As any retailer knows, consumer preferences and expectations are constantly evolving. Customers want flexible, personalised experiences that allow to them to pick and choose between physical and digital channels, and they expect those experiences to be seamless.
‘Omnichannel’ has been the term most often used to describe the strategy retailers need to adopt to deliver on this customer demand, while ‘unified commerce’ has also reached buzzword status. Both are used to describe the delivery of seamless experiences across 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.
Unified commerce is gaining traction, with one study showing that rolling out a unified commerce platform was a top priority for 30% of retailers, while a combined 71% were somewhere on the path to adopting a unified commerce strategy.
Still, barriers remain. A study by Adyen this year found that 28% of those businesses without a unified platform lacked data on customer behaviour across channels, and 30% lacked the technology infrastructure to offer truly personalised experiences.
As we discuss here, the challenges faced by retailers offering hybrid in-store and online shopping options without the benefit of an integrated platform can be significant, while those prepared to take the leap gain competitive advantage through a deeper understanding of their customers and their evolving wants and needs.
Omnichannel offers options but creates operational complexity
Omnichannel strategies talked about creating seamless and consistent customer experiences across all channels, but the execution has fallen short.
Why? Retailers have to quickly spin up new channels as consumers demand them. An omnichannel approach connects numerous channels but they operate in functional silos, meaning that customers can’t move between channels in one seamless interaction.
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.
Operational complexity in the real world:
A customer browsing your web store sees that a product is available and orders it online for in-store collection. But behind the scenes, you’re running the online store and in-store POS on different systems, meaning data isn’t integrated and is syncing at different rates. To the customer, it might look like everything is working in harmony, until they find out that the product they ordered isn’t available because the stock level data in the online store is out of date.
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.
As Nick Gray, founder of retail consultancy I Got You, recently told Inside Retail, ‘Unified commerce is where you put the customer at the heart of every decision, so it’s a customer-centric retail strategy that seamlessly connects all sales channels.’
Unified commerce breaks down the walls between internal channel silos by using a centralised 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 by way of a single source of truth. 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.
This blog was originally published in October 2023 and updated July 2025.
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.
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 UC ebook:
AI and the future of retail: A CTO’s view
Mike Baxter is Triquestra’s CTO. Here he talks about how he sees the future of AI unfolding for retailers.
The surge in interest in AI, especially in the past year, has retailers asking how they can incorporate it into their businesses for maximum effect. And at a time when 65% of Asia Pacific CEOs anticipate that AI will significantly enhance their organisation’s efficiency, it makes sense to think clearly about how to implement AI tools in a way that enhances productivity, streamlines processes and adds to revenue growth.
AI has the potential to revolutionise the retail sector, including when it comes to customer-facing aspects such as personalisation, as well as the ‘under the bonnet’ tasks involved in inventory management, the bedrock of any retail business.
Global retailers like Zara and Amazon are already using AI to monitor inventory in real time, dynamically allocate stock based on local trends and predict demand for millions of its products in just seconds.
As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about technology and how to integrate it into the ways Triquestra and our customers do business, I’ve got some thoughts on how the future of AI might play out and how retailers can get ready to make the most of it.
The next next big thing
Ten years ago the term on everyone’s lips was ‘cloud’, and we were all asking how we could incorporate cloud technology into our business for best effect. Now that AI is the next next big thing, it’s worth pointing out a few important differences between these two leaps forward.
For one thing, AI is a simpler proposition. Whereas cloud implementation required significant IT infrastructure investment and configuration, AI is already integrated into many existing tools, and most people are familiar with the best-known ones, like ChatGPT. That alone makes AI more accessible and easier to understand compared to the initial stages of cloud adoption.
That doesn’t mean it’s all plain sailing, though. It’s important to recognise that AI comes with its own challenges and pitfalls that you need to keep in mind when integrating it into your business.
Start with being clear about what you’re trying to achieve. Learn from the mistake that some businesses made during cloud implementation when they were carried away by the hype instead of clearly defining their goals. Start with something small, solve it, learn from it and then repeat it.
Get the inputs right
When people talk about AI, they’re really talking about a few different things all working together. If we think about demand forecasting, there’s a layer of machine learning that trains models on inputs like algorithms and data and then produces predictions of future customer behaviour. AI enhances this process by automating the analysis and selection of the best algorithms and data.
But AI’s effectiveness relies on the quality of the data and the instructions it’s given. In other words, it can only offer quality analysis if it has quality information to work with. Proper data management and preparation are essential for achieving accurate and useful AI outputs.
