Carmela Salisbury

18 April 2023

Unified Commerce

Power your retail innovation strategy with APIs

Carmela Salisbury

18 April 2023

Unified Commerce

This blog was originally published on 28 February 2020 and updated 18 April 2023.

Retailers are urgently innovating to create the seamless and personalised omnichannel experiences consumers now expect. They are looking for new ways to make use of their data and connect their systems together to streamline business processes and create great customer experiences. One major advantage of using a unified commerce is that its open architecture that lets you easily make those connections with APIs.

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are present in every part of our digital world. Every time you use an app like LinkedIn, make a Skype call or listen to Spotify on your phone, there’s an API in action.

APIs let you add specialised functionality to a website, application, platform or software without having to write all of the back-end code. By using APIs, you can expose data in real time, rather than having to replicate or move it. The result is a set of functions that’s available across various systems, plus a fast and easy way to plug in and deploy new services, channels and devices.

These improvements let you shift your team’s priority from maintenance to innovation.

By using APIs to access existing solutions in the market, you are free to focus your development efforts on the front-end. You can be be more agile and create a community of third-party apps and systems that work together in an ecosystem. As a result, you’ll reduce integration and maintenance overheads, increase real-time accuracy and enjoy virtually limitless scalability and agility.

APIs in action

Here are just some of the ways APIs help you optimise operations, personalise customer experiences and drive new revenue:

Retail anywhere, any time

APIs let you easily expose your product catalogues and other eCommerce solutions to give customers many more ways to engage with your brand, including social commerce.

Deliver anywhere, any how

Consumers now make purchasing decisions based on shipping costs and timings. APIs can power the fulfilment options they now expect - such as click-and-collect, store-to-door, scheduled delivery and even 1-hour delivery.

Payment convenience counts

APIs give consumers the payment options and ‘buy-now, pay later’ services they want, both in-store and online. Infinity was the first retail system in the world to integrate with Afterpay at point of sale and supports Adyen, Smartpay, Laybuy, Alipay, WeChat Pay, Slyp and Zip to name just a few payment partners.

Personalised communications

APIs let you connect internal and external data to create timely and relevant communications, recommendations, offers and rewards. You can provide customers with real-time shipping visibility and tracking throughout the shipping journey, no matter the fulfilment solution. APIs let you create customised recommendations for customers visiting stores during click-and-collect pickups, and extend them into other communications, such as e-receipts and shipping notifications.

And they help to create personalised marketing experiences that boost loyalty and increase conversions - such as notifications for items on sale, low-in-stock or restocked – plus product recommendations on the website, based on each customer’s behaviour and past data.

Virtual Shopping

APIs support virtual retail shopping ecosystems that go beyond live chat to support in-store experiences on digital channels. By integrating video commerce platforms with POS solutions (like Infinity), you can automate the end-to-end process, from customer communications and data insights to seamless sales transactions and fast delivery.

Extending digital into stores

APIs also improve the in-store shopping experience. You can give your in-store teams’ data on customer histories and shopping preferences, as well as personalised recommendations based on past purchases and wishlists. APIs can help provide product recommendations for customers visiting stores for click-and-collect pickups, answer product questions in real-time and support self-checkout. In addition, new multichannel wishlists let customers add items to their wishlists while browsing in stores

So how do you start making the most of APIs?

Begin by evaluating your company’s value chain. Can you easily integrate and use APIs to access third-party platforms and services to scale your business? Or can you release your own APIs to attract partners and build out your platform? The two options are not mutually exclusive.

An API-enabled platform like Infinity lets you scale your business quickly by easily adding new apps and services as business requirements change.

We can also help if you’re looking for advice on how to create a strategy and implement an API programme that quickly creates customer and business value.

The end result is the ability to create extraordinary customer experiences that help to capture market opportunities, generate additional revenue and build brand advocacy.

Find out more about Infinity APIs and our integration partners. Then contact us for advice on how to use APIs to achieve greater agility, faster growth and better margins.

For more on how a move to a unified commerce strategy gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing needs, download our new ebook:

DOWNLOAD NOW

Mike Baxter

28 February 2023

Releases & News

New in Infinity – March 2023

Mike Baxter

28 February 2023

Releases & News

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify physical and digital channels to create the seamless omnichannel experiences customers now expect.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Extend control over store-specific data

You can now prevent a range of Infinity data from linking down from the Head Office to branches, including customer records, print layouts, POS buttons and drilldowns. This feature gives your stores greater control over the data that is specific to them and ensures that it won’t be accidently overwritten by Head Office staff.

