Unified Commerce
Greg Cantlon
Changing your POS? 7 critical tests your ...
Changing your POS? 7 critical tests your software must pass
Customer Experience
Greg Cantlon
From points to personalisation: Five steps to ...
From points to personalisation: Five steps to galvanise the liquor retail loyalty experience
Team
Carmela Salisbury
Kelly Brown steps down as Triquestra CEO
Customer Experience
Triquestra
6 omnichannel retail painpoints ...
6 omnichannel retail painpoints unified commerce solves
Customer Experience
Triquestra
Delivering a unified CX: liquor retail's new ...
Delivering a unified CX: liquor retail's new priority

customer management

Unleashing the Power of the Point of Sale

The past few years have brought unique challenges to offline shopping, as the Covid-19 pandemic closed stores and shoppers turned to their screens like never before.

But as the world re-opened, physical stores bounced back, and they will continue to hold their own even in the face of growing demand for online offerings. While global online retail sales are expected to grow to US$6.8 trillion by 2028, offline will still be the dominant channel, accounting for 78% of global sales.

Shoppers, though, don’t see online and in-store as separate channels but as part of a unified buying journey. They might research a product online before buying it in-store, or vice versa. So it makes sense to think about how to best integrate your stores into the overall customer experience. By speeding up delivery, personalising the offering and providing hands-on interaction, you can use your stores to help deliver the cohesive, consistent omnichannel journey customers now expect.  

Here, we look at how integrating stores involves considering customer preferences and behaviours, improving employee performance and choosing a POS system that changes as you do and allows you to unleash the power of unified commerce.

Personalised and tactile customer experiences

For customers, shopping in-store brings a range of tangible benefits — instant gratification, personalised assistance, product comparison and social interaction. And meeting customers face-to-face gives retailers the chance to offer a tailored, tactile experience that builds loyalty, drives repeat business and enhances profitability, even when the final purchase happens online.

Elevating these personal encounters so that they give you a competitive advantage can take a variety of forms, from speedy fulfilment of click-and-collect orders, to staff making recommendations based on wish lists and order histories, to providing accurate stock information by store (including out of stock, in stock and on order).

But transforming your stores to be the driver of customer loyalty and retention means that your store retail systems must transform as well. A modern point of sale is now the anchor for a unified commerce platform that unifies online and store data with back-end systems, so that you can offer customers the best possible all-round experience.

Personalising in-store offerings needs a nuanced understanding of shopper profiles and a unified platform that gives you a single source of truth for all inventory, order and customer data. With all your customer details captured and stored in a single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you.

Empowered employees  

After years of underinvestment, many retailers are playing catch-up with their employees. Their stores often lack the tools and systems that enable their people to deliver the relevant and personalised customer interactions that match online shopping’s price, speed and convenience. Some stores find themselves running multiple systems, forcing their teams to juggle between different apps and screens as they serve customers and slowing down the overall sales process.

Armed with the right customer data and tools, your store staff can more easily make decisions, provide personalised upselling advice, sell inventory at any location and serve customers faster, anywhere in the store. Lifting your employees’ performance leads to enhanced customer interactions and increased conversions.

Making tools easy to use and intuitive also enables new employees to quickly get up to speed and begin selling almost right away. By consolidating store technology onto a single POS-based retail system, your teams can do everything in a single view, from sales transactions, customer loyalty, pricing, product and promotions through to virtual appointments and endless aisle access to stock. And by removing the frustrations caused by complex technology, you'll also help lower staff turnover.

Best of all, empowering your people to offer an exceptional customer service allows you to strengthen relationships with happier, more loyal customers.

A scalable and adaptable POS

Today, the store is mission control for a seamless omnichannel customer experience, making the POS the hub for unified commerce. The POS needs to span endless aisle, click and collect, store fulfilment, pricing and promotions, and loyalty, as well as functions that allow customers to search, transact, acquire and consume products across all your channels.

