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Unified commerce
As organizations attempt to keep pace with rising consumer expectations, their commerce ecosystem and ancillary systems are becoming increasingly complex. There are more purchasing channels, more systems and more data to manage than ever before. How can commerce leaders streamline their environments to deliver frictionless customer experiences, enable data-driven decision making and create operational efficiencies?
Enter: unified commerce.
Unified commerce is a strategy that connects customer-facing sales channels, critical data and supporting management systems through scalable infrastructure. It breaks down silos across physical and digital channels, providing visibility into customer data, e-commerce, order fulfillment, inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM), point-of-sale (POS) systems and more.
The result is a more complete view of an organization's business, in which employees and customers are empowered to make smarter decisions so they can achieve their purpose.
What Is Unified Commerce, and How Can It Benefit Your Business?
How Unified Commerce Drives Smarter, Data-Driven Decisions | Experts
Frictionless customer experiences
Empower customers to seamlessly browse, transact, purchase and consume.
Increased visibility
Unify data to reduce errors, better forecast inventory and track KPIs.
Smarter, data-driven decision making
Identify new revenue streams, promotional campaigns and opportunities for growth.
Customer loyalty
Create highly personalized experiences that keep customers coming back.
Operational efficiencies
Simplify employee processes and expedite order fulfillment.
Ability to control your own roadmap
Pivot, innovate and scale on the fly to meet customers' evolving expectations.
Omnichannel versus unified commerce
Many leaders mistake omnichannel and unified commerce as the same concept, but these strategies have some key differences.
Omnichannel eliminates silos between front-end touchpoints and channels to create a seamless experience. Think website, social media, voice calls, SMS text messaging, mobile app, in-store experience, etc. Omnichannel ensures these channels deliver a fluid and consistent brand experience as customers navigate across them.
Unified commerce takes omnichannel a step further by also ensuring the back-end processes and systems powering those experiences work harmoniously together. It introduces a modern architecture that allows the back end to reflect the same seamlessness as the front end.
4 Principles of Today's Best-in-Class Omnichannel Experiences
Best Practices for Achieving a Unified Commerce Strategy
The growth of mobile commerce and the rise of headless commerce
Traditional commerce has evolved to include several digital channels. Mobile commerce, also known as m-commerce, allows consumers to browse, shop, consume and purchase goods and services through mobile devices and storefronts. Examples include online retail shopping, mobile banking, electronic boarding passes and more. Research shows m-commerce sales will account for more than 40 percent of ecommerce sales in 2024.
The explosion of m-commerce combined with consumers' high expectations for seamless experiences and the competitiveness of online sales has led to the rise of headless commerce. Headless commerce decouples an organization's front-end channels (web and mobile commerce, social commerce, in-store digital channels, etc.) from the back-end functionality (inventory management, payments, orders, carts, etc.). This approach allows leaders to easily make changes to each layer, add new technologies and deliver highly customized experiences in a timely fashion without being locked into a traditional content management system (CMS).
Our unified commerce expertise
Our comprehensive portfolio of services is designed to help organizations with every aspect of a unified commerce strategy. We combine our strategic consulting expertise around leading commerce platforms with the ability to execute unified commerce architectures at scale. Our core unified commerce service areas include:
Headless commerce
API-first architecture approach to unify omnichannel commerce experiences.
Retail and POS transformation
Enabling transactions, processing and distribution of goods and services across a variety of fulfillment methods.
Loyalty and personalization
Delivering individualized experiences across channels to incentivize loyalty and commerce.
MarTech and growth
Aligning data, automation and personalization to increase conversions and revenue opportunities.
View our full list of unified commerce services here.
Our work creating unified commerce strategies
A successful unified commerce strategy requires cross-functional alignment, deep expertise across technology domains, and insight into your customer and employees' needs and expectations. Explore our case studies to learn how we help customers achieve a unified commerce strategy that enables their businesses to thrive.
Driving Delightful Shopping Experiences at Schnucks That Extend Beyond the Brick and Mortar
Reinventing the Corner Deli and Increasing Customer Loyalty at Jersey Mike's