As Triquestra’s CEO Greg Cantlon said recently, ‘The retailers who will win the AI race aren’t necessarily those jumping on every new AI trend — they’re the ones building strong foundations with systems that make their data easily accessible and actionable.’
It’s also vital to ask the right questions. High-quality, tailored prompts that give precise context will return more helpful, accurate results than vague queries that take a shot in the dark. Without quality prompts, language models will give different results even with the same data.
Let’s say you’re a furniture retailer who wants to know about upcoming demand for outdoor furniture over summer. You’ve opened more urban stores in the past 12 months and warmer than expected temperatures and lower rainfall are expected. By using this data and targeting your prompts to querying sun umbrellas instead of all categories of outdoor furniture, you learn that increased sales in the range of 10% are likely and can plan accordingly.
Be willing to pay
Poor-quality prompts and data don’t just return variable results, they can also waste time and cost money, especially if you are paying to use an AI tool.
AI pricing models are based on tokens, where each token represents a chunk of data and the cost depends on the volume of data processed and the complexity of the prompts. Therefore, targeted prompting is a good way to optimise cost efficiency, whereas generic questions and bloated data sets can incur unwanted expense.
Still, it’s worth investing in paid tools, given that they offer better efficiency, especially when using targeted prompts. They also provide the benefit of enhanced data security and retention, whereas free tools can scoop up your data to train models for other users.
When it comes to choosing an AI tool, be willing to pay.
Prepare for rapid change
One of the standout aspects of AI technology is how rapidly it’s developing and changing. So, for example, language models are starting to specialise in different areas, such as writing software code, analysing customer sentiment, and personalisation. This specialisation could lead to more accurate and relevant outputs.
The key, though, will remain quality inputs. As AI advances, the need to interact with it in an intelligent, informed way will increase rather than decrease. That means developing people who understand your business and can interact with AI in a way that gets the best, most useful results.
Even at a time of rapid technological change, the human factor will be crucial to your success.
So will data quality and integrity. And that’s where Infinity comes in. As Greg said, ‘The question isn’t if your business will need to adapt, but how quickly you can do so when the time comes. The key is to choose systems built on robust APIs and data accessibility. Your point-of-sale system shouldn’t just handle today’s transactions — it should be your launchpad for tomorrow’s AI innovations.’
Want help to manage your data for best results?
If you’re looking for help to build a solid foundation for data accessibility, get in touch. We’d love to help you prepare for the future of retail.
New in Infinity – June 2025
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
Leverage real-time cost information
Our Products API now lets you see a real-time value for weighted average costs if you create transactions or carry out inventory analysis in an external system.
PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Quickly locate branch item information in clusters
Searching for detailed stock item information can be time consuming, especially if you have a lot of stores offering different prices or sourcing items from different suppliers. Head office staff can find the branch information for an item in a cluster more quickly now that they can sort branches alphabetically instead of having to know the branch’s numerical ID.
INVENTORY
Get a consistent view of stock take results
Stock taking is one of the most important tasks in your business, and getting the count right is vital to maintaining accurate inventory data. To help your staff quickly identify and double-check variances before they complete the stock take, you can now choose to list items in the printed stock take report in the same order they appear on screen, meaning staff don’t waste time trying to match what they see on screen with what’s in the report.
REPORTS & ANALYTICS
Summarise stock takes by stock count group
We’ve also enhanced stock taking by giving you a new report that summarises stock takes that have been carried out based on stock count group. The Stocktake Count Group Summary Report provides an overview of stock takes that have been carried out at branches, lets you see variances and gives you the option to list results according to individual stock count groups.
POINT OF SALE
Monitor staff safety at the point of sale
Staff safety is a growing issue across the retail sector, with some staff regularly dealing with threatening or abusive behaviour from customers. You can now keep track of how often your staff are facing this problem by using new functionality at the POS. When your staff feel threatened, they can press an on-screen button that records the event, allowing you to monitor how often these incidences are happening and enhancing your people’s sense of well-being.
Speed up processing of sales by under-age staff
If you sell age-restricted items, such as alcohol, you need to be sure that you’re complying with the law without compromising speed of service. To help you serve customers quickly and efficiently while meeting your legal obligations, Infinity now recognises an under-age staff member each time they complete a new transaction, instead of forcing them to log back in after every sale.
