How a single view of customer and inventory data translates to happier customers

How do you keep up with customer expectations when consumer demands are rising – and often shifting?  

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 what they want. 

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, and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers.  

By taking the time to develop relationships with customers, provide excellent service, reward loyalty and stay connected, businesses can retain customers and drive sustainable growth.  

But at a time when only 25% of retailers can connect their online and in-store transaction data, many retailers struggle to deliver the unified experiences they need to meet customers where they are now.  

Unified commerce solves this by unifying online and store experiences with back-end systems so you can attract, scale and earn the most from loyal customers. It’s 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.   

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So how does a single source of truth translate to better customer satisfaction and retention?  

If your retail management system has been built up organically and relies on complex dependencies, you’ll know how difficult, slow and expensive it can be to integrate with modern technologies and create new customer experiences.  

A unified commerce platform can take that pain away. It bypasses the limitations of legacy and omnichannel systems by breaking down the walls between internal channel silos, using a centralised commerce platform that combines point of sale, inventory, ordering and fulfilment, loyalty, pricing and business intelligence.  

With one platform, you gain the single source of truth that gives you real-time visibility of your customer, inventory and fulfilment data across all your stores and channels.   

You can offer customers the easy purchase, convenient delivery and stress-free return options they want, while recognising and rewarding the shopping they do with you.   

Here’s how: 

Optimise inventory and availability 

Infinity lets you consolidate your inventory from all locations – warehouses, call centres and physical, mobile and online stores – and make it available for customers to buy anywhere, at any time. You can extend your range across more channels - marketplaces, in-store kiosks, shoppable screens, pop-up stores, concessions and mobile devices. And you’ll reduce costs, cut stock requirements and increase margins. 

Fulfil orders the way customers want 

When your data is unified, you can offer a range of fulfilment options no matter what channel an order comes in from. Click-and-collect, store-to-door delivery, drop shipping, returns anywhere and ‘endless aisle’ fulfilment are all possible. You get to choose what’s best for customers and most profitable for you. 

Reward customer loyalty 

It’s getting harder and more expensive to get a clear picture of customer activity and behaviours as more customers opt out of being tracked. However, loyalty programs offer a compelling reason for consumers to identify themselves in-store and online. With customer details captured and stored in single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you. Using that data and Infinity’s loyalty capabilities, 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. 

Localise pricing and promotions 

Pricing is shared across channels so customers can trust that they’ll see the same price whether they shop with you in-store or online. You can make better decisions about store product assortments, by matching breadth and depth to demand, trends and local demographics. And by customising products, prices and promotions nationally, regionally and even by individual sites, you’ll increase conversions and maximise profits. 

React smarter and faster to demand changes 

Using APIs on an open platform, you can expose data in real time, rather than replicate or move it. That lets you add specialised functionality across various systems and provides a fast and easy way to plug in and deploy new services, channels and devices. You’ll innovate quicker, keep up with customer demands and build your competitive advantage.  

This blog was originally published on 17 March 2020 and updated 28 February 2024

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See what a single source of truth can do for your customer retention!  

If you want to unify your data to offer a seamless blend of physical and digital customer experiences, contact us to get started. 

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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:  

What is unified commerce and why is it so important to retail success?

As more sales channels and touchpoints emerge, the customer journey from awareness to purchase becomes more complex. Customers want to hop between channels in one seamless interaction. They want more options and less friction.  

That means retailers need a strategy that lets customers shop, buy and receive goods how, when and wherever they want. 

The only way to meet demands for a truly unified experience is to move to a unified commerce approach that delivers seamless customer journeys across all channels, touchpoints and locations. 

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Unified commerce is the term used for a retail software platform that provides a central hub for data from every system and channel across your organisation.  

It breaks down the walls between channel silos to deliver frictionless customer experiences, while reducing integration and operating costs, and increasing efficiency and accuracy. 

At a time when only 25% of retailers are able to connect their online and in-store transaction data it’s gaining momentum, with 20% of retailers heavily investing in it, 32% beginning to invest and 36% considering doing so. Retailers who use unified commerce have seen a solid 7% revenue boost over those who did not. And Australian retailers can tap into a $44 billion opportunity when they connect online and in-store sales channels via unified commerce.  

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So what exactly is unified commerce?

Unified commerce is a retail management system that unifies all your customer and inventory data on one open, centralised commerce platform that exposes one version of truth to all channels.  

That means all your data stays in sync – across point of sale, websites, apps, call centres, field staff, DCs and warehouses, kiosks, pop-up stores, concessions and marketplaces – and transactions can be viewed in near real time.  

With all these customer touch points connected, unified commerce lets you deliver a holistic and personalised customer experience more consistently. You can make purchasing online and in-stores more seamless and convenient through endless aisle, digital payments and ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ services. And you can treat each customer as the individual they are – one person with one account, interacting with one unified brand. 

A unified commerce platform also helps you and your technology partners innovate quickly, maximise margin and deploy new services – efficiently and profitably. 

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Here’s how unified commerce helps you retail better

Optimise inventory and availability 

When you have an accurate, real-time view of your inventory, you can quickly see where inventory is and therefore the fastest place to fulfil from. You can 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). You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster.  

