Unified Commerce & Omnichannel Strategies: Achieving a Seamless eCommerce Experience

The current digital climate is constantly evolving and businesses are always on the lookout for fresh and creative methods to connect with their customers and elevate their online shopping journeys. One popular technique of achieving this is the adoption of unified commerce and omnichannel strategies. 

What do these strategies entail, what potential advantages for eCommerce ventures are they holing and what’s the process of devising and executing a successful omnichannel strategy?

What is unified commerce?

Unified commerce refers to a retail strategy that aims to combine all sales channels that businesses use to connect with their customers into a singular platform. This involves merging sales from online platforms, mobile applications, and physical stores to provide customers with a harmonised and uninterrupted shopping experience. By using a unified commerce platform, businesses can effectively manage all sales channels from a single source, thus enhancing customer satisfaction and increasing sales.

To understand the concept of unified commerce more effectively, let’s take a look at a hypothetical example: Suppose a customer visits a clothing store’s website, which utilises a unified commerce platform to manage its sales channels. They add an item they fancy to their cart and decide to purchase it later at the physical store. When the customer visits the store, the associate at the store can instantly retrieve the customer’s shopping cart and purchase history from the unified commerce platform, which allows them to provide a personalised and streamlined shopping experience to the customer. The customer leaves the store feeling happy and content, having had a consistent and satisfactory shopping experience across all touchpoints.

How to build an omnichannel experience in eCommerce?

Omnichannel eCommerce takes the concept of unified commerce a step further by focusing on the customer’s shopping experience. Omnichannel eCommerce is a strategy that empowers businesses to connect with customers through all sales channels, combining its online presence, mobile applications, and physical store sales. The objective is to offer a harmonised and uninterrupted shopping experience across all channels, which results in improved customer satisfaction, overall better operational effectiveness, and amplified sales.

This approach encourages customers to revisit your webstore and make subsequent purchases, thereby increasing sales. In order to build an effective omnichannel experience it is crucial to gain an understanding of your customer’s behaviour across all sales channels and customise the shopping experience accordingly to each customer’s preferences. This is done through creating a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints and consistently using consumer data to optimise product and service offerings.

Best practices for implementing unified commerce and omnichannel strategies

Implementing unified commerce and omnichannel strategies requires a customer-centric approach. We summarised some of best practices for implementing unified commerce and omnichannel strategies:

• Understanding customer behaviour across all sales channels
• Personalising the shopping experience for each customer
• Creating a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints
• Using data to optimise product and service offerings
• Choosing the right technology platform for implementing unified commerce and omnichannel strategies.

By following these practices, businesses can implement unified commerce and omnichannel strategies that provide a consistent and satisfying shopping experience for their customers.

Challenges of implementing unified commerce and omnichannel strategies

Implementing unified commerce and omnichannel strategies can be challenging for businesses. Some challenges include integrating legacy systems, dealing with data silos, handling the cost and complexity of implementing new technology platforms, and providing staff training and skill requirements.

Examples of Omnichannel Software

There are many omnichannel software solutions available in the market, each with their own unique features and use cases. Here are two examples of popular omnichannel software solutions:

Gorgias

Gorgias is a consummate client assistance platform that allows eCommerce enterprises to integrate all their channels of communication, such as email, social media, telephone, and their site chat into one centralised platform. This holistic integration makes it effortless for businesses to handle customer queries. Additionally, Gorgias gives clients access to advanced utilities such as automation, analytics, and interfaces with other tools, offering a truly unparalleled user experience.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is an email marketing and automation platform that enables eCommerce businesses to create and send personalised emails to their customers based on their behaviour and preferences across multiple channels. Klaviyo also offers advanced features such as segmentation, A/B testing, and analytics to help businesses optimise their email marketing campaigns.

In Conclusion

For e-commerce businesses that are looking to provide a coherent and rewarding shopping experience for customers, the implementation of unified commerce and omnichannel strategies is crucial. 

By adopting best practices and surmounting obstacles, businesses can leverage these strategies to enhance customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and sales. As the demand for a seamless shopping experience grows, unified commerce and omnichannel eCommerce will likely become even more significant in the future.

We at Flatline Agency are here to help you take your business to the next step, including custom development, design, and marketing. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us.