ADMINISTRATION
Send invoices and statements to multiple debtor contacts
Managing debtor customers is a more seamless experience now that you can automatically send invoices and statements to more than one email address, saving you the hassle of manually emailing documents to the relevant people in the business and enhancing lines of communication.
So, for example, when the customer buys an item in-store, you can send the invoice to the purchasing team as well as to the customer’s primary contact. And at the end of each period, you can send statements to the primary contact and to the customer’s accounts payable, so that the right people see the amount due.
Enhance financial integrity of trading days
If you use Infinity’s extended cash management module, you can now require store staff to complete any draft trading days before creating a new one. Trading days can also be completed the next day if necessary even if new sales have been processed, giving you peace of mind that all transactions are correctly accounted for.
TECHNOLOGY
Use the latest Microsoft technologies
Infinity now ships with SQL Server 2022 as default, giving you the most recent version of SQL Server currently in Microsoft’s mainstream support. We also continue to support SQL Server 2016, 2017 and 2019, while customers on SQL Server 2012 and 2014 should be planning to update to a later version.
Proactively address database-related performance issues
If you use a version of SQL Server Express, you’ll now be warned when the database size reaches a threshold of 9.8GB or higher, allowing you to proactively address issues before they affect your store operations.
To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us.
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How drop shipping can drive down cost and grow revenue
Think of drop shipping and you might imagine a small, start-up online entrepreneur selling a relatively small range of products sourced from suppliers who handle the shipping and delivery.
But drop shipping can also be a powerful tool for larger, established retailers looking for ways to maxmise revenue, drive down cost and enhance fulfilment options.
Here we look at some of the advantages to be gained from drop shipping, and at how to seamlessly integrate it into your existing business model.
The rise and rise of drop shipping
Consumers’ love for the convenience of online shopping has seen drop shipping grow exponentially. This year, the global drop shipping market is estimated at a whopping US$434.98 billion, with the Asia Pacific region accounting for US$156.59 billion of that value, while annual growth is predicted in the range of 22% until 2034.
Over the next decade, growing middle-class wealth is expected to see Asia Pacific dominate the global drop shipping market as consumers look for ways to spend their disposable incomes, with overall market value expected to rise to US$939.50 billion.
Understanding the benefits
Given these numbers, it makes sense for established retailers to consider ways to get a slice of the drop shipping market pie. And, as well as revenue growth, drop shipping can offer a range of benefits to recognised brands.
For a start, by sourcing and shipping products directly from the supplier as and when customers want them, you avoid the overheads that come with warehousing and the costs of potential spoilage. This is especially true for retailers, such as furniture and homeware vendors, that sell large items requiring ample storage.
Not having to warehouse stock also allows you to offer a wider range of products, and you get to trial new product lines without having to buy large volumes up-front, thereby lowering the risk of being left with unsold stock.
Using drop shipping also gives you an added fulfilment option when it comes to meeting your customers’ desire for fast, efficient delivery.
What’s more, established brands with an existing online offering and customer base can avoid some of the pitfalls that come with setting up a drop shipping business by leveraging existing suppliers, sales channels and customer support.
Managing the risks
Like all aspects of retail, drop shipping is not without risks that need to be managed for brand protection. Suppliers need to be carefully vetted to ensure shipping costs and estimates are reliable and accurate, legal obligations are met and product quality is maintained.
At the other end of the supply chain, customers need to receive the same level of care and support as if they had bought from your warehoused stock, so that the buying experience is seamless. That means giving your people up-to-date information about drop ship orders and empowering them to quickly address any issues.
Choosing the right partner
Making the move to drop shipping as seamlessly as possible, for both you and your customers, means choosing a technology partner who can help you integrate it into your existing business model in a way that lets you easily track drop shipped orders and inventory.
That’s where Infinity comes in.
With Infinity, you can easily create a new stock item that is added to your inventory but flagged as a drop ship product for order fulfilment.
You can then search for and retrieve drop ship orders and monitor their progress to delivery just as you would with a conventional order.
And if the customer changes their mind and wants to return or refund the item, Infinity can bring the product into your inventory so it can be receipted, counted and returned to the supplier.
When it comes to drop shipping, Infinity gives you the flexibility to expand your offering and manage orders without the cost of end-to-end inventory management. You get to choose what’s best for customers and most profitable for you.
Drop shipping in practice
When one of Australasia’s best-known furniture retailers was looking for a way to expand the range of items on offer from existing suppliers without increasing warehouse capacity, they turned to Infinity to handle drop shipped inventory and orders.
The process is streamlined and easy.
