity’s agency module to provide a compact, unique and incrementing booking number to customers.

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TECHNOLOGY

Improve resilience of Infinity environment with new endpoint additions 

Two new health endpoints have been added to the Infinity API suite to enable you to monitor issues. Calling the Orchestration Service endpoint gives you detailed information of any issues with the API services running on the API server, while calling the Sync Service endpoint allows you to get the status of the service and the underlying processors to assist with monitoring the Infinity environment.  

Simplify back office rebuilds using new command line tool 

A new command line tool lets your ICE trained engineers resolve table linking issues following a Back Office rebuild without having to do a re-synchronisation of each POS terminal. Contact us to find out more about the minimum requirements you need to have installed in order to use this tool.  

Streamline web pricing service with automated DLL Loading 

The Web Pricing Service upgrade has been streamlined by automatically loading the latest DLL that matches the installed Core major database version. This removes the need for manual intervention in renaming the latest DLL and reduces the risk of failure if this step is missed.    

Support extended email address lengths 

Infinity Messaging now supports email address lengths that comply with RFC1035.

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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 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?

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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:

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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.

•  More than 2 in 5 retailers (45%) demand retail industry expertise from their technology partners.

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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.

• 42% of retailers demand use cases for technology solutions.

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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.

• ‘Cutting edge’ technology is expected by 46% of retailers.

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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.

• 48% of retailers want the ability to build long-term partnerships and 50% want accessible solutions.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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).  

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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. 

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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. 

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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.  

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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. 

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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

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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.   

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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. 

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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.  

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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. 

This blog was originally published on 30 May 2023 and updated 30 April 2024

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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. 

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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.  

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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.     

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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. 

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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.   

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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. 

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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MOBILE

Infinity quotes and orders app

The Infinity Quotes and Orders mobile app (iOS and Android) has been retired from the product suite as at end of May, 2024. 

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

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