INVENTORY

More control over nominated suppliers

You can now restrict your staff from manually ordering from nominated suppliers, thereby preventing purchase orders from being created against internal suppliers or staff inadvertently ordering from nominated external suppliers.

Increase efficiency with automated stock replenishment requests

Replenishment requests can now be automated centrally at the Head Office for stores based on minimum levels set for stock items. When stock is running low, it is ordered automatically, thereby reducing the store overhead involved in manually monitoring stock levels and requesting additional goods.

Increase visibility of non-freight item costs

The Freight field that is used when receipting and invoice matching has been re-labelled FRT/Extra, making for a more intuitive experience when matching non-freight item costs, such as customs fees, to purchase orders.

ORDER MANAGEMENT

Better visibility of quotes and order data

Quotes and orders layouts have been enhanced in several ways:

Branches’ GST details are now included on orders and quotes.
The GST number on the quote removes human error from the process and maintains accurate information through the sale conversion process from quote, order and to sale.
The addition of customer emails to quotes helps store staff follow up with customers when seeking to convert quotes into orders.
Discount breakdowns allow customers to see discounts clearly compared to base price on quotes, while the subtotal breakdown allows B2B customers to easily see the tax component and tax exclusive total of a quote or order.

CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Give customers more visibility of loyalty discounts

Fuel retail customers can now see their cent-per-litre loyalty discount total broken down as line items. For example, they will be able to see their SuperGold discount calculated as part of the total discount, giving them confidence they have maximised their fuel savings.

REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Easier access to current store promotions and prices

A new report allows you to view products, the rules-based pricing promotions that are in play, and the prices before and after tax. This can be useful when you need to verify that current signage matches the price loaded in Infinity or if you want to generate a list of current prices for ad hoc price checks.

Improve analysis of waived payments

The Product Sales Summary Report now includes $0 transactions, meaning you can see transactions where no payment was taken from the customer. This is useful in cases where an item has been processed but a fee, or other associated payment, has been waived.

Better visibility of cash adjustments

The Safe Balance Adjustment Report now show the reasons for safe adjustments that have been made, allowing you to review activities related to cash-up, bank reconciliation and accounting.

POINT OF SALE

Help store teams deliver more personalised CX

You can now add customised information relevant to your business to the Customer Details screen at the Point of Sale, such as external loyalty memberships, favourite store, or product preferences. Your store staff can then use this information to upsell or otherwise personalise the customer experience.

Increase visibility of planned stock orders

You can now give your store staff visibility of draft purchase orders, allowing them to see the quantities of stock that are contained in draft orders. Note that this should be used carefully where drafts are still under review and are subject to change.

Integrate Hikvision’s video security system

Infinity can now be integrated with Hikvision for recording POS activity in real time. Data input from a range of functions performed by your store staff is merged with video footage, giving you oversight of sensitive transactions. Customers wanting to take advantage of this integration should be aware that some support from Hikvision will be required to make it fully functional.

ADMINISTRATION

Automate trading day reports at unmanned fuel sites

Fuel retailers who run unmanned sites with outdoor payment terminals can now automatically create and complete trading days once all the terminals have settled. This frees site managers from manually creating the trading day to see Infinity reporting on site performance.

Increase control over staff passwords

You can now limit the ability to force password changes to staff members with the same or lower access levels. This is useful if you want to limit password changes to supervisors and their direct reports.

TECHNOLOGY

Stay current with latest Microsoft technologies

Infinity is now certified to work with Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022.

To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us.

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

Kelly Brown

22 February 2023

Customer Experience

Four ways to revamp the fuel customer experience

Kelly Brown

22 February 2023

Customer Experience

This post was originally published on 12 May 2021 and updated on 22 February 2023

      As consumer demand for convenience, speed, variety and affordability rises, the convenience store format needs to transform. Kelly Brown describes four areas to focus on to modernise the c-store CX. 

With demand for traditional fuel expected to plateau around 2030, fuel retailers are urgently innovating to replace shrinking revenues and dwindling profits.