When a customer goes to the online store and identifies a drop ship product they want to buy, a new stock item is instantly created on the fly via an Infinity API that connects the web store to the supplier’s system.
The item becomes part of an order that is tracked through to completion, as well as being assigned to a physical store based on the customer’s delivery address and post code.
If any issues arise, the customer can go instore and know that their query will be handled, up to and including order cancellation, while store staff can retrieve and view the order just like any other.
The result? An expanded product offering and seamless customer experience.
Want help to get the most out of drop shipping?
If you’re looking for help to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow's delivery conscious shoppers, get in touch. We’d love to help you deliver the shopping experiences customers expect.
New in Infinity – March 2025
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
Leverage the latest .NET technology
Starting in April 2025, Infinity APIs will be shipped to use .NET Core 8, the latest long-term support framework from Microsoft. This upgrade will ensure enhanced security and provide cutting-edge features for operational APIs.
PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Monitor data changes for enhanced security
Field audit logging is a great way to keep track of changes to Infinity data fields, allowing you to protect profitability, monitor inventory and maintain system security by making sure data is being captured and maintained correctly. We’ve enhanced the item fields that you can audit by adding alternate barcodes, so you can easily see if a barcode has been changed, who changed it and when.
INVENTORY
Get a consistent view of custom item attributes
Last year, we gave you the ability to use additional custom fields when you search for items and view their details, so you could easily see the product data and attributes most relevant to your business. We’ve now extended these changes to include purchase orders, replenishment requests and demand forecasts, giving you a consistent view of item attributes across a range of vital stock management processes.
Use branch transfer requests to maintain optimal stock levels
Every retailer knows how important it is to have the right stock in the right place at the right time. If your business has multiple sites, Infinity Cloud now makes moving stock across stores easier with the introduction of branch transfer requests.
If your store staff notice stock is running low or need to increase stock for any other reason, they can scan the items and then send a transfer request to another store. If you use Infinity Messaging, the other store will be automatically alerted to the request. It can then transfer you the stock, giving you another, seamless way to maintain optimum inventory levels.
ORDER MANAGEMENT
Send tax invoices to online customers automatically
You can now enhance your customers’ online ordering experience and speed up order processing in stores by automatically emailing GST invoices. Note that this will require a change to your customised A4 print layout, if you have one.
CUSTOMER & LOYALTY
Elevate your loyalty offering with Eagle Eye
Infinity now integrates with Eagle Eye, allowing enterprise-level businesses to take advantage of its flexible personalisation loyalty solution. The integration enables real-time earning and burning of loyalty offers, points and vouchers held in personal wallets via API for optimal customer experience.
If integrating with Eagle Eye would suit your business, please get in touch to discuss the customisations needed to get it up and running.
PRICING & PROMOTIONS
Quickly identify pricing rules that apply to promotions
Our complex pricing solution lets you easily create promotional rules for either single items or multi-buys using multiple pricing attributes that you can then apply to promotional offers. With the latest changes, store managers can now quickly see which pricing rules apply to a promotion, giving them a better understanding of current offers.
And if you use Infinity Cloud in your stores, your store staff can also easily see which single-quantity promotional rule applies to items when they check shelf prices.
Calculate multi-buy web cart prices more reliably
If you use our web pricing solution, you’ll find we’ve improved speed and performance when a high number of rules-based product sets are in operation, meaning that multi-buys are more quickly and reliably calculated in the cart and the customer’s overall shopping experience goes more smoothly.
REPORTS & ANALYTICS
Track multiple stock adjustments
Keeping your inventory straight sometimes means having to adjust stock numbers in bulk, such as when a group of products was incorrectly receipted, arrived damaged or was inaccurately counted. We’ve made it easier to keep track of when this happens and to understand changes made to your stock levels by allowing you to report on groups of products that were adjusted at the same time.
ADMINISTRATION
Drill down on stores’ trading day results
Getting an accurate view of trading results at your stores is a vital way of understanding the cashflow through your business and your stores’ overall position. If you use Infinity’s extended cash management module, you can now easily search for individual store trading days, giving you the granular cashflow visibility you need.
Streamline logging into Infinity Cloud
Logging into Infinity Cloud at a store branch is a more seamless experience now that the branch selector automatically defaults to the only branch in the list, making the logon faster and smoother.
TECHNOLOGY
Use the latest Microsoft technologies
Infinity now fully supports Windows Server 2025, allowing customers to use the most recently available Microsoft operating system in enterprise environments.