It's also crucial that your POS solution is scalable and adaptable to suit your business’s changing needs. Whether you're expanding into new locations or launching pop-up stores, your POS system must be able to scale quickly and adapt to changes in customer expectations. While it might seem obvious, scalability can easily be overlooked in the excitement of cutting-edge technology.

POS adaptability means having a system that can quickly adjust to evolving customer preferences. It should operate seamlessly across tablets, phones and fixed tills, allowing transactions to flow between devices effortlessly. This flexibility opens possibilities for innovative store layouts and experiences, and allows you to think creatively about how and where to personally interact with customers.

And as you grow, your POS solution must be able to function anywhere your ecommerce platform can. Your growth plans should also account for how your physical stores can complement your online presence — not just to drive online sales but also to strengthen customer loyalty.

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

Changing your POS? 7 critical tests your software must pass

Is your point of sale system good enough for today’s omnichannel environment?

In a recent blog, we talked about how changing consumer expectations are disrupting legacy point of sale technology and shared five areas to focus on to differentiate the store customer experience.

If you want to ensure your next retail platform will grow and evolve alongside your needs, here we look at the challenges retailers experience when making the shift to a new POS, and the important tests the new tech needs to pass.

For many omnichannel retailers, the rise of online shopping has set higher expectations for in-store experiences.

Physical stores now play a key role in driving demand and profitability - even when the final purchase happens online.

Shoppers today view their online and in-store interactions as part of a unified buying journey, not separate channels. And by speeding up delivery, increasing share of wallet, and providing hands-on product experiences, stores are enhancing and differentiating the overall customer journey.

Yet, a significant challenge persists: many retailers find that their outdated point of sale systems are unable to meet the needs of today’s omnichannel shoppers, especially with the ‘phygital’ experiences that tech-savvy consumers now expect.

And making the shift to a new point of sale is complicated:

  •  Many retailers defer upgrades because of concerns about potential disruption to current operations, the resources required for successful implementation and the task of staff training.

  • Compatibility issues with existing and future systems can make the transition to a modern POS seem a daunting task. 

  • This can be amplified by a fear of not achieving the anticipated return on investment, especially if they’ve previously been burned by failed tech projects.

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

You don’t want a project that fails to deliver the desired returns because the wrong product was selected.

So at a time when point of sale software is undergoing a surge of disruption, innovation and investment, how do you select the right system for your business requirements? 

Here are the 7 tests a point of sale purchase must pass, with the first being the most crucial of all:

Test 1. Can it be rapidly implemented and deployed?

The number one priority for most of the retailers we speak with is speed of deployment.

The complexity of upgrading legacy POS infrastructures can present significant operational challenges. This means you need a platform built on a modern architecture, with all your core requirements out-of-the-box plus the ability to customise and easily add new functionality.

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

Check the provider has recent and proven success planning, implementing and managing complex, large-scale deployments across multiple stores, multiple formats and multiple geographies. They’ll need to understand your fast-paced, data-intensive environment where any significant level of downtime is unacceptable. And their people will need the capability to help you plan and implement your projects so that they work for you now and into the future.

Our client GAS took only 10 weeks to rollout Infinity across 127 stores – a masterclass in POS deployment. GAS now has a modern retail system that supports its retailers to provide great customer experiences and drive growth.

“That is what Infinity point of sale system is able to deliver to us, a system which is fast, reliable, secure and on a modern architecture and platform.”

Nahid Ali, GAS General Manager

Test 2. Will it support your unified commerce business model?

Today, the store is mission control for a seamless omnichannel customer experience, making the POS the anchor for unified commerce.

That means you’ll want a point of sale system that will not only work with your existing systems, but also provide an end-to-end solution for a unified commerce business model.

The POS needs to be the hub for unified experiences spanning endless aisle, click and collect, store fulfilment, pricing and promotions, clienteling and loyalty, as well as functions that allow customers to search, transact, acquire and consume products across all your channels.

