Data Analytics

NRF 2025: Unified Commerce Is Creating Stores That Exist Across Touchpoints

Experts share how retailers are integrating point-of-sale systems, customer relationship management tools and consumer data to create a seamless experience.

Lily Lopate

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Lily is a Senior Editor at BizTech Magazine. She follows tech trends, thought leadership and data analytics.

“I actually think we’re in a post-omnichannel world,” said Harley Finkelstein, president at Shopify, during a session at NRF 2025. It’s a moment where retailers are striving for a level of continuity across touchpoints. In fact, the journey should be so seamless, a shopper shouldn’t be able to tell where one point of-sale ends and the next one begins.

“I can now step outside and look at the ecosystem and go, OK, that's how to do it, right? You create an ecosystem that feeds each other, right? It's the same woman who's watching the show, who's listening to the podcast, who's buying the clothes,” said Sara Foster, describing the synergy between her and sister Erin Foster’s The World's First Podcast, her clothing brand Favorite Daughter and the Netflix hit show “Nobody Wants This.”

But Foster didn’t have that formula in mind initially; it evolved over time. And now it represents a successful model of “unified commerce,” the next iteration of omnichannel retail.

To achieve unified commerce, retailers must integrate their “sales channels, data, and back-end systems into a single platform,” according to a Salesforce blog post.

“Omnichannel was really about connecting all of the dots. With unified commerce, it’s about creating that continuous, uninterrupted experience,” as Josh Sevcik, lead commerce strategist at CDW, told BizTech. “It’s not just saying we’re integrated, it’s saying that it’s truly seamless.”

Here are the essential technologies that power unified commerce and how retailers at NRF 2025 are deploying the model:

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Data and Devices That Power Seamless Shopping

To achieve unified commerce, retailers need to first unify their data. “If you're not doing a unified approach, you have three personas, and you might not even know they're the same person, right?” Andy Szanger, director of strategic industries at CDW, told BizTech.

“If it's truly unified data, I can now see what you did online, what you did in store, what you did in the mobile app,” he added. It gives the retailer 360-degree real-time insight into each consumer.

Matthew Guiste, global retail technology strategist at Zebra, sees retailers stacking software and hardware solutions together to power unified commerce behind the scenes.

These include point-of-sale systems, mobile devices for inventory management, self-service kiosks, Internet of Things sensors, e-commerce platforms and customer relationship management platforms that offer a “single source of truth” for all teams to engage with the data.

Connecting endpoints across the network is critical. “We make sure all those little pieces of the customer experience really show up in a unified way. Whether it's in a store, in a website, in an app, customers want it to all work together,” said Guiste.

Omnichannel was really about connecting all of the dots. With unified commerce, it’s about creating that continuous, uninterrupted experience.”

Josh Sevcik Lead Commerce Strategist, CDW

A Shopping Experience That Is Personal and “Worth Paying For”

Stores are also bringing customer insights, promotions and product information together through digital signage, virtual chatbots and virtual humans in-store. For example, if a customer browsing in-store picks up a particular bottle of perfume, a digital display will automatically show all the details on that item, and a virtual human can answer additional questions.

AWS is also bridging the physical and digital worlds with Amazon Beyond, a 3D virtual walkthrough of any showroom. Say a parent is looking to furnish a playroom or buy a costume from Hogwarts; he or she can click into a showroom for ideas and inspiration. Much like a video game, the shopper can double click on any object, and a product page will appear along with an option to add it to their cart, explained Justin Honaman, head of worldwide retail, restaurants and consumer goods and business development at AWS.

Retailers are working hard to create shopping experiences that are emotionally resonant and personalized. Customers want to be inspired and transported while they shop, said Bloomingdale’s CEO Olivier Bron.

DIG DEEPER: Innovative retail technology empowers customers in today’s market.

“Remember, we're in the retail therapy business,” said Tony Spring, chairman and CEO at Macy’s. “We have folks who want to come in and escape their everyday life in some way, shape or form. They've had a difficult breakup, they've had a fight with a significant other, they've just had children who are running wild around the house, and we are there to try to create the retail experience that people truly enjoy.”

Kate Ancketill, CEO and founder of business consultancy GDR, said people are craving “escapism retail,” a feeling of crossing into another world. To achieve that, retailers need to create “experiences worth paying for,” she said.

“Real stores provide an opportunity to give people what they’re often lacking: a sense of community and belonging and warmth and wonder and awe. Physical retail is perfectly positioned to provide that,” she said.

Real stores provide an opportunity to give people what they’re often lacking: a sense of community and belonging and warmth and wonder and awe. Physical retail is perfectly positioned to provide that.”

Kate Ancketill Founder and CEO, GDR

Keeping Every Touchpoint Connected and Secure

All of these innovations can sparkle, but for unified commerce to really work, it has to be secure.

Walmart runs encryption and real-time fraud detection on all customer data online, in-store and at curbside. Footlocker has routine customer authentication protocols so shoppers can trust each personalized shoe recommendation. And Target’s Circle, Drive-Up, and same-day delivery services are each bolstered by secure payment platforms, multifactor authentication and endpoint security.

A recent partnership between Target, Zebra, Google Cloud and Qualcomm helped harness AI capabilities and edge device functionality in Target stores. The three tech companies worked together to automate core processes and build security into every generative AI application in the planogram.

WATCH: Here are the biggest retail trends of 2025.

The plans included more than just making sure digital shelf labels were PCI-compliant. The intent was to “develop tailored edge-AI solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing retail infrastructure,” said Art Miller, vice president of business development and global head of retail IoT at Qualcomm.

“We’re working with the networks and acquirers to make sure that whatever we're doing meets their level of security required,” he said.

To learn more about NRF 2025, visit our conference page. You can also follow us on the social platform X at @BizTechMagazine to see behind-the-scenes moments.