Enhance monitoring of progress during upgrades
Monitoring the progress of automated upgrades is easier now that you can track progress and identify issues using the Infinity Upgrade Dashboard. Working in conjunction with the existing upgrade command function in Head Office, the dashboard displays the overall upgrade progress, while also allowing you to see if a specific branch has upgraded and is ready to trade, and to identify any stations that had errors. You can also see where an upgrade command was sent and should have executed but has not.
To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us.
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The inspiring future of retail: Insights from the Australian Retail Association Leaders Forum 2025
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Australian Retail Association (ARA) Leaders Forum 25 in the vibrant city of Sydney. The association is Australia’s oldest and largest national retail body. It represents a $430 billion sector that comprises more than 120,000 retail shop fronts and online stores and that employs more than 1.4 million people. The forum was part of its mission to inform, educate and unify the independent, national and international retail community.
This event gathered some of the brightest minds in retail to discuss the key issues and trends that are shaping the future. The iconic Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge served as backdrops to the forum, which was hosted at the International Convention Centre. The energy was electric, filled with the anticipation of fresh ideas and collaborative opportunities.
A wealth of knowledge
The keynote speakers provided the undoubted highlight. Each presenter brought unique expertise and perspectives, igniting lively discussions on a range of critical topics, from current economic challenges to AI, data mining and sustainability.
The forum kicked off with an engaging session called Retail’s Future Vision, which featured renowned economist Chris Richardson of Rich Insight speaking about the current economic landscape in Australia and its impact on the retail sector. His analysis of consumer behaviour and spending trends provided actionable insights for retailers looking to navigate the challenges posed by inflation, shifting consumer priorities and changing buying habits. In addressing Trump’s tariffs and the shift to the likes of Temu and Shein, Chris said, “competition is fierce and it will be fiercer.”
The transformative power of technology was the focus of an absorbing panel discussion titled Retail 2025: State of Play, well hosted by Vanessa Matthijssen, the Asia-Pacific Consumer Industry Lead at Deloitte. The conversation featured industry giants Scott Fyfe, CEO of David Jones; Richard Goodman, CEO of FoodCo Group; Agnieszka (Agi) Pfeiffer-Smith, Managing Director of Dan Murphy’s (Endeavour Group); and Tim Schaafsma, CEO of Coco Republic. Together, they explored the evolving retail landscape and shared insights on how businesses are adapting to changing consumer expectations in preparation for 2025.
Panel discussions delved into how AI and data mining can enhance the customer experience, optimise inventory management and drive sales. It was fascinating to learn about real-world applications, from personalised recommendations to predictive analytics that can help retailers forecast demand.
With sustainability becoming a key focus in retail, passionate expert Bronwyn Johnson, Senior Business Development Manager at Too Good To Go, shared that “40% of the food we produce goes to waste.” I had the good fortune to talk with Bronwyn and discuss the work she does with some of the major fuel and convenience brands in Australia that allow customers to use an app to buy food that would otherwise go to waste.
Panel insights shared how businesses can incorporate sustainable practices into their operations, from ethical sourcing to eco-friendly packaging, with the discussion underscoring the importance of aligning business strategies with consumer expectations for sustainability. The collective commitment from the industry to adopt greener practices was truly inspiring.
Beyond the speaker sessions, the forum provided ample opportunities to network with fellow retailers, industry experts and thought leaders. Engaging in conversations over coffee breaks and during breakout sessions allowed me to share experiences, challenges and solutions with like-minded individuals. It was a reminder of the power of collaboration in driving innovation and success in the retail space.
Leaving inspired
As I wrapped up my time in Sydney, I left the ARA Leaders Forum 25 feeling inspired and equipped with knowledge to take back to my colleagues at Triquestra and our customers. The insights gained from economists, AI experts, sustainability advocates and customer journey strategists highlighted the dynamic nature of retail and the necessity for adaptation and forward-thinking.
This event was not just a conference—it was a gathering of passionate individuals committed to improving the retail landscape. I am looking forward to applying what I learned and staying engaged with the discussions initiated during the forum, as we all strive to create a more innovative, sustainable and customer-centric retail environment.
Until next time, Sydney! Your vibrant spirit and the invaluable lessons from the ARA Leaders Forum 25 will be cherished.
Striking the Stock Balance: Managing Inventory in a Tight Market
Managing inventory is one of retailers’ biggest challenges and largest costs — no matter their size or sector. Striking the right stock levels and adjusting them to meet customer demand is vital to maintaining profitability and driving down cost, especially when the retail market is tight.