The leaders have quickly moved to improve and expand their traditional products and services and launch in new, but related, market segments. They recognise that the future business of fuel will be less vehicle-centric and more focussed on the customer. They’ve developed a customer-centric mindset and are building new skills and capabilities to compete with unfamiliar competitors.

We’ve seen some impressive transformations. The retailers making the first move are creating differentiated experiences for competitive advantage and forming strong customer relationships that are driving up conversions and profits.

It’s an immense undertaking.

While fuel retail has always been challenging – very fast service is non-negotiable, transaction volumes are high and operations typically run 24x7 – this requires a fundamental transformation of the standard business model.

And customer expectations have never been higher. Today’s consumers expect brands to deliver fast and frictionless experiences through compelling interactions across all physical and digital touchpoints.

Building customer loyalty requires a complex mix of emotional and rational factors that enable you to connect and build relationships with customers across all your channels and communications.

So where should you focus?

Here are four areas to explore:

1. Enhance the purchasing experience

Create a seamless experience across the end-to-end ordering and purchase journey, with personalised offers and incentives to encourage store visits, and fast point of sale transactions on the forecourt and in stores.

A mobile app will let your customers pay for fuel without leaving their vehicles. Don’t restrict it to payments - use the app to help customers find their nearest service station, view their purchase history, accumulated loyalty points, discounts and rewards, or pre-order coffee, convenience items or a carwash.

Some retailers are making payments fully contactless with license plate recognition systems where customers essentially pay for fuel with their number plate. Our client Z Energy’s Pay by Plate helped grow its active customer base by more than 80% in a year.

By identifying customer pain-points and aggressively embracing innovation, Z Energy has delivered a world-first in fuel retail with the launch of its virtual fuel tank called Sharetank.

2. Create a Convenience Hub

The convenience store format is ready for change. Consumers are cutting back on big weekly supermarket shopping trips and choosing to purchase more of their groceries at easily accessible local stores.

Become a neighbourhood hub by expanding beyond traditional c-store offerings into high-quality products and fresh food, and design places customers want to visit, rather than need to visit.
In highway locations, encourage customers to stay as long as they want, with fresh in-store and takeaway food, and rest areas for travellers.
Consider the un-manned store model, which reduces costs while offering customers a quick, digital experience.

3. Offer ordering and pickup

With the surge in ecommerce over recent years, consumers want new options for purchasing, payment and fulfilment. 

Boost sales and profits by letting customers place and pay for their order in advance using your mobile app. When they reach the store, all they need to do is pick up the order and go. Some fuel apps let customers order items while they fill up, and an attendant delivers them to their vehicles.  
New self-serve software offers a simple yet sophisticated solution to meet customer demands for speed and convenience via digital experiences. 
Draw online shoppers into stores by offering omnichannel services such as click-and-collect. 
Home delivery apps let your stores drive sales and engage with new customers, while continuing to encourage their local communities to shop in store.

4. React smarter and faster to demand changes

Make better decisions about product assortments, by matching breadth and depth to demand, trends and local demographics. 

 A unified view of inventory will give you total control over your wet and dry stock to improve efficiency, reduce overall stock, create more satisfied customers and boost the bottom line. 
Maximise profits, conversions and promotional impact by customising products, prices and promotions nationally, regionally and even by individual sites.  
Offer a range of discounts to appeal to different shoppers, including dollars off the price, cost per litre, percentage off the price, cost plus a specific margin or markup and more.

Want help to revamp your c-store customer experience?

As you transform your CX to deliver the seamless and personalised buying journeys your customers crave, your point of sale and retail systems must transform as well. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital experiences, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the agility to innovate and scale new services, faster

For more on how to deliver every c-store customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our new ebook:

Download

Kelly Brown

2 February 2023

Unified Commerce

Why unified commerce is the nirvana of omnichannel

Kelly Brown

2 February 2023

Unified Commerce

This post was originally published on 3 March 2020 and updated on 2 February 2023

We’ve seen a dramatic boom in ecommerce in recent years that is creating new online shopping habits and reshaping consumers’ expectations of the retail experience.

Many retailers have had to take a ‘just get something done’ approach to creating seamless customer experiences that span channels. Now they’re struggling with omnichannel set-ups that simply link digital and physical systems together, and they don’t have the ability to keep pace with changing consumer behaviours.