You don’t want to be tied to a point player that can only provide portions.

“The reason unified commerce resonated with me is that it would give us one core platform do the heavy lifting and a single source of truth to manage the customer data, inventory and order orchestration, rather than relying on too many systems to push and pull data everywhere.”

Shane Lenton, previously Cue’s Chief Information and Digital Officer

Test 3. Will the system work offline?

No matter how exceptional your retail customer experience is, it becomes irrelevant if you're unable to complete a sale.

When inevitable network outages happen, you need to trust that your POS will keep all your stores operational without any disruption.

When implemented correctly, the offline POS experience should be so seamless that your staff may not even realise the system is offline.

Though some features may be limited, it's essential to know what transactions can still be processed during the loss of connectivity. For example, the system should handle card and cash payments, process returns, capture customer data and link it to profiles, and continue scanning products for smooth checkouts. 

Test 4. Can it grow with you, and adapt to change?

Whether you're expanding into new locations or launching pop-up stores, it's crucial to ensure your POS system can scale quickly and adapt to changes in customer expectations. While it might seem obvious, scalability can easily be overlooked in the excitement of cutting-edge technology.

Your growth plans should account for how your physical stores can complement your online presence - not just to drive online sales but also to strengthen customer loyalty. Your POS solution must be able to function anywhere your ecommerce platform can.

POS adaptability means having a system that can quickly adjust to evolving customer preferences. It should operate seamlessly across tablets, phones and fixed tills, allowing transactions to flow between devices effortlessly. This flexibility not only opens up possibilities for innovative store layouts and experiences but also provides the practical benefit of better backup strategies for your devices.

Your partner should let third party solutions connect via APIs so that you are free to focus your development efforts on the front-end. You can be more agile and create a community of third-party apps and systems that work together in an ecosystem. As a result, you’ll reduce integration and maintenance overheads, increase real-time accuracy and enjoy virtually limitless scalability and agility. 

Test 5. Does it have an intuitive UX for a better EX?

Today, any innovation within the store must minimise friction for store teams because this directly contributes to delivering a superior customer experience. The focus is now on speed and simplicity to maximise staff productivity, no matter where they are in the store.

An easy to use UX and straightforward setup will enable new employees to quickly learn the system and begin selling almost right away. By removing the frustrations caused by complex technology, you'll also help lower staff turnover.

In addition, many retailers run multiple systems within stores, forcing their teams to juggle between different apps and screens as they serve customers. By consolidating store technology onto a single POS-based retail system, your teams can do everything in a single view, from sales transactions, customer loyalty, pricing, product and promotions through to virtual appointments and endless aisle access to stock. 

Test 6. Will it make complex sales simple?

For enterprise retailers with multiple brands, B2B operations or franchises, you’ll need a POS system that makes complex sales simple.

You’ll want to control everything from either head office or at store level to set pricing and promotion rules, permissions, return and refund validation, discounting and cash management.

 And ensure it supports complex sales like charge-to-account, quote management by channel, debtor management, loyalty and all types of pricing, including retail, trade, contract, promotional, project, customer-specific and rules based.

“Infinity is one of the few platforms able to accommodate our diverse business model, with both retail and wholesale customers requiring multiple volume breaks and bulk purchasing. And Infinity’s New Zealand presence gives us an out-of-the box solution with local capabilities that can be customised to our requirements.”

Amanda Thompson, General Manager of Moore Wilson’s

Test 7. Can you rely on the vendor for new functionality and ongoing support?

Working with the right people and processes will make the roll-out of your new point of sale much easier and deliver results much faster.

A local partner means you’ll have direct access to second and third level support, with direct engagement with people on the ground committed to your success (and not distracted by offshore business activity).

It means you can have more influence on the product roadmap, with fewer layers of bureaucracy giving them more agility and responsiveness. And a mid-size partner is more likely to view you as an important customer of influence.

