A new report by Boston Retail Partners (BRP) - 2015 E-Commerce Survey of top North American retailers found that, “A seamless shopping experience across channels is not wishful thinking; it is the expectation of today’s consumer, see figure. What used to be a linear path to purchase is now an exercise in connect-the-dots for retailers as they try to piece together customer information, browsing history, purchases, real-time inventory visibility, and much more to understand and personalize the experience for each customer.”

Seamless experience across all channels

Source & Copyright©2015 - Boston Retail Partners

The report explains, “Retailers are striving to meet customer expectations and improve the customer experience through enhancements to their e-commerce sites, offering additional abilities via mobile apps or websites, and most of all, through the execution of unified commerce. Unified commerce goes beyond an omni-channel experience; it eliminates the individual silos to offer the customer a holistic shopping experience no matter how or where she wants to shop. A unified or single commerce platform is essential to offering this seamless shopping experience.”

Unified e-commerce is vital

As retailers in North America grapple with the e-commerce revolution their top e-commerce priorities are:

Source & Copyright©2015 - Boston Retail Partners

BRP believe that unified commerce is critical for retailers and that, “A unified commerce platform is a single consolidation point for all transactions, inventory, pricing, order management, CRM, call center, etc. This platform provides a single version of the truth across all channels to enable transparency, or the ‘glass pipeline’ of real-time visibility to inventory, product and customer information (see figure). This is the nirvana, or end-state, that many retailers are trying to achieve with their customer experience and unified commerce goals.” 

Unified e-commerce integrates all channels and experiences, as figure shows:

Source & Copyright©2015 - Boston Retail Partners

Conclusion

BRP conclude that, “E- commerce success will be found in striking the right balance of the digital and physical experiences to satisfy and delight the customer. Retailers are working on this, blending personalization capabilities from the digital, or online world, with physical benefits – being able to touch and feel and have immediate gratification – that are inherent to the in-store shopping experience.”

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CTMfile take: Unified e-commerce is critical to the future of all retailers AND all companies are retailers really. The BRP report, 2015 E-Commerce Survey, is highly recommended.