Guide to unified commerce

Key components of a unified commerce solution

Central data hub

A Central Data Hub is an essential component of a unified commerce solution.

It acts as a repository of all data that is updated in real-time. It forms the backbone of a cohesive business platform that enables retail businesses to implement successful marketing and sales campaigns and ensure that checkouts take place smoothly.

In addition to providing customers with a seamless shopping experience, a Central Data Hub acts as a historical treasure trove of data that updates changes in real-time. This ensures that a single source of truth is available to all departments, both in the front end and the back end.

Consequently, businesses can implement an omnichannel strategy quickly and ensure revenue growth.

Omnichannel order management system (OMS)

An Omnichannel Order Management System (OMS) is a vital module within a unified commerce system.

It helps you fulfill orders quickly and easily across multiple touchpoints without friction. This results in enhanced customer experience and a reduction in churn rate. An OMS is essential to process orders seamlessly across touchpoints.

You will have 360-degree visibility of customer profiles, product locations, and different backend processes. As a result, you can route orders and allocate resources efficiently while supporting different fulfillment options.

Omnichannel inventory management system

Like an Omnichannel Order Management System, an Omnichannel Inventory Management System further supports an omnichannel ecosystem, allowing retailers and businesses to manage their stock efficiently across locations and platforms.

For instance, retailers with multiple warehouses and distribution centers can quickly and efficiently manage all their inventory in the backend.

Storefront staff can view the exact number of products available at each location and ensure that the prices and discounts offered do not differ across touchpoints.
An Omnichannel Inventory Management System is essential to keep e-commerce and physical retail sales in sync and ensure smooth movement of products.

Customer relationship management (CRM) system

A unified commerce system is a holistic solution that helps businesses to manage backend processes while ensuring that customer satisfaction remains at impressive levels. Consequently, an important component of a unified commerce system is a CRM.

The CRM is constantly updated with each customer interaction and changes in behavior so that the latest and the most relevant data is available to all parties concerned. Thanks to a unified customer profile, personalized shopping experiences are made easy and accessible across touchpoints.

This results in enhanced customer satisfaction and reduced churn rates.

E-commerce

Unified Commerce Solutions has powerful e-commerce features that help retailers take their online business to the next level.

In addition to being the primary interface for customers to browse and shop for products, it also synchronizes with backend modules to display a unified product catalog that has the latest and the most accurate product descriptions, images, and pricing.

Customers can easily check availability and manage their buying journey across touchpoints. A unified commerce solution also comes with a powerful personalization and recommendations engine that fetches the most relevant products to customers based on their user behavior and previous interactions.

It also makes payments easy and quick, while ensuring you adhere to regulatory compliances.

Point of sale (POS) system

While investing in a unified commerce solution, ensure it comes with an advanced point-of-sales (POS) system.

A versatile POS system that supports an omnichannel retail strategy ensures that your staff can process payments anytime, anywhere. In addition, it helps your backend staff procure raw materials and pay for them without difficulties.

An integrated POS system takes matters a step ahead, eliminating the need for manual payment details entry. It accepts and processes all types of payments on the system without sending customers' information to third-party services. Hence, the trick is to look for a unified commerce system with an integrated POS system.

Who should implement a unified commerce strategy?

Retail businesses

Regardless of their size, all retail businesses benefit from a unified commerce strategy. It helps them synthesize frontend operations with backend processes, resulting in a cohesive and synchronized business strategy. Both small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and large retail enterprises can implement a unified commerce strategy to enhance operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and revenue figures.

Omnichannel retailers

Retailers using an omnichannel tool to manage their frontend and customer-facing processes can upgrade to a unified commerce strategy. This strategy helps them more efficiently synchronize their backend processes, such as logistics management, inventory management, and order fulfillment. A unified commerce strategy not only enhances customer satisfaction but also applies the same omnichannel philosophy to backend processes.

Implementing unified commerce: A step-by-step guide

Implementing unified commerce is easy as long as you're well prepared for it. A step-by-step approach ensures that your implementation is successful and produces the results you expect.