“As a Kiwi owned and operated business, we really pride ourselves on supporting local businesses and communities. The Triquestra team’s responsiveness and flexibility gave us the confidence that we’ll get the swift, on-the-ground support and reliability we need.”

Louise Mitchell, NPD’s Senior Category Manager

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.

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.  

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. 

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. 

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.  

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. 

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Real-time inventory, stores and loyalty: Where retailers are investing in 2024 

Do you have a plan for technologies to invest in this year? And do you know where to focus your IT budget for maximum ROI? 

In our recent blogs, we asked if retailers were spending enough on their IT and, if not, how to make the case for increasing spend. 

If you’ve successfully navigated these stages to secure new budget and are now wondering where to start, here we look at retailers’ top spending goals for 2024 and the building blocks they’ve prioritised for maximum returns. 

We know that retailers are increasing their investments in new tech this year, with research showing that virtually all retail execs – an incredible 99% - predict increased spend. The growth in spend is sizable, with a 10% increase on average and nearly a quarter (23%) predicting 15% or more. 

When asked about their goals for their spend, most retailers (94%) ranked new technology as a significant driver for drawing in new customers, with 35% citing it as their main driver.  

And while ROI has always been important, these new tech investments are being held to an even higher standard. Enterprises now rank the ability to receive ROI within 6 months their second highest consideration (after ease of implementation). 

The metrics they’re using this year to gauge their success 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.  

So we know that retailers are significantly increasing tech investments this year to create fresh, value-added customer experiences, but where are they focusing?  

There are three investment priorities in 2024: 

1. End-to-end inventory transparency 

Inventory visibility has always been important in retail. But with the proliferation of touchpoints and channels – both online and in-store – retailers now need to see a real-time view of all their inventory, right now.  

Without an accurate view of inventory, retailers are virtually guaranteed to interrupt the flow of an omnichannel shopping journey. 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.   

With the average retail inventory accuracy at only 63%, that can mean problems with a whopping 2 in 5 orders. And as the customer journey continues to evolve to meet changing consumer demands, providing a seamless omnichannel experience will only get more difficult.  

The solution: Real-time inventory 

A unified commerce platform gives you a single, accurate and up-to-date view of all your inventory so you can be sure that you have the right product at the right place at the right time. 

That means you can quickly see where inventory is and make better decisions about what stock to order and how to make it available in your physical, mobile, online stores, DCs and call centres.   

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. Unleashing omnichannel experiences through stores 

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 while the shift towards online retail is real, physical retail is going to continue to grow at 4% year on year.   

But 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.  

The solution: Point of sale  

As you transform your stores to be the centre of your omnichannel experience, your retail systems must transform as well. POS systems are now the anchor for unified commerce platforms that unify online and store experiences with back-end systems so you can create holistic experiences across all customer touchpoints.   

That lets you create the elevated experiences customers now crave, by bringing digital convenience to stores, fulfilling orders via stores to increase profitability and delivering personalised and tactile in-store experiences.    

Unified commerce is now retail’s top priority, with 88% of retailers investing in unified commerce or considering doing so to make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future. Retailers who used unified commerce in 2022 saw a 7% revenue boost over those who did not.    

3. Attracting, scaling and earning more from loyal customers 

As inflation and cost-of-living increases put pressure on consumer spending, shoppers are becoming more discerning and deliberate, rapidly switching between brands in the search for bargains. That’s why customer retention has become an important strategy for retailers wanting to capture market share and maximise profits. Retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones - customer acquisition costs have increased a whopping 222% in the past decade - and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers.  

As more customers opt out of being tracked, retailers also need a compelling reason for consumers to be willing to identify themselves when they approach from different channels or touchpoints.  

On average, nearly two-thirds of US consumers belong to one-to-five loyalty programmes. However, most consumers use 50% or less of their memberships. So the challenge for retailers is developing engaging programmes that convert members into users and, in turn, create profitable loyalty.   

