Is retail’s age of omnichannel over? Retailers are asking that question, says Josh Sevcik, lead commerce strategist at CDW. His answer? Yes and no.
Omnichannel’s approach to retail commerce — in which businesses strive to build platforms where customers can make purchases in the store or online — isn’t going away as much as it is evolving into unified commerce, which focuses on breaking down the data silos inherent to omnichannel. In fact, unified commerce is the natural evolution of the journey retailers have been on since the dawn of the internet.
What Is Unified Commerce?
Unified commerce is a holistic approach to commerce that “integrates all of your sales channels, data, and back-end systems into a single platform,” according to a Salesforce blog post. It’s all about reducing friction between sales channels, processes and systems. That way, customers can have a seamless shopping experience, whether they shop in-store, online, in-app or by moving between channels.
This unified approach dismantles data silos and helps retailers improve operations across the board, from personalized marketing to customer service and more — including inventory management.
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In its post, Salesforce asks retailers to imagine having unobstructed and real time visibility into stock levels across all sales channels: “The second a customer buys a shirt online, the inventory updates immediately across your entire business, so all your employees from store staff to merchandisers and marketers can see exactly what’s available at all times.”
Such capabilities are a big reason unified commerce started gaining traction in late 2023. But it isn’t a wholly new approach to retail.
“A lot of the concepts of unified commerce started early in the 2000s, when physical stores were transitioning away from being the primary sales channel,” Sevcik explains. Really, unified commerce is the natural progression of what online storefronts and the evolution of smartphones and social media led to: the omnichannel.
How Does Unified Commerce Depart from Omnichannel Retail?
Unified commerce and omnichannel boast many similarities. But while both connect otherwise disparate sales channels, systems and processes, only unified commerce seamlessly centralizes everything. Where omnichannel creates a bridge between two roads, unified commerce merges two roads into one.
“Omnichannel was really about connecting all of the dots. With unified commerce, it’s about creating that continuous, uninterrupted experience,” says Sevcik. “It’s not just saying we’re integrated. It’s saying that it’s truly seamless.”
Take, for example, PVH, the owner of well-known fashion brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. PVH had previously combined multiple brands’ online storefronts into one, allowing customers to shop across different brands while integrating with a single shopping cart. The company also built custom mobile apps, which connected with the joint storefront through the unified commerce approach.
Will Unified Commerce Become the Default Approach for Retailers?
Noting its wide-ranging use cases, Sevcik anticipates unified commerce will become the industry norm. Customers don’t want to be put in disjointed segments, he says. They crave the personalized, easy and seamless experience unified commerce enables.
As Adobe frames it in a unified commerce guide, “Companies are no longer competing only on price or products. Instead, they are differentiating themselves with effortless and personalized ‘experiences’ that build customer loyalty and sustained growth.”
Sevcik claims this is why companies such as Amazon are doing so well; they make things “as easy and seamless as possible for the customer.” If other retailers want to keep up, they must do the same.
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How Can Retailers Navigate Unified Commerce?
Unified commerce is an ongoing journey, not an instant solution. But retailers don’t have to make the journey alone. Sevcik details a four-step process CDW uses to help retailers navigate the terrain.
- Determine customer demands: CDW performs vision assessments to help retailers understand their customer journeys, personas and demands — the driving factors that should guide any transformation. “You have to always start with the customer for it to be a successful strategy,” says Sevcik.
- Identify friction points: Unified commerce prioritizes an uninterrupted experience, and creating this smooth road means first pinpointing any roadblocks. According to Sevcik, “Often, it takes us pulling the covers back from what a retailer’s current process is to see where those gaps are; to see where customers are falling off.”
- Evaluate data use: Assessing a retailer’s data types and usage is a must. Sevcik explains that friction points often stem from how data is leveraged. This can require a new customer resource management system or improvements to a current CMS to ensure data is being maximized.
- Assess the use of current technology: CDW can assess an organization’s technologies and help them pivot as needed to best overcome friction points. Sometimes this means working with enterprise-level unified commerce platforms, such as those offered by CDW partners Adobe and Salesforce. At other times, it’s about upscaling platforms already in place. Overall, however, recommendations typically center on driving to a single platform.
This process, like unified commerce itself, isn’t designed to replace a retailer’s current framework. It’s meant to build on it.
“We’re not throwing out everything that we’ve ever done with retail,” says Sevcik. “It really is taking a lot of the key things that the brands are doing today and showing them how we can improve it and evolve.”
UP NEXT: Read more on creating a frictionless retail experience.