Here, we look at some of the ways that inventory management impacts the bottom line and offer solutions to the problem of having the right amount of stock in the right place at the right time.
Empty shelves vs buffers
Deciding how much stock to keep on hand can be tricky at the best of times, but when consumer spending falls it can be the difference between profit and loss. Medium-sized retailers without large warehousing facilities, in particular, often face an impossible choice — buy in more stock and risk having excess inventory or be cautious and potentially disappoint customers and miss out on sales.
Either way, you lose. Overstocking can tie up your working capital and see you paying for excess floor space, while also resulting in markdowns that can hurt your margins and limit your ability to invest precious resources in new products and innovations that give you a competitive edge. It can also expose you to losses from theft, fraud, spoilage or administrative lapses.
Meanwhile, understocking puts you at risk of not being able to complete sales and of losing revenue. Research shows that a third of in-store shoppers will go elsewhere if what they’re looking for is out of stock, while almost half would simply walk out and abandon the purchase altogether.
However you choose to connect with your customers, whether it be in-store or online, getting stock levels right is essential to delivering the kind of service that boosts sales and keeps customers coming back, while also containing the costs of doing business.
The curse of poor stock visibility
You can only avoid over- or understocking when you know what stock you have coming in, what is being sold and what you have on hand. When retailers struggle with the fundamentals of inventory control, such as stock taking, demand forecasting, planning and receipting, they set themselves up for botched sales and increased costs.
Incorrect inventory information can be a particular pain point for shoppers browsing online. A recent study found that 40% of retailers have to cancel at least one in ten customer orders, primarily due to inaccurate inventory data. What’s more, customers don’t just use webstores because they’re convenient — they use them to ensure that what they want to buy will be there when they walk into the store. If they come in only to find the items they want aren’t available, they will lose trust in you and think twice about coming back.
On the other hand, poor stock visibility can also lead retailers to remove items from the webstore so that they’re available for click-and-collect orders when, in reality, plenty of stock is on hand, once again resulting in disappointed customers and lost sales.
And poor inventory visibility doesn’t just lose sales and increase costs. Store and call centre employees have to deal with all the problems that arise, including upset shoppers, misplaced products and inaccuracies across different systems. That means inventory inconsistencies not only churn customers — they also churn staff.
Getting on top of inventory
The first step towards making better inventory decisions is ensuring you have high-quality data at your fingertips. This begins with the human factor, so that your staff are trained and supported to enter accurate information on time when completing essential tasks like stock taking and receipting.
As well as implementing good processes that are correctly followed, you can use a retail management system that maintains stock in a central location, so it can be actively managed for optimal results and without unnecessary and potentially inaccurate replication of effort. It should also easily and accurately receipt stock, with unders and overs seamlessly identified.
With a robust system in place, you can arm your staff with a single, real-time view of all stock across the business so they can make sure they are ordering what’s needed and that it’s available to meet demand in your physical or online stores. And by having visibility of items that have been allocated to customer orders, they can be sure they aren’t selling goods that are already committed.
Then, with unified inventory management across all locations and customer touch points, you can take an ‘endless aisle’ approach to fulfilment without the need for expensive warehousing or having to keep stock on hand just in case it’s needed at a particular store. Using this approach you can:
Reduce inventory costs by moving stock to the right location when it’s needed and cutting your overall stock requirements
Lower fulfilment costs by delivering direct to the customer using store-to-door, click-and-collect, kerbside pickup or optimised sourcing
Reduce overselling or underselling with real-time inventory updates that remove the issues of selling unavailable stock or having more stock than listed online
Offer more purchasing and fulfilment options to customers so they can locate items in-store, buy online, collect in-store, reserve online, receive the same day or at a time and location of their choice
Of course, implementing these changes also comes with costs, so it’s important to involve your CFO right at the start. Getting their buy-in and endorsement means assessing how the investment in a retail system that meets your inventory visibility needs helps to deliver cost savings and real value over its entire lifespan.
Create a budget by calculating how much the system will cost in terms of licences, implementation, training and maintenance. Then compare these costs to the benefits you expect to see from an accurate enterprise-wide view of inventory, including tangible and intangible returns, such as cost savings, increased revenue, improved decision-making, enhanced scalability or competitive advantage.
A cost-benefit analysis should show with absolute clarity how a new system can deliver a positive ROI.
Want help to achieve better inventory visibility?