The solution: Loyalty 

With customer details captured and stored in single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you. You’ll know which customers are most profitable and what their preferences are. Your store teams can view this information to offer personalised service and encourage conversion at point of sale. 

Looking ahead, large retailers are learning to drive customer loyalty and growth by pooling data within an ecosystem of brands. Multiple companies are tapping into their complementary product and service offerings to develop a joint loyalty programme around a unifying customer value proposition.  

Consumers will receive heightened experiential benefits in addition to faster loyalty rewards growth, more flexible redemptions and an unmatched simplicity and daily relevance. Retailers and brands will see a rise in reach and frequency of usage. They will gain access to richer, more privileged consumer data, shared infrastructure and cross-marketing opportunities.   

Want help to decide which tech innovation projects to tackle first? 

We can advise you on the key technology investments driving growth and customer loyalty this year. 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 needs, download our ebook:

New in Infinity – February 2024

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity while improving the customer experience. 

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

INFINITY API

Enhance business continuity during a processor failure 

The Cloud Events Service’s processors will now keep running even if one of them fails. The processors that aren’t directly impacted will continue to operate, lowering the risk of business interruption. You can configure the service so that you’ll be alerted via email to the failure by a fatal error warning. 

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Faster access to historical sales impacted by unit cost changes 

When viewing historical sales transactions in item maintenance, you can now see exactly when changes to the unit cost of an item started to impact sales line costs. 

Improve data privacy by concealing stock costs from store staff 

If you want to keep the cost your business pays for stock confidential, you now have the option to hide it from the sales and credits screen at the Back Office so that it’s not exposed to your store staff.  

INVENTORY

Simplify urgent stock transfers from warehouse to store 

If your business manages all stock requests from the head office, you can now use Infinity’s replenishment request function to order branch stock, instead of raising a purchase order. This can be useful if you want to get an item from the warehouse to a store at short notice and you are happy for the warehouse to send what it can based on availability.

Increase receipting speed and accuracy with audible scan warnings 

Using Cloud Inventory to receipt items that have arrived in a consignment of multiple stock transfers will improve your detection of errors now that store staff get a “bad beep” warning when they scan an item that isn’t supposed to be in the consignment or an item that has an invalid barcode. We’ve also improved your staff’s ability to identify variances for over and under transfer receipts, making the receipting process speedier and more precise.  

CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Meet privacy law obligations by automating customer data retention periods  

We’ve enhanced Infinity Loyalty to give you more options for managing your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) risk. You can automatically remove customer data from POS and Back Office machines when there are no open sales orders and no transactions for that customer within a configurable period.  

Before you can use this functionality, you need to have a stable infrastructure, as the customer search will always use a connection to the Head Office. Also note that these changes should be part of your wider PII programme. 

Streamline mass updating of free prepaid product offers 

Offering free prepaid promotional products can be an effective way of engaging with your existing customers. We’ve made adopting this strategy more seamless now that you can use Infinity Loyalty to update many prepaid product balances at the same time.  

Enhance security by deactivating stolen partner loyalty cards 

If you use Infinity Loyalty with partner programmes, you can now block a customer’s Airpoints or Flybuys card that has been stolen or involved in a fraudulent transaction so it can’t be used as an identifier at your Point of Sale or at an outside payment terminal, thereby protecting your business from potential fraudulent card use. 

In addition, by blocking (and not deleting) the identifier, you remove the risk of it being allocated to another customer. 

Create tailored rewards when resolving customer concerns 

We’ve enhanced the ways you can reward Loyalty customers by enabling you to manually adjust a customer’s accumulator balance at the Head Office. You can use this new function to add a “stamp” for a customer, so that, for example, you can give them a free coffee as a way of resolving a concern or query.   

Speed up loyalty customer scanning during a sale 

Scanning a loyalty customer into a sale is faster and more efficient now that your store staff no longer have to open the customer search function before scanning the customer’s card. If you want to maintain customer confidentiality, this has the added benefit of not exposing customer information to your store staff. 

