Maximizing Unified Commerce While Minimizing Friction

Achieving repeat business in retail — a primary sign of success — means identifying and overcoming challenges in an ever-changing landscape. Today’s consumers expect a high-quality buying experience whether they’re shopping online or in a brick-and-mortar store, and retailers are adjusting to ensure a consistently great experience across all channels.

It’s all about the experience. Customer experience drives 66 percent of customer loyalty, more than price and brand combined, according to Gartner. Furthermore, 94 percent of consumers said a positive experience will make them more likely to purchase again. Retailers have been trying to find the right blend of digital and physical operations to meet the ever-increasing expectations of modern, tech-savvy consumers and stay a step ahead of their competition in 2023 and beyond. A unified commerce approach can be a great option to meet consumer demands.

The Unified Commerce Experience

Digital adoption, a necessity at the start of the pandemic, is showing no signs of slowing down. With more purchases being completed online, retailers are asking themselves how they can create a unified system incorporating shopper interactions, products and management systems. This type of platform helps provide consumers with real-time data on inventory, delivery options and more while helping retailers gather and analyze customer data, which can help them better understand customers’ needs and preferences, and tailor products and services accordingly. This is the basis of unified commerce.

Taking a unified commerce approach means that retailers need to meet the consumer everywhere and anywhere — including physical stores, websites or social media channels — with consistently excellent shopping and buying, pickup and return experiences. According to Google, the pandemic made people adaptable regarding their preference to purchase products online or offline. Nearly three-quarters of consumers now consider themselves to be channel agnostic.

A Frictionless Future

Retailers are working quickly to unify their operations, but challenges persist. For example, many brick-and-mortar stores now offer curbside pickup as an available option. However, curbside orders can unintentionally frustrate other customers — e.g., when a potential customer sees online that the product is available in-store but is unable to locate the product because an employee has taken it off the shelf. Another opportunity to reduce friction is in returns. Currently many customers can pick up their purchases curbside but are unable to return them with the same ease, having to park, enter the store and wait in line to return an item.

These challenges in the customer journey create friction. To provide a frictionless shopping experience, retailers must be in tune with consumer expectations and the technologies that can help meet those demands, including:

• Contactless Checkout: In recent years, there has been a clear consumer desire for contactless checkout solutions. Tap-to-pay and other methods of payments in brick-and-mortar stores accelerate the checkout process while eliminating the need to touch the payment terminal. Eighty-three percent of consumers have already used contactless payments, and 65 percent plan to use them more in the next three years.
• Digitizing the Employee: While consumers are more informed than ever, store associates need to be just as informed, if not more so. Digital tools, including handheld devices, inventory management technology, and mobile point-of-sale systems, provide employees with product visibility and can help store associates find the best product suited to a consumer’s needs — providing a greater level of customer service. Each positive interaction with a customer is an opportunity to support a sale and develop future repeat business, while each negative interaction can do the opposite and lose a customer. It's critical that retail workers have the right resources available to address customer issues, questions, and provide a smooth shopping experience.
• Optimizing Inventory: If consumers can always find and purchase what they want quickly, the retailer wins. An overall unified commerce experience can integrate inventory management technology that supplies real-time intelligence, including visibility and location of inventory, giving retailers the ability to recognize demand trends and respond to them proactively. For example, if a certain region is experiencing more demand for an item, that specific product can be sent to a distribution center in the region to ensure quick delivery to customers.

Continue Transforming the Customer Experience

Consumers are demanding multiple touchpoints in their buying journey both in-person and online. To meet those demands, it's critical that retailers equip their store associates with resources to give customers a consistent, excellent shopping experience. Retailers can maximize effectiveness and minimize friction by incorporating technologies that enhance the overall customer journey and empower employees to exceed customer expectations.

Thomas Chittenden is president, Honeywell Productivity Solutions and Services, a business that creates mobile computers, printers, and data-capture devices that improve worker productivity in thousands of companies of all sizes around the world.