If you’re struggling with inventory management and are looking at how to build a foundation for a seamless customer experience, talk to us about how to start with a real-time view of inventory.
Keeping it Simple: Streamlining Pricing and Promotion for Optimal Results
While 94% of retail leaders are deploying multi-channel strategies, only 65% say their pricing and promotion strategy is consistent across all channels.
In a complicated world, keeping things simple can be vital to staying ahead of the competition. And when it comes to pricing, the simpler and faster the better.
Every retailer knows that enticing customers with special offers, promotions and custom pricing is essential to driving revenue. And at a time when inflationary pressures have seen consumers prioritising value for money and many are still looking for ways to make their dollar go further, getting your pricing strategy right is more important than ever.
But targeting and executing those promotions and pricing models can add an onerous layer of complexity to your business, especially if you have an extensive inventory and sell to retail and non-retail customers with different needs and expectations.
What’s more, running multiple pricing tiers and discount offers in tandem can make it hard to assess the impact on profit margin and can create confusion for customers at the point of sale, potentially eating into revenue gains.
Choosing the right technology partner is crucial. They need to deliver a solution that simplifies the creation, maintenance and delivery of complex pricing models, provides flexibility and meets the evolving needs of B2B and B2C customers. More than anything, they need to take the pain out of complex pricing by aligning your technology systems to your sales strategies – not the other way around.
Here, we look at how complex pricing, when done well, can deliver for both you and your customers, and consider what you should look for in a pricing solution.
Always offer the best price
Knowing they are getting the best price is top of mind for cost-conscious buyers, with many shoppers willing to switch brands if they can save money elsewhere. Your complex pricing solution should be smart enough to ensure that you are delivering on this expectation for retail customers, either as part of customer-specific or store-specific promotions, or multi-buys, while also excluding trade or contract customers if separate pricing has been negotiated with them.
Harness the power of volume pricing
Volume pricing delivers compelling value for customers by lowering the price per unit for larger quantities. Your pricing solution should allow you to easily set up tiered pricing that is sensitive to unit quantities when they are added to the sale, so you can appeal to trade customers seeking to purchase large orders at a reduced cost.
Tailor pricing for contracts and projects
Negotiating contract and project pricing for trade customers is a valuable tool in the complex pricing toolkit and can be a great way of offering tradies an even better deal on your products.
So, for example, if a group of builders are working on a new supermarket project, your solution should allow you to identify them and offer them an enhanced, agreed discount over and above standard trade pricing on specified products for the work they do on the project.
Alternatively, you should be able to offer a builder contract pricing on a box of nails, so that they pay $80 per box over a 12-month period instead of the retail price of $90.
Protect your margins
There’s no point running a promotion that will ultimately cost you money. You need to be sure that your margins are protected by preventing your store staff from manually discounting an item below an allowed minimum. At the same time, you need to be able to empower them to offer manual discounts where appropriate while also complying with trading standards.
And when it comes to negotiating contract pricing for trade customers, you need to be sure that the price you offer is financially viable and will maintain profit margins in your business.
Create global and local promotions
In multi-store business, a one-size-fits-all approach to pricing and promotion can limit your ability to react to local trends. Implementing a pricing solution that allows stores to create and run their own promotions, such as a buy-one-get-one-free or a percentage-off deal, can be an effective way to move excess stock and to keep stores engaged with their customers.
Reach across channels
Today, customers expect a “one-brand” experience that lets them shop at any time, using any channel, from any device, at the best price. However, inconsistent pricing and promotion strategies across all channels can leave retailers falling short. While 94% of retail leaders are deploying multi-channel strategies, only 65% say their pricing and promotion strategy is consistent across all channels.
To meet customers’ expectations, complex pricing needs to be part of a holistic unified commerce approach, so you can apply the same price online, in your apps and at self-service kiosks as you do instore, while also giving you the option to run promotions for specific channels, such as web-only specials for click-and-collect shoppers.
Simplify the point of sale experience
When complex pricing is done right, it delivers the best possible experience for customers without compromising performance. And by delivering virtually instant results, it takes the pressure off your store staff by doing the heavy lifting for them, while giving them the information they need to let customers know about pricing promotions and alerting them to upselling opportunities.
What Infinity can offer you
Infinity’s Rules Based Pricing solution delivers on all these essential requirements. Its easy-to-use interface allows you to quickly and easily define and implement multiple pricing attributes, determine the order in which pricing rules apply, and execute standard retail promotions in combination with non-retail pricing. Pre-defined rules take the pain out of designed pricing models, and lower error rates mean less time reconciling pricing between systems. And what’s more, it seamlessly forms part of Infinity’s unified commerce platform, so that pricing is consistent across all channels.