PRICING & PROMOTIONS  

Simplify the set-up of quantity-based promotions at any price level 

If you use quantity price breaks, you can now apply those breaks to prices 2-8, as well as to price 1, on the Infinity item master data. Applying breaks across all price fields can be easily managed using Infinity ETL, which saves you the hassle of manually maintaining the various individual pricing scales for an item.  

REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Improve stock management with better inventory-related reporting  

We’ve made a number of improvements to the end-of-month financial reports so that they’re more useful for inventory-related reconciliation. The Stock Movement Summary Report now offers a transaction breakdown using both quantity and cost values, as well as allowing you to easily see any variance between opening and closing balances. This means the report provides an easily readable view of all stock-related activity and allows you to identify instances where incorrect store processes were followed, such as selling items into negative stock.  

Other changes have been made to support these enhancements. Both the Stock Movement Summary Report and the Sales and Stock Gross and Profit Report now round the cost to four decimal places rather than two, as a way of further improving the accuracy of the reports’ cost figures over a long period, while the Chronological Item Movement Report includes the item on-hand quantity, which will be shown in red if a stock movement puts the item quantity into negative.  

Help store staff make purchasing decisions for future promotions 

Infinity’s new RBP Promotions Report allows your stores to see upcoming and current promotions and helps them make the purchasing decisions needed to run those promotions. They can use the report to understand what they need to order and when they can reduce ordering as promotions come to an end, as well as to check that shelf labelling has the right pricing information. Head office staff can use the report to help stores plan and run promotions, including through advance advertising.

ADMINISTRATION

Enhance financial integrity with mandatory end-of-day completion 

If you use Infinity’s extended Cash Management functionality, you’ll find we’ve made some enhancements to reduce the risk of errors. Your store staff won’t be able to create a trading day if they haven’t completed an end of day on a POS station that has had sales activity, or if that station hasn’t linked to the Back Office that day. This ensures that all financial transactions are available at the Back Office when the trading day is created and removes the possibility of sales and till adjustments being missed. 

Extend lifespan of stock records for open transactions 

You can now keep stock transaction records open for a very long period if they are associated with open purchase orders and unreceipted transfers. The records will remain active and available for updating for the life of the transaction, even after the configured lifespan limit has been reached.  

Boost security by eliminating barcode login risks 

Staff logins can be a security concern for your business, especially if your people create barcodes by entering their credentials on third-party websites and then use those barcodes to log in. You can now negate the usefulness of these websites by requiring that all users log in manually rather than by scanning IDs.  .  

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.

New in Infinity – October 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels to create frictionless customer experiences and drive growth.

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

INFINITY API

Enhance ecosystem integrations by accessing more transaction source data

As part of our continual expansion of Cloud Events payloads, we’ve included additional information about the transaction source, as well as any information about the use of external loyalty cards and fuel coupons, to allow you to enrich your integration with ecosystem platforms. 

Streamline sharing of sales data with ecosystem partners 

You can now use the Infinity Cloud Events service to securely share sales of specific products with ecosystem partners without having to waste time and resources manually cleansing and redacting data.  

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Automate shelf pricing updates with Pricer integration 

Keeping your shelf pricing up to date, especially during a promotional period, can be time consuming and costly. Using Infinity's new integration with Pricer software, you can reduce labour costs by harnessing the power of real-time electronic pricing. The integration regularly sends the latest Infinity pricing information to Pricer, saving you the effort of manually updating prices and ensuring your shelf pricing is always current. 

Boost efficiency with ETL tool item selection enhancements 

Bulk exporting and updating item data using the ETL tool is easier and more efficient now that you can select items by subdepartment and product class rather than just by department, giving you more focused and targeted results.  

INVENTORY

Streamline inventory management by stock taking any time of day 

Businesses can find it hard to fit stock taking around the need to keep trading. Infinity Cloud now allows you to stock take during trading hours at a time that suits you and then refresh stock data at the Back Office, meaning you don’t miss any sales that happened during the stock take.  