But omnichannel should not be the end goal. It’s just one approach to getting a single view of your customers that will help you deliver unified experiences.

Instead, a unified commerce platform will break down your channel silos and move your retail business toward the holy grail of holistic, real-time, personalised customer experiences spanning in-store, online and everywhere in between.

To help explain why unified commerce is the nirvana of omnichannel, here’s a look at where we are now and where we’re going.

Multi-channel

To keep pace with new technologies and changing consumer demands, retailers are giving customers access to new mobile and online channels. Each touchpoint and channel operates independently, with separate people, processes and technologies existing in functional silos.

But when you only add and don’t actually integrate new channels with the rest of your organisation, you create bad service experiences that frustrate internal teams and customers.

Silos mean that your customers have to deal with inconsistencies and gaps, such as incomplete sales histories, different tones of voice or having to start conversations afresh in each channel. These silos inevitably lead to disappointment and frustration, a lack of trust and even a sense that your organisation is incompetent.

Omnichannel

With an omnichannel approach, you’re connecting numerous backend systems so that customers can seamlessly interact with your brand. However, your channels are still operating in functional silos.

That means most attempts to offer unified experiences fall short.

You’re likely to be struggling with legacy technologies that have been customised and are infrequently updated, and then you bolt-on new solutions that don’t easily integrate. These omnichannel systems are fragile, inefficient and costly to maintain.

And things can easily unravel. Adding new channels and tools requires additional custom integrations that are complex and slow, adding significant costs and curbing the agility and scalability you require.

Unified commerce

With a unified commerce approach, you can achieve retail nirvana by creating immersive and frictionless experiences for customers across all channels, touchpoints and locations. Rather than building custom integrations to unify different systems, you can easily use all the tools and services within a single unified platform.

It gives you a single source of truth for inventory, order and customer data. With this one view of the customer, and all channels and engagement points connected in real-time, you can deliver a personalised and consistent customer experience.

You can also quickly respond to changing customer expectations and new technologies by using microservices and APIs to expose data and connect third-party services.

Unified commerce has been a game changer for our clients.

It eliminates the customer journey pain points and amplifies the ‘wow’ moments. Now you can treat each customer as an individual, all the time – one person with one account, interacting with one brand.

Unified commerce can benefit your business in many ways:

It provides a stable backbone by acting as the hub for all your channels, reducing integration and operating costs, while increasing efficiency and accuracy.

It’s also your platform for innovating – a springboard for adding new channels and services, giving you the ability to take advantage of new capabilities and deliver results at a speed and scale that unachievable within a traditional omnichannel model.

It gives you total control over all your inventory and lets you create seamless and personalised purchasing, payment and fulfilment options across ‘endless aisle’ shopping, fast (eg 30-minute) click-and-collect, kerbside pickup, store-to-door, shoppable screens, kiosks and hyper-personalised loyalty offers.

You can deliver frictionless experiences and let customers access your entire product range from any location, including stores, online, mobile, shoppable screens, pop-ups, stores within stores, virtual showrooms, social channels, call centres and more.

And our savviest clients are now investing in new customer-facing technologies, like chatbots, mobile apps and AI. Some are pioneering contextual commerce – the ability to seamlessly implement purchase opportunities into everyday activities (such as Shoppable Instagram and Facebook).

The end result is the ability to deliver the personal, ubiquitous and unified experiences your customers expect, fostering loyalty, driving growth and improving profitability.

Want help to plan your next steps?

We can help you define your goals, develop a business case and create your roadmap to deliver the unified experiences that are best for customers, and most profitable for you. Get in touch.

For more on how a move to a unified commerce strategy gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing needs, download our new ebook:

download now

Mike Baxter

1 November 2022

Releases & News

New in Infinity – November 2022

Mike Baxter

1 November 2022

Releases & News

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you create the convenient and seamless omnichannel experiences your customers now expect.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

INFINITY API

Extend access to New Zealand addresses

Infinity’s integration with the Addressify address validation service now supports New Zealand addresses. Using Addressify prevents customers from providing inaccurate or incomplete address details, giving you the confidence that loyalty customers and online and store orders are linked to the correct customer address. To use this feature, you’ll need a service agreement with Addressify (details of their New Zealand service are launching soon).