If you’re looking for help to shape your pricing 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.
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.
Navigating Choppy Waters: Tailoring Loyalty for Enhanced Customer Retention
In the face of tough economic headwinds, retailers need to find ways to stand out from the crowd and keep their customers coming back. Given that retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers, it makes sense to look for ways to build loyalty.
Conventional wisdom says that the key to this is to reward customers for their spend. But while as many as 97% of consumers belong to some kind of retail loyalty programme, converting members to users can be harder than merely getting them to sign up in the first place.
So how do you build a loyalty programme that cultivates truly engaged customers while still ensuring you deliver value and drive profit margins?
Personalise the experience
Offering a loyalty programme that resonates with customers starts with personalisation. With consumers today also wanting more bespoke experiences, it pays to look for ways to personalise at scale by transitioning from mass-market approaches to strategies that delight consumers with personalised product recommendations and discounts, as well as tailored interactions.
The ability to see each customer’s shopping preferences and purchase history across all channels is critical for building personalised shopping encounters. By using the right unified commerce platform providing a holistic view of your customers, you can better plan your loyalty, pricing and promotion strategies and get the right offer or message to the right customer, at the right time and in the right place.
These personalised messages and offers should supplement mass, at scale touches. By balancing strategies across occasions (such as mass-market events like Click Frenzy and Black Friday) with personalised messages (such as birthdays) you can keep customers engaged. By creating remarkable customer experiences that meet or even exceed their expectations, you can ensure they return, again and again.
Offer instant rewards
Most retailers already provide value to shoppers through pricing strategies, promotional offers and reward schemes. But today, a traditional approach might not be enough to keep them coming back. With 74% of customers preferring smaller, more accessible rewards that allow them to redeem points more frequently, there’s a benefit to offering instantaneous rewards, rather than requiring shoppers to save points before making a purchase.
This shift has coincided with rapid digital acceleration, which has raised customers’ expectations when it comes to online shopping.
However, inconsistent pricing and promotion strategies across all channels can leave retailers falling short of those expectations. While 94% of retail leaders are deploying multi-channel strategies, only 65% say their pricing and promotion strategy is consistent across all channels. And few look at combining their loyalty and pricing tactics to create a unified and differentiated customer experience.
To integrate your loyalty, pricing and promotions, you’ll need a unified commerce platform that combines data from every system and channel across your business.
You can then start increasing your number of loyalty members by offering rewards that meet their needs. Exclusive pricing promotions – such as immediate percentage or cash discounts for loyalty programme members – can satisfy the desire to enjoy rewards straight away rather than saving points for redemption later.
Enhance omnichannel shopping
Today consumers don’t think in terms of channels. They now expect a “one-brand” approach that lets them shop at any time, using any channel, from any device, at the best price. And when it comes to loyalty and digital experience, they are more likely to value convenience over the loyalty programme itself.
When done well, a unified commerce platform elevates and streamlines the shopping journey and offers you a competitive advantage through a more nuanced understanding of your customers and what drives them to keep coming back.
But if you’ve got siloed backend systems and processes that leave your customers dealing with inconsistencies and gaps, you simply cannot offer a seamless experience, and the convenience and personalised customer service that support a robust loyalty offering will be severely compromised.
Implementing a complete omnichannel solution allows you to bridge the gap between customer expectations and the drivers of loyalty and retention.
Modernise your point of sale
Stores remain the dominant sales channel globally, still generating more than 70% of sales and expected to continue to grow at 4% year on year. Stores are also a vital channel for driving loyalty. For customers, in-store shopping offers instant gratification, personalised assistance, product comparison and social interaction, while it gives retailers the chance to deliver a tailored, tactile experience that builds repeat business.
But these interactions need to be supported by a POS solution that can function anywhere your ecommerce platform can, so that your online and offline presence complement each other and offer the seamless, integrated browsing and buying that customers expect. By putting current, detailed customer information at your employees’ fingertips, you empower them to become the frontline of retention.
Want help to enhance your loyalty programme?
As you transform your customer experience to retain loyal customers, increase market share and maximise profits, your retail systems must transform as well. If you’re looking for help to develop your loyalty and personalisation capabilities, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop more meaningful relationships that deliver profitable growth.