Save time and effort when receipting multiple stock transfers 

If your business chooses to reduce transportation costs by shipping multiple stock transfers from your warehouse in a single delivery, you can now use Infinity Cloud to receipt all the goods in that delivery at the same time. When the consignment arrives, your store staff can simply scan the goods and Infinity will deal with the hassle of matching them to the right stock transfer, saving you time and effort.  

Simplify checks of shelf price labels using mobile devices 

Verifying shelf-edge pricing, particularly during a promotion, can be difficult for store staff, who have to match the shelf price to the price recorded at the POS station. To overcome this, Infinity Cloud now allows store operators to see both the standard price and the single product promo price on a mobile device as they move around the store. 

CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Increase accuracy of fuel loyalty balances via manual adjustments 

Loyalty program administrators in fuel businesses can now create both positive and negative manual adjustments to cents-per-litre balances, giving them more control over suspicious transactions and instances where operator error has inflated the balance.    

PRICING & PROMOTIONS  

Simplify the setup of quantity-based promotions 

If you use quantity break/price bands, you can now use additional price adjustment options to simplify and optimise the setup of scale pricing rules. By enabling price fields 2-8 on the item master, you can define a single rule to manage multiple items, reducing the overhead in maintaining these rules.   

POINT OF SALE

Improve security and employee safety with contactless cash recycling 

Handling cash is a financial and security risk for all retailers. Infinity’s new cash recycler integration improves your peace of mind by taking the responsibility for processing cash payments away from store staff and giving it to the recycler machine instead. This reduces both the chance of staff error when giving out change and the risk of theft, while also allowing you to enjoy the benefits of contactless cash handling.   

Boost profits by removing credit option from Windcave EFTPOS 

Customers who use the credit option when paying by EFTPOS as a way of circumventing the credit card processing fee cost your business precious revenue. To overcome this, you can now configure payment options at the point of sale so that when the customer chooses to pay by Windcave EFTPOS they must debit either their cheque or savings account, rather than using the credit option.   

Let customers quickly and easily self-scan loyalty cards on Magellan scales 

Infinity Loyalty now supports the use of Magellan scanner scales for scanning Loyalty cards, optimising the search for Loyalty customers at the Point of Sale.  

INTEGRATIONS

Speed up GRNI reconciliation in Xero 

Reconciling the GRNI account postings in Xero is faster and more efficient now that the original purchase order number displays on purchase order goods receipts.  

TECHNOLOGY

Accelerate upgrades with fewer exceptions  

We've enhanced the Infinity Upgrade Service to accommodate situations where applications are running that may block the upgrade from updating files in the Infinity folder. This will result in fewer exceptions needing attention post-upgrade, reducing the time pressures on technical staff.    

Support for diverse scale hardware at site level 

Businesses that configure scales at the site level can now set station-specific scale configurations, allowing for mixed hardware options to be supported.  

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.

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. 

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

New in Infinity – May 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels to create the seamless and personalised buying journeys your customers crave. 

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

APIS

Faster performance to reduce resources 

The performance of transactional APIs has been improved under high loads so that the resources required to run the APIs can be reduced and the API processes are faster, improving the overall user experience.  

Enforce domain separation between fuel inventory and sales data 

Businesses that apply domain-driven design and wish to send fuel inventory events to a separate endpoint from the sales data can now configure the Cloud Events Service with alternate API details for the fuel data. This helps to maintain domain separation between the fuel inventory and sales data domains. 

Simpler maintenance of debtor records 

Customers who update debtor records using the Accounts Receivable API no longer have to provide the financial details as part of the update, reducing the complexity and effort involved in maintaining these records. 

INVENTORY

Let store staff use mobiles for stock transfers 

Stock transfers can now be created in Infinity Cloud while in mobile mode, making creation of transfers more efficient for staff on the shop floor. The ability to scan by pack size has also been added to the stock transfer process to speed up the scanning of products that are being transferred. 