Conduct an audit

The first step towards moving towards a unified commerce strategy is to understand how your business fares at the moment in all respects. To do that, here are some tips:

• Evaluate your current software tools, business processes, sales channels, and data management techniques.
• Identify where you are experiencing bottlenecks and how siloed data is affecting your operations.
• If you use multiple software tools to conduct your business, you probably already have data stored in siloes, resulting in operational inefficiency.
• It is also important to understand what difficulties your customers face. Hence, customer surveys can be useful at this point too.

Identify your unified commerce goals

Once you have identified your strengths and weaknesses, it is important to understand how you can fix existing gaps with technology and improvements to processes. Here's how to do that:

• Brainstorm with decision makers to shortlist your unified commerce goals. This could range from being able to scale to improving backend operations.
• Analyze feedback from customers to understand their pain points so that you can fix them.
• Collect your staff's opinions regarding difficulties in business operations as well.

Choose the best available option

Once you have a list of goals to achieve, the next step is to find a product that will solve all your problems. Here's how to choose a unified commerce system:

• Scour the market for available options and read customer reviews. Request for case studies, white papers and other content to gain knowledge.
• Once you have sufficient information, speak to a few shortlisted vendors and ask for a demo.
• Make sure that the vendor you finally choose provides you with answers to all your queries offers training post-sales, and provides excellent customer service.

Take care of your existing data

Before implementing a unified commerce strategy, ensuring that your existing data is safe and well taken care of is crucial. Here's what you have to do:

• Identify all the software tools you currently use and locate the data files.
• Cleanse all the data and ensure they are compatible with your new unified commerce system. If not, get your data professionally converted to suitable formats.
• Move your cleansed data to the new system while retaining a backup copy.

Deploy the solution

Now that all your data is on your new unified commerce system, it is time to use it. Deployment begins the moment you decide to use it. Here's what to do:

• Do not wait for an official date to start using the system. Instead, begin to use it as soon as it is installed so that you can rectify gaps from the outset.
• Speak to your vendor and seek assistance during the initial deployment phase.
• Make sure that all your business processes are integrated into the new system.

Seek training and support

Once your unified commerce system has been deployed, it is vital to ensure that your employees use it correctly. To ensure this, here are some tips:

• Make use of the support and training materials your vendor offers.
• Request for onsite training of your employees.
• Feel free to evaluate your employees regarding their product knowledge.
• Test the product in different frontend and backend situations.

Monitor and iterate continuously

Now that your employees have begun to use the new unified commerce tool, you must start to see drastic improvements. However, monitoring and tracking the system's performance is essential.

Do the following:

• Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that help you assess how your business performance has begun to improve.
• Notice any shortcomings that the unified commerce tool may have and iterate continuously.
• Brainstorm if you need the tool personalized to suit your unique business needs so that your vendor can assist in customization.

Choosing the right unified commerce solution

Unified commerce is a philosophy that builds on an omnichannel strategy but adopts newer, more efficient trends. It emphasizes the importance of synchronizing data and business operations and unifying both customer experiences and backend processes. Consequently, the future trends in unified commerce will be dominated by machine learning and voice commerce, which have begun to influence how businesses are run and customers shop.

In addition, privacy and security will take center stage, as shall sustainability and ethical business practices. Most importantly, a unified commerce strategy simplifies business operations and customer experiences. Hence, the future of unified commerce rests on simplicity, ease of operations, and minimalism.

Priority's solutions help you future-proof your business so that your business is ready to scale and compete in a changing world. Contact us today for a demo.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systemA unified commerce system is a holistic solution that helps businesses to manage backend processes while ensuring that customer satisfaction remains at impressive levels. Consequently, an important component of a unified commerce system is a CRM. The CRM is constantly updated with each customer interaction and changes in behavior so that the latest and the most relevant data is available to all parties concerned. Thanks to a unified customer profile, personalized shopping experiences are made easy and accessible across touchpoints. This results in enhanced customer satisfaction and reduced churn rates.