Unified Commerce: Why You Need It For Your Retail Billing Software?

Anyone who has hosted their bridal shower over a Zoom meeting and ordered groceries online for the first time would understand the acceleration that the pandemic has brought to the digital world. A study conducted by Mckinsey shows that online shopping will continue to grow exponentially for different categories.

Thus, if you are planning to invest in your retail billing software you need to understand the categories that have high purchase intent by the consumers, deliver a personalized experience across all channels and incorporate a retail POS software that delivers a truly unified shopping experience.

Categories that will see an increase of over 35% in the number of online shoppers include essentials like groceries, over-the-counter medicines, personal care products and household items. There will also be a growth in the online customer base of more than 15% for skincare products, makeup, apparel, jewellery and accessories.

What is Unified Commerce?

Previously, a retail billing software was built to be convenient and offer fast checkouts. Currently, the capabilities of retail POS software include inventory management, flexible payment options, customer relationship management and the ability to generate real-time powerful sales reports. Unified commerce offers your customers to have a seamless experience across all channels. 

For example, if your customer in the retail shop is not able to find a particular item, you can easily look at the inventory level of your other branches and offer them the delivery of the particular item right at their doorstep. This can be done seamlessly through Posbytz’s retail POS software. As a retail shop owner, investing in a retail billing software that offers unified commerce is important if you do not want your customers to switch to a retailer that does. Currently, most retailers follow an omnichannel commerce model.

The future of POS billing software for retail shops combines the use of smart technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and the internet of things. This helps business owners generate real-time reports and make time-sensitive decisions to help in the future growth of the business. This is where unified commerce plays a major role in the consolidation of the data from different channels in order to create a flexible digital journey to meet customer expectations.

Unified Commerce Vs Multichannel Commerce Vs Omnichannel Commerce

Unified commerce is the next evolution of omnichannel commerce, and omnichannel was the next step of multichannel commerce. Let us look at each step in more detail.

Multichannel:

As the name suggests, this refers to the involvement of different channels such as web pages, mobile applications, emails and social media to generate high brand awareness among the customers for the retail shop owner. However, the main problem of multichannel experience is the inconsistency across the different channels. For example, you may have a great website that is interactive but has poor content on your Facebook and Instagram pages. You also need to make sure that your website is optimized for smartphone usage, else you might lose a large chunk of customers to another competitor.

Omnichannel:

Omnichannel solves the problem of inconsistency across channels and ensures that the customer experience across the channels is uninterrupted. This ensures a seamless customer journey for your brand. Retail billing solutions with an omnichannel approach helps the retail shop owner interact with customers across a variety of online marketplaces and target specific audiences. However, each channel has to be managed by its own unique interface which may be time-consuming for the business.

Unified Commerce:

The main advantage that unified commerce offers is the ability to consolidate the customer data into a centralized, single-pane view. Thanks to the ability to view multichannel transactions by customers, unified commerce enriches the customer experience by offering personalized offers that convert browsing into immediate purchases. This is why retail billing solutions equipped with unified commerce are said to redefine the future of retail shopping.

How Does Retail Billing Software Benefit From Unified Commerce?