Unified Commerce vs. Omnichannel

In the current world, businesses are driven by what customer demands. During and after the pandemic, the route of customer demand has changed radically. Businesses need to ramp up and be flexible in their approach to meet the ever-changing demands of the customers. They have to make shopping as seamless for the customer as possible. It is of little wonder that businesses are spending considerable resources on finding ways to simplify and enhance customer experience. The two latest options in this ongoing search are omnichannel and unified commerce. Let us see what they mean and how they can enhance customer experience. However, the ultimate choice will depend on the type of business.

Unified Commerce

Let’s put the application of unified commerce into the customer’s perspective. Customers shop across multiple channels for a variety of products. They want this shopping experience to be seamless and as convenient as possible. They do not want to enter the same information again and again. That’s where unified commerce comes in handy.

Unified commerce integrates both front and back-end systems for a singular outlook. It consolidates all the data and every process and provides a single point of view for the customer.

ALSO READ: Navigating the World of Third-Party Logistics: Services, Benefits, and Challenges

The major appeal of unified commerce is that it unifies, centralizes, and consolidates the following key aspects that affect the customer’s shopping experience:

• Data
• Inventory
• Payment solutions

Let’s look at these aspects individually to understand their impact.

How Milk Run Impacts Logistics and Warehousing?

• One Data

Unified commerce uses a data management system that is centralized. This system gathers data from various sources about the customer, products they search for, inventory of items, and transactional data. If this information is collected in a central database, the data visibility increases and the information is real-time. The data is accessible to everyone, which ensures that the data collected is accurate and always on a real-time basis.

• One Inventory

The inventory system is more streamlined in unified commerce. There is real-time inventory visibility, so there is little chance of a mismatch between actual and projected data. The customer can decide based on actual inventory projections, and the business owners can fulfill those orders without fearing a stock out. Moreover, this system automates order placement and inventory management, so order fulfillment is seamless across any channel.

• One Payment Solution

Through unified commerce, the customer is provided with a single platform to make payments using whatever payment methods they are most comfortable with. This single payment platform eases the product checkout process and increases the security of purchase for the customer.

Omnichannel

In an omnichannel eCommerce strategy, the idea is for all the channels to act as one unified channel to give customers a seamless shopping experience. The way omnichannel works is for the back end of all the separate channels to interact with each other continuously. They keep each channel updated about its status. However, in reality, the data across all channels is seldom in real time, and they rarely sync.

ALSO READ: Meaning of Milk Run in Logistics

If the data is not in sync and the information provided is not current, what follows is a logistical nightmare. Customers are not shown the updated inventory details, and the businesses don’t know if they can fulfill the order. As a result, the shopping experience is not as seamless as one would want it to be. Needless to say, omnichannel strategy in silos is not completely effective in meeting customer demands. That’s where it integrates with unified commerce to give a much-enhanced experience.

Unified Commerce Approach—Benefits

You can use a unified commerce platform to sync up with all your systems in real-time. Examples include Order Management System (OMS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Marketplaces. When you use a unified commerce platform, you will get the following benefits:

• Customer-centric approach
• Consolidated technology
• Reliable data

In the following sections, we will look at these benefits individually and see how businesses can use them to give their customers an enhanced shopping experience.

• Customer-centric Approach

Customer experience is what determines the success of a business. To give customers a positive shopping experience, one must extend their capabilities to multiple channels. Omnichannel consolidates all the channels, but it has all the systems in silos, making it difficult for businesses to manage them continuously and provide that seamless experience for the customer at every point.

Unified commerce consolidates all the channels under one broad platform so that you can get one view. You can view every aspect of your business in real-time. That enables you to make informed decisions, which will help customer experience.

• Consolidated Technology

Businesses often use a myriad of technology to meet customer demands. Sometimes, their software and other technology are a patchwork of professional and amateur contributors. Consequently, these systems do not communicate well, and the inventory and order status you view might not be real-time data.

Since unified commerce provides all the services under one umbrella, there is a more seamless data transfer between online and offline businesses. This seamless transfer helps retailers spread their reach online but have the collection in a brick-and-mortar store.

• Reliable Data

Usually, businesses upload their sales and inventory data once a day. This daily update makes it very difficult to keep a real-time track of sales and upload the inventory accordingly. Consequently, stockouts happen, and often, there is an inventory mismatch that directly impacts customer satisfaction and company revenues.

ALSO READ: Impact of eCommerce on the Growth of the 3PL Industry

Unified commerce helps combat this data management issue as there is a single system where all data is fed and uploaded regularly. So, the visibility is high, and the data is real-time. This helps the business plan stock purchases and track sales and inventory. Checking their order and its delivery status also helps enhance customer satisfaction.

Conclusion:

After the recent pandemic, businesses are still struggling to meet demand with supply. In tandem, customer expectations are ever-growing. Businesses need to select the right partner to implement a holistic unified commerce solution. The right strategy can boost your sales, enhance customer satisfaction, and contribute to the overall growth of your business. With unified commerce, your logistics issue can be significantly smooth and seamless.

Connect with XPDEL to learn how we can help you.

About XPDEL:

XPDEL is a leading hi-tech provider of Fulfillment and Logistics Services on a mission to enable growth for eCommerce companies. We are futuristic in our vision and constantly work on creating technology that helps us meet customer expectations for today and tomorrow. We have a wide network of Fulfillment centers that enables us to efficiently handle nationwide delivery in the US – same day, next day, and 2-day delivery. Being closer to the end consumer, we deliver much faster than others.