Easier management of purchase orders 

Customers who have their own purchase order references can now use those references when creating, viewing and searching for orders in Infinity, making it easier to find and maintain POs across your business.  

PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Launch quantity promotions for increased sales 

Infinity Rules Based Pricing now allows you to maintain quantity-based volume price breaks for items. For example, you can set up rules that allow you to sell a single item at $10 each, between 2 and 10 items at $8 each, and between 11 and 15 items for $6 each. Store staff can see thresholds that apply to the sale and then let the customer know about the available discounting, allowing you to drive higher-volume sales through lower pricing.

CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Better visibility of loyalty members within prepay accounts 

Your Head Office staff can now more clearly see which Loyalty member has been selected on the list of prepay account members, helping to reduce confusion when checking the names attached to a prepay account. 

REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Expand your reporting of customer types 

Customers who use Infinity’s Open Accounts feature can now see sales to open accounts in the Customer Performance Report, allowing for reporting on all customer types used in Infinity.

POINT OF SALE

Support sustainability goals by eliminating Vault EFTPOS printed receipts 

Businesses using Verifone Vault EFTPOS devices can now decide whether they want to stop printing a customer copy of thermal receipts by default. This can save you the cost that comes from automatically printing receipt copies if your customers rarely ask for them.  

Give store staff more visibility of fuel prepay transactions for easier refunds  

Store staff can now see more transaction information when refunding fuel prepay transactions, thereby helping them choose the correct transaction to refund, improving the speed and accuracy of the refund and providing an improved customer experience. 

Improve staff adherence to daily cash management process 

Several enhancements have been made to Cash Management functionality. You can now configure the system to perform end-of-days only, rather than end-of-shifts. This can help avoid confusion in businesses that do not operate on a shift basis. An extra prompt has also been added to the end-of-day and end-of-shift processes so that store staff are made aware if they create very short shifts by mistake, which increase administrative effort.  

INTEGRATIONS

Better inventory management and improved operations with enhancements to Xero integrations 

The Infinity Xero integration has been enhanced to push stock receipt, transfer, stocktake and adjustment transactions to reduce manual data entry into Xero when tracking inventory. 

Customers who use Xero to receive payments and accounts receivable statements can now post debtor transactions as individual invoices and credit notes, while Infinity remains the master of the debtor record for all transactions and pricing. Note: customers with a high volume of debtor transactions should ensure their transaction counts fall within Xero monthly transaction volume limitations. 

Supplier invoices that are posted to Xero have been enhanced to accommodate foreign currency suppliers so that offshore suppliers can be paid in their local currency. Freight that has been added to supplier invoices and disbursed across the items, such as landed costs, is now posted as inventory and goods received not invoiced, instead of as a separate inventory line, to provide better accuracy of full inventory valuations and cost of goods sold. 

Cash sales posting to Xero which use duty free mode, or debtors with tax exemption rules in Infinity, now correctly create tax-free and tax-inclusive lines for the various sales lines where appropriate so the tax from sales is accurately recorded in Xero. 

Help stores accepting eWIC cards serve customers faster 

Maintenance of the US WIC (Women, Infant and Children) products has been made more efficient now that the eWic APL file import correctly recognises the UPC PLU flag, thereby removing the need for manual updates of the item master. 

TECHNOLOGY

Commitment to modern .NET infrastructure 

All Infinity releases now require .NET 4.8 Framework to be present. This is part of Triquestra’s ongoing commitment to using enhancements from vendors and to maintaining technical support. When you receive a new Infinity release from now on, please ensure that .NET 4.8 is deployed to all workstations and servers that operate Infinity. 

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

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What is unified commerce?

Unified commerce is the term used for a retail software system which connects all your inventory and customer data to all your online, in-store and mobile sales channels. 

Use our extensive resources to learn more.