Fulfill every customer expectation with a universal cart  

Why unified commerce

A unified commerce approach revolutionizes the way customers shop even as their expectations evolve.

With customer journeys becoming increasingly non-linear due to the explosion of channels from stores to online to mobile to video commerce, retailers find it daunting to meet evolving customer expectations and drive seamless experiences across touchpoints.  

A unified commerce strategy is a long-awaited solution for retailers who had to contend with a patchwork of haphazard systems that fall short of meeting expectations.  

At its core, a unified commerce approach is about synergistic handoffs between channels, completely revolutionizing the way customers shop. With a single view of past transactions, orders, inventory, and customer data, retailers can deliver a unified journey experience even as customer expectations evolve. 

What customers want 

A unified commerce strategy shifts the focus from a ‘channel-first’ to a ‘customer-first’ approach.

Modern customers seek convenience, choice, and control over their shopping journey. The five key customer expectations are: 

1. Unified experiences across channels 
2. A self-serve omnichannel shopping experience 
3. Convenient return and exchange process
4. Easier access to product information 
5. Flexible fulfillment

Unified commerce helps fulfill all these expectations.  

Unified cart

Today, an abandoned cart is a misnomer; it is rather a ‘saved’ cart presenting a new opportunity for retailers. 

Frictionless retail is not just about buying online and picking up the item in store; it is about breaking channel silos across the shopping journey. As customers shop whenever and wherever, a saved cart or a unified cart allows customers to add, remove, modify, or purchase items in their digital cart irrespective of where they are—in store, online, or on the retailer’s mobile app.  

While customers can add items from their digital cart to their in-store purchases, the reverse is also possible—cashiers can add in-store items from their PoS to customers’ digital cart, enabling them to check out online later. With a complete view of shopping journeys and unified transaction data, retailers can make personalized promotions and contextual recommendations to maximize basket value without seeming overzealous.  

Let’s explore how a unified cart is at the core of seamless omnichannel experiences.

Benefits

The unified cart offers enormous opportunities for retailers to personalize the shopping experience and drive loyalty and growth.  

• Offers customers the convenience to shop and checkout anywhere
• Gives retailers full visibility into customers’ shopping journey
• Provides retailers with insights for upselling or cross-selling, maximizing basket value
• Fosters personalized engagement, making customers feel valued

Business considerations

As online and offline channels sync and customer journeys become non-linear, a unified cart will be a key enabler for driving seamles shopping experiences.

Retailers need to factor a lot of business decisions to deliver on the promise of a seamless experience:

1. Implementing unified or channel-specific pricing and promotions

While retailers can seamlessly orchestrate omnichannel order fulfillment and delivery, promotions are still channel-specific and inconsistent, driven by disparate and constrained platforms. Similarly, most retailers apply different prices for online and for stores (based on the trading area or associated holding costs) to protect margins. A unified cart must be configured based on the retailer’s pricing strategy. 

2. Honoring the original price of items in the online cart or applying a new price

Let’s assume a shopper comes across an interesting online promotion. She adds the item to the cart but abandons it. However, when the customer drops in at the store, she notices the same product is sold at the regular price. By default, the customer may expect the retailer to honor the lowest price. The retailer can either honor the lowest price or make a personalized offer based on the context and previous purchase history. Offering a 5% discount on diapers to a new mother will be more relevant than offering a 10% discount on kitchen utensils. 

3. Notifying customers about inventory status

For various reasons, safety threshold levels may be different for different items—either there is a promotion on a particular item and the product is disappearing fast or the retailer has terminated a vendor contract for a particular item in the unified cart. A unified cart must offer visibility into inventory levels and have the ability to trigger alerts such as ‘low in stock,’ ‘only one item left,’ ‘no longer available,’ or ‘back in stock’ based on the inventory position.

4.  Handling inactivity in carts

Products lying dormant for too long in customers’ unified carts are a huge problem for retailers. Retailers must have the ability to configure nudges (for example, a personalized promotion or reminder) after a specific period of inactivity or remove items from the cart. However, with customers wanting to ‘own’ their digital carts, it is a case for debate: should retailers remove the items and risk losing a sale or retain the items at the risk of high maintenance costs and effort? 

In Part 2, we will explore how scan-and-go is driving the self-serve omnichannel experiences that modern customers seek.