Fulfil orders the way customers want 

With a ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ strategy and centralised unified commerce platform, you can give customers and staff real-time visibility of inventory, order and customer data across the business. That means you can offer a range of fulfilment options like click-and-collect, ship-from-store and split shipments – whatever suits your customers best.   

Attract, scale and retain loyal customers 

You can capture customer details for your loyalty program via any channel and then analyse purchase and browsing histories to develop the personalised experiences customers now expect, with rewards and offers that are timely and relevant. Store and call centre employees can also see this information to offer tailored services and encourage conversions at the point of sale. 

Localise pricing and promotions 

Pricing is shared across channels so customers can trust that they’ll see the same price whether they shop with you in-store or online. You can make better decisions about store product assortments, by matching breadth and depth to demand, trends and local demographics. And by customising products, prices and promotions nationally, regionally and even by individual sites, you’ll increase conversions and maximise profits.   

React smarter and faster to demand changes 

Using APIs on an open platform, you can expose data in real time, rather than replicate or move it. That lets you add specialised functionality across various systems and provides a fast and easy way to plug in and deploy new services, channels and devices. You’ll innovate quicker, increase speed to market and build your competitive advantage. 

This blog was originally published on 13 January 2020 and updated 2 February 2024

If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your sales, service and marketing channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the ability to create unified retail experiences 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:  

What’s the difference between unified commerce and omnichannel?

In recent years, the terms ‘unified commerce’ and ‘omnichannel’ have reached buzzword status. Both are used to describe the delivery of seamless customer experiences across physical and digital channels.

But while they’re used interchangeably, there’s a significant difference between them.

Unified commerce is the next-generation architecture that finally delivers on what omnichannel promised.

 A unified commerce platform provides a central hub that breaks down the silos between channels to deliver truly seamless experiences, while also solving omnichannel’s biggest weakness – operational complexity.

 At a time when only 25% of retailers can connect their online and in-store transaction data it’s gaining momentum, with 20% of retailers heavily investing in it, 32% beginning to invest and 36% considering doing so. And retailers who used unified commerce in 2022 saw a solid 7% revenue boost over those who did not.

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Omnichannel offers options, but creates operational complexity

Omnichannel strategies talked about creating a seamless and consistent customer experience across all channels, but the execution has left a large gap in the user experience. 

Why? Retailers have to quickly spin up new channels as consumers demand them. An omnichannel approach does connect numerous channels, but they all operate in functional silos. That means customers can’t hop between channels in one seamless interaction and most attempts to deliver unified experiences fall well short. 

Omnichannel makes things much harder for retailers in five ways: 

• Integrating data silos: Often loosely connected with manual processes and custom integrations, omnichannel solutions are fragile, inefficient and costly to maintain. The silos generate a cascade of inconsistent, inaccurate data shared across the business, making it virtually impossible to deliver a seamless customer experience. 

• Inventory that isn’t real time: Many omnichannel systems only access rudimentary sales and inventory positions. This prevents retailers from offering the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for them. 

• Adding modern technologies and capabilities: Connecting legacy systems with modern technologies requires custom integrations, making the creation of new brand experiences complex, expensive, time consuming and risky. 

• Obtaining a single view of the customer: Silos negatively impact customers because they have to deal with inconsistencies and gaps, such as partial sales histories, different answers to questions or having to start new conversations in each channel. 

• Loss of innovation: Day-to-day inefficiencies mean that internal teams are tied up in remediation and troubleshooting and have less time to spend on creating the innovative, personalised experiences customers desire. 

Here’s an example of how omnichannel creates operational complexity:

An omnichannel architecture could allow a retailer to look up inventory across all its stores but they would struggle to make all items available online. This is because many retailers have items that are difficult to ship, such as fragile items, dangerous goods or large and bulky or heavy products. With no ability to create customised views of inventory to make them available for click and collect but exclude them from home delivery or inter-store transfers, they can only offer these items in stores.

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Unified commerce puts the customer experience first 

Customers today 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. 

The only way to meet these demands for a truly unified experience is to move beyond omnichannel to unified commerce. 

Unified commerce is an architectural approach that delivers seamless customer journeys across all channels, touchpoints and locations. 

It breaks down the walls between internal channel silos by using a centralised commerce platform that combines point of sale, inventory, ordering and fulfilment, loyalty, pricing and business intelligence. 

With a unified view of the customer, and all channels and engagement points connected in real-time, you can deliver a personalised and consistent customer experience.  

Your customers get a ‘one brand’ experience: one person with one account, interacting with one unified brand. No hitches, and no inconsistencies. 

You can make purchasing online and in-stores more seamless and convenient through endless aisle, digital payments and ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ services. 

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

A unified commerce platform enriches your customer experience and positively impacts your entire business in so many ways:

• Simplify your technology

• Accelerate speed to market

• Optimise inventory and availability

• Boost in-store productivity and sales

• Personalise your customer experience

• Create relevant and agile experiences. 

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This blog was originally published in January 2020 and updated 17 October 2023.

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Want help to reduce operational complexity?

We can help you define your goals, develop a business case and create your roadmap to simplified operations and unified customer experiences. 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 needs, download our ebook: