How a single view of customer and inventory data translates to happier customers

How do you keep up with customer expectations when consumer demands are rising – and often shifting?  

As inflation and cost-of-living increases put pressure on consumer spending, shoppers are becoming more discerning and deliberate, rapidly switching between brands in the search for what they want. 

That’s why customer retention has become an important strategy for retailers wanting to capture market share and maximise profits. Retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones, and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers.  

By taking the time to develop relationships with customers, provide excellent service, reward loyalty and stay connected, businesses can retain customers and drive sustainable growth.  

But at a time when only 25% of retailers can connect their online and in-store transaction data, many retailers struggle to deliver the unified experiences they need to meet customers where they are now.  

Unified commerce solves this by unifying online and store experiences with back-end systems so you can attract, scale and earn the most from loyal customers. It’s now retail’s top priority, with 88% of retailers investing in unified commerce or considering doing so to make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future.   

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So how does a single source of truth translate to better customer satisfaction and retention?  

If your retail management system has been built up organically and relies on complex dependencies, you’ll know how difficult, slow and expensive it can be to integrate with modern technologies and create new customer experiences.  

A unified commerce platform can take that pain away. It bypasses the limitations of legacy and omnichannel systems by breaking down the walls between internal channel silos, using a centralised commerce platform that combines point of sale, inventory, ordering and fulfilment, loyalty, pricing and business intelligence.  

With one platform, you gain the single source of truth that gives you real-time visibility of your customer, inventory and fulfilment data across all your stores and channels.   

You can offer customers the easy purchase, convenient delivery and stress-free return options they want, while recognising and rewarding the shopping they do with you.   

Here’s how: 

Optimise inventory and availability 

Infinity lets you consolidate your inventory from all locations – warehouses, call centres and physical, mobile and online stores – and make it available for customers to buy anywhere, at any time. You can extend your range across more channels - marketplaces, in-store kiosks, shoppable screens, pop-up stores, concessions and mobile devices. And you’ll reduce costs, cut stock requirements and increase margins. 

Fulfil orders the way customers want 

When your data is unified, you can offer a range of fulfilment options no matter what channel an order comes in from. Click-and-collect, store-to-door delivery, drop shipping, returns anywhere and ‘endless aisle’ fulfilment are all possible. You get to choose what’s best for customers and most profitable for you. 

Reward customer loyalty 

It’s getting harder and more expensive to get a clear picture of customer activity and behaviours as more customers opt out of being tracked. However, loyalty programs offer a compelling reason for consumers to identify themselves in-store and online. With customer details captured and stored in single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you. Using that data and Infinity’s loyalty capabilities, you’ll know which customers are most profitable and what their preferences are. Your store teams can view this information to offer personalised service and encourage conversion at point of sale. 

Localise pricing and promotions 

Pricing is shared across channels so customers can trust that they’ll see the same price whether they shop with you in-store or online. You can make better decisions about store product assortments, by matching breadth and depth to demand, trends and local demographics. And by customising products, prices and promotions nationally, regionally and even by individual sites, you’ll increase conversions and maximise profits. 

React smarter and faster to demand changes 

Using APIs on an open platform, you can expose data in real time, rather than replicate or move it. That lets you add specialised functionality across various systems and provides a fast and easy way to plug in and deploy new services, channels and devices. You’ll innovate quicker, keep up with customer demands and build your competitive advantage.  

This blog was originally published on 17 March 2020 and updated 28 February 2024

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See what a single source of truth can do for your customer retention!  

If you want to unify your data to offer a seamless blend of physical and digital customer experiences, contact us to get started. 

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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 ebook:  

What is unified commerce and why is it so important to retail success?

As more sales channels and touchpoints emerge, the customer journey from awareness to purchase becomes more complex. Customers want to hop between channels in one seamless interaction. They want more options and less friction.  

That means retailers need a strategy that lets customers shop, buy and receive goods how, when and wherever they want. 

The only way to meet demands for a truly unified experience is to move to a unified commerce approach that delivers seamless customer journeys across all channels, touchpoints and locations. 

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Unified commerce is the term used for a retail software platform that provides a central hub for data from every system and channel across your organisation.  

It breaks down the walls between channel silos to deliver frictionless customer experiences, while reducing integration and operating costs, and increasing efficiency and accuracy. 

At a time when only 25% of retailers are able to connect their online and in-store transaction data it’s gaining momentum, with 20% of retailers heavily investing in it, 32% beginning to invest and 36% considering doing so. Retailers who use unified commerce have seen a solid 7% revenue boost over those who did not. And Australian retailers can tap into a $44 billion opportunity when they connect online and in-store sales channels via unified commerce.  

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So what exactly is unified commerce?

Unified commerce is a retail management system that unifies all your customer and inventory data on one open, centralised commerce platform that exposes one version of truth to all channels.  

That means all your data stays in sync – across point of sale, websites, apps, call centres, field staff, DCs and warehouses, kiosks, pop-up stores, concessions and marketplaces – and transactions can be viewed in near real time.  

With all these customer touch points connected, unified commerce lets you deliver a holistic and personalised customer experience more consistently. You can make purchasing online and in-stores more seamless and convenient through endless aisle, digital payments and ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ services. And you can treat each customer as the individual they are – one person with one account, interacting with one unified brand. 

A unified commerce platform also helps you and your technology partners innovate quickly, maximise margin and deploy new services – efficiently and profitably. 

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Here’s how unified commerce helps you retail better

Optimise inventory and availability 

When you have an accurate, real-time view of your inventory, you can quickly see where inventory is and therefore the fastest place to fulfil from. You can increase sales by using ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels). You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster.  

Fulfil orders the way customers want 

With a ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ strategy and centralised unified commerce platform, you can give customers and staff real-time visibility of inventory, order and customer data across the business. That means you can offer a range of fulfilment options like click-and-collect, ship-from-store and split shipments – whatever suits your customers best.   

Attract, scale and retain loyal customers 

You can capture customer details for your loyalty program via any channel and then analyse purchase and browsing histories to develop the personalised experiences customers now expect, with rewards and offers that are timely and relevant. Store and call centre employees can also see this information to offer tailored services and encourage conversions at the point of sale. 

Localise pricing and promotions 

Pricing is shared across channels so customers can trust that they’ll see the same price whether they shop with you in-store or online. You can make better decisions about store product assortments, by matching breadth and depth to demand, trends and local demographics. And by customising products, prices and promotions nationally, regionally and even by individual sites, you’ll increase conversions and maximise profits.   

React smarter and faster to demand changes 

Using APIs on an open platform, you can expose data in real time, rather than replicate or move it. That lets you add specialised functionality across various systems and provides a fast and easy way to plug in and deploy new services, channels and devices. You’ll innovate quicker, increase speed to market and build your competitive advantage. 

This blog was originally published on 13 January 2020 and updated 2 February 2024

If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your sales, service and marketing channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the ability to create unified retail experiences for competitive advantage.

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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 ebook:  

New in Infinity – February 2024

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity while improving the customer experience. 

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

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INFINITY API

Enhance business continuity during a processor failure 

The Cloud Events Service’s processors will now keep running even if one of them fails. The processors that aren’t directly impacted will continue to operate, lowering the risk of business interruption. You can configure the service so that you’ll be alerted via email to the failure by a fatal error warning. 

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Faster access to historical sales impacted by unit cost changes 

When viewing historical sales transactions in item maintenance, you can now see exactly when changes to the unit cost of an item started to impact sales line costs. 

Improve data privacy by concealing stock costs from store staff 

If you want to keep the cost your business pays for stock confidential, you now have the option to hide it from the sales and credits screen at the Back Office so that it’s not exposed to your store staff.  

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INVENTORY

Simplify urgent stock transfers from warehouse to store 

If your business manages all stock requests from the head office, you can now use Infinity’s replenishment request function to order branch stock, instead of raising a purchase order. This can be useful if you want to get an item from the warehouse to a store at short notice and you are happy for the warehouse to send what it can based on availability.

Increase receipting speed and accuracy with audible scan warnings 

Using Cloud Inventory to receipt items that have arrived in a consignment of multiple stock transfers will improve your detection of errors now that store staff get a “bad beep” warning when they scan an item that isn’t supposed to be in the consignment or an item that has an invalid barcode. We’ve also improved your staff’s ability to identify variances for over and under transfer receipts, making the receipting process speedier and more precise.  

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CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Meet privacy law obligations by automating customer data retention periods  

We’ve enhanced Infinity Loyalty to give you more options for managing your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) risk. You can automatically remove customer data from POS and Back Office machines when there are no open sales orders and no transactions for that customer within a configurable period.  

Before you can use this functionality, you need to have a stable infrastructure, as the customer search will always use a connection to the Head Office. Also note that these changes should be part of your wider PII programme. 

Streamline mass updating of free prepaid product offers 

Offering free prepaid promotional products can be an effective way of engaging with your existing customers. We’ve made adopting this strategy more seamless now that you can use Infinity Loyalty to update many prepaid product balances at the same time.  

Enhance security by deactivating stolen partner loyalty cards 

If you use Infinity Loyalty with partner programmes, you can now block a customer’s Airpoints or Flybuys card that has been stolen or involved in a fraudulent transaction so it can’t be used as an identifier at your Point of Sale or at an outside payment terminal, thereby protecting your business from potential fraudulent card use. 

In addition, by blocking (and not deleting) the identifier, you remove the risk of it being allocated to another customer. 

Create tailored rewards when resolving customer concerns 

We’ve enhanced the ways you can reward Loyalty customers by enabling you to manually adjust a customer’s accumulator balance at the Head Office. You can use this new function to add a “stamp” for a customer, so that, for example, you can give them a free coffee as a way of resolving a concern or query.   

Speed up loyalty customer scanning during a sale 

Scanning a loyalty customer into a sale is faster and more efficient now that your store staff no longer have to open the customer search function before scanning the customer’s card. If you want to maintain customer confidentiality, this has the added benefit of not exposing customer information to your store staff. 

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PRICING & PROMOTIONS  

Simplify the set-up of quantity-based promotions at any price level 

If you use quantity price breaks, you can now apply those breaks to prices 2-8, as well as to price 1, on the Infinity item master data. Applying breaks across all price fields can be easily managed using Infinity ETL, which saves you the hassle of manually maintaining the various individual pricing scales for an item.  

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REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Improve stock management with better inventory-related reporting  

We’ve made a number of improvements to the end-of-month financial reports so that they’re more useful for inventory-related reconciliation. The Stock Movement Summary Report now offers a transaction breakdown using both quantity and cost values, as well as allowing you to easily see any variance between opening and closing balances. This means the report provides an easily readable view of all stock-related activity and allows you to identify instances where incorrect store processes were followed, such as selling items into negative stock.  

Other changes have been made to support these enhancements. Both the Stock Movement Summary Report and the Sales and Stock Gross and Profit Report now round the cost to four decimal places rather than two, as a way of further improving the accuracy of the reports’ cost figures over a long period, while the Chronological Item Movement Report includes the item on-hand quantity, which will be shown in red if a stock movement puts the item quantity into negative.  

Help store staff make purchasing decisions for future promotions 

Infinity’s new RBP Promotions Report allows your stores to see upcoming and current promotions and helps them make the purchasing decisions needed to run those promotions. They can use the report to understand what they need to order and when they can reduce ordering as promotions come to an end, as well as to check that shelf labelling has the right pricing information. Head office staff can use the report to help stores plan and run promotions, including through advance advertising.

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ADMINISTRATION

Enhance financial integrity with mandatory end-of-day completion 

If you use Infinity’s extended Cash Management functionality, you’ll find we’ve made some enhancements to reduce the risk of errors. Your store staff won’t be able to create a trading day if they haven’t completed an end of day on a POS station that has had sales activity, or if that station hasn’t linked to the Back Office that day. This ensures that all financial transactions are available at the Back Office when the trading day is created and removes the possibility of sales and till adjustments being missed. 

Extend lifespan of stock records for open transactions 

You can now keep stock transaction records open for a very long period if they are associated with open purchase orders and unreceipted transfers. The records will remain active and available for updating for the life of the transaction, even after the configured lifespan limit has been reached.  

Boost security by eliminating barcode login risks 

Staff logins can be a security concern for your business, especially if your people create barcodes by entering their credentials on third-party websites and then use those barcodes to log in. You can now negate the usefulness of these websites by requiring that all users log in manually rather than by scanning IDs.  .  

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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.

How self-service software underpins growth in convenience stores

If queues lengthen and sales slow when your teams are busy making coffee or rolling ice creams, then you’ll be wondering how self-serve technologies can help your convenience business. Kelly Brown explains why many self-serve offerings aren’t suited to c-store formats and describes disruptive new self-serve software that makes it simple to create a fast and memorable experience.

Fuel and convenience stores that become destination stores are best positioned for long-term growth and customer loyalty.  

They know that a customer experience centred on convenience is fundamental to success. And they’re urgently modernising the checkout experience so that consumers can transact on their own terms.  

But as c-stores build a reputation for speed and simplicity, they often struggle to maintain that convenience for customers.   

During peak hours, sales can be lost when customers see long queues and decide not to make purchases. It’s difficult to ensure that there are enough people in the store to handle the peaks without wasting resources during the troughs. And the strain of labour shortages continues to impact all retailers.  

The fix for many retailers is self-serve kiosks. They’re a practical solution for large stores and supermarkets, helping to deliver shorter queues, faster service times and reduced costs. 

However, most self-service kiosks aren’t suitable for a c-store format and don’t provide the services customers seek.  

The high up-front cost of a kiosk is a key barrier to adoption. The large pedestals take up valuable floor space, reducing stock and advertising opportunities, and extending the payback period.  

Theft is a serious concern, particularly for small stores with few staff.  

Many consumers don’t like self-checkouts and want to engage with a store member during a purchase. In addition, some transactions can’t be completed without help - such as age-restricted products - which limits the streamlined experience self-checkout promises.   

So how are c-stores innovating to increase convenience in their stores? 

Disruptive new self-serve software is fast becoming a c-store staple.  

Convenience stores are taking advantage of new self-serve software applications that can be deployed on any terminal or touchscreen display.  

For example, one client is rolling out a touchscreen self-service solution in over 50 stores to provide a simple way for customers to purchase items, order food and make payments.   

Positioned on store counters next to POS terminals, the solution includes a second monitor so that store staff can easily view each customer’s progress, assist and serve when required.  

Customers scan in barcoded items they want to purchase and use the interactive touchscreen to select non-barcoded products from a menu of made-to-order fresh and hot food.   

Developed by application developer Hoodoo, the software takes advantage of Infinity APIs to expose product, pricing and inventory data in real-time and easily add new capabilities. It’s lightning-fast, with an intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface and runs on any hardware device. 

This simple yet sophisticated approach offers six significant benefits for c-stores:  

1. Speed up service: reduce queues and make it easier for customers to transact in less time to boost customer satisfaction and drive profits 

2. Redeploy your staff: free up your people for more high-value tasks such as preparing food and engaging with customers. This reduces pressure on them and lifts productivity, creating efficiencies and higher profitability. Some large c-stores will be able to cut their headcount to further reduce costs 

3. Give customers choice: present all the available options and specials to each customer, step-by-step, and put them in control of their in-store experience 

4. Increase order accuracy: integrate orders with your POS, customer and inventory systems to eliminate the possibility of errors or miscommunication  

5. Boost upselling: make it easy for customers to add-on items to grow basket size and increase sales 

6. Differentiate your CX: provide a modern, intuitive digital experience in stores to amplify your brand and create more memorable experiences. 

Ordering and pickup options are next 

The surge in self-service goes beyond self-serve purchases – consumers want new options for ordering and order pick-up as well.    

Mobile ordering boosts sales and profits by letting customers place and pay for their order in advance using a mobile app. When they reach the store, all they need to do is pick up the order and go. Some fuel retailer apps let customers order items while they fill up, and an attendant delivers them to their vehicles. 

Self-checkout options are extending to online ordering platforms. Convenience stores are drawing online shoppers into their physical stores by offering omnichannel services such as click-and-collect.  

And home delivery has the potential to further enhance the customer service. Home delivery apps let c-stores drive sales and engage with new customers, while continuing to encourage their local communities to shop in store. 

This blog was originally published August 2022 and updated on 13 November 2023. 

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Consumers now expect digital convenience from c-stores 

How quickly will you adopt self-serve solutions to differentiate your brand and deliver what customers want?  

If you’d like help to provide a streamlined and fast customer experience, get in touch. We’d love to help you deploy a self-serve solution to shorten queues, reduce wait times and help your team become more efficient. 

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

New in Infinity – October 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels to create frictionless customer experiences and drive growth.

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

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INFINITY API

Enhance ecosystem integrations by accessing more transaction source data

As part of our continual expansion of Cloud Events payloads, we’ve included additional information about the transaction source, as well as any information about the use of external loyalty cards and fuel coupons, to allow you to enrich your integration with ecosystem platforms. 

Streamline sharing of sales data with ecosystem partners 

You can now use the Infinity Cloud Events service to securely share sales of specific products with ecosystem partners without having to waste time and resources manually cleansing and redacting data.  

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Automate shelf pricing updates with Pricer integration 

Keeping your shelf pricing up to date, especially during a promotional period, can be time consuming and costly. Using Infinity's new integration with Pricer software, you can reduce labour costs by harnessing the power of real-time electronic pricing. The integration regularly sends the latest Infinity pricing information to Pricer, saving you the effort of manually updating prices and ensuring your shelf pricing is always current. 

Boost efficiency with ETL tool item selection enhancements 

Bulk exporting and updating item data using the ETL tool is easier and more efficient now that you can select items by subdepartment and product class rather than just by department, giving you more focused and targeted results.  

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INVENTORY

Streamline inventory management by stock taking any time of day 

Businesses can find it hard to fit stock taking around the need to keep trading. Infinity Cloud now allows you to stock take during trading hours at a time that suits you and then refresh stock data at the Back Office, meaning you don’t miss any sales that happened during the stock take.  

Save time and effort when receipting multiple stock transfers 

If your business chooses to reduce transportation costs by shipping multiple stock transfers from your warehouse in a single delivery, you can now use Infinity Cloud to receipt all the goods in that delivery at the same time. When the consignment arrives, your store staff can simply scan the goods and Infinity will deal with the hassle of matching them to the right stock transfer, saving you time and effort.  

Simplify checks of shelf price labels using mobile devices 

Verifying shelf-edge pricing, particularly during a promotion, can be difficult for store staff, who have to match the shelf price to the price recorded at the POS station. To overcome this, Infinity Cloud now allows store operators to see both the standard price and the single product promo price on a mobile device as they move around the store. 

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CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Increase accuracy of fuel loyalty balances via manual adjustments 

Loyalty program administrators in fuel businesses can now create both positive and negative manual adjustments to cents-per-litre balances, giving them more control over suspicious transactions and instances where operator error has inflated the balance.    

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PRICING & PROMOTIONS  

Simplify the setup of quantity-based promotions 

If you use quantity break/price bands, you can now use additional price adjustment options to simplify and optimise the setup of scale pricing rules. By enabling price fields 2-8 on the item master, you can define a single rule to manage multiple items, reducing the overhead in maintaining these rules.   

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POINT OF SALE

Improve security and employee safety with contactless cash recycling 

Handling cash is a financial and security risk for all retailers. Infinity’s new cash recycler integration improves your peace of mind by taking the responsibility for processing cash payments away from store staff and giving it to the recycler machine instead. This reduces both the chance of staff error when giving out change and the risk of theft, while also allowing you to enjoy the benefits of contactless cash handling.   

Boost profits by removing credit option from Windcave EFTPOS 

Customers who use the credit option when paying by EFTPOS as a way of circumventing the credit card processing fee cost your business precious revenue. To overcome this, you can now configure payment options at the point of sale so that when the customer chooses to pay by Windcave EFTPOS they must debit either their cheque or savings account, rather than using the credit option.   

Let customers quickly and easily self-scan loyalty cards on Magellan scales 

Infinity Loyalty now supports the use of Magellan scanner scales for scanning Loyalty cards, optimising the search for Loyalty customers at the Point of Sale.  

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INTEGRATIONS

Speed up GRNI reconciliation in Xero 

Reconciling the GRNI account postings in Xero is faster and more efficient now that the original purchase order number displays on purchase order goods receipts.  

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TECHNOLOGY

Accelerate upgrades with fewer exceptions  

We've enhanced the Infinity Upgrade Service to accommodate situations where applications are running that may block the upgrade from updating files in the Infinity folder. This will result in fewer exceptions needing attention post-upgrade, reducing the time pressures on technical staff.    

Support for diverse scale hardware at site level 

Businesses that configure scales at the site level can now set station-specific scale configurations, allowing for mixed hardware options to be supported.  

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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.

Your four stages to unifying customer experiences

Can you deliver to changing customer needs? Here’s how to simplify and streamline interactions with your brand and fulfil the promise of omnichannel retail.

1

Get tight control of your inventory

2

Extend your brand experience across all channels

3

Create delightful, personalised shopping experiences

4

Innovate, innovate, innovate

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Omnichannel retail promised to make things better for customers by delivering unified shopping experiences, but the execution has left gaps in the user experience.  

Shoppers today have numerous selling channels available to them, but silos mean that customers can’t just hop between channels in one seamless interaction and must deal with inconsistencies that lead to disappointment and frustration. 

Omnichannel has also made it much tougher for retailers. Today it’s not just about providing multiple options – it’s about delivering a frictionless experience no matter where or when customers shop. This variety is overwhelming retailers, with 47% saying there are too many channels for them to effectively deliver the best experience.  

And many omnichannel set-ups neglect to take full take advantage of stores, which provide unparalleled opportunities to provide excellent service and personalised recommendations to retain loyal customers, as well as take on activities such as returns, fulfilment, endless aisle orders, in-store wishlists and more. 

That’s why retailers are moving from omnichannel to an integrated unified commerce platform strategy.  

Unified commerce makes it easy to meet and even exceed customer expectations by creating a ‘one brand’ experience everywhere your customers shop while solving the problems and restrictions of omnichannel retail.  

It’s gaining momentum, with 20% of retailers heavily investing in unified commerce, 32% beginning to invest and 36% considering doing so. Retailers who used unified commerce in 2022 saw an impressive 7% revenue boost over those who did not.  

And the transition to unified commerce is simpler than many think.  

Retailers can quickly reap the benefits by following these four stages:

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Stage 1: Get tight control of your inventory

Ensure you can accurately manage your inventory levels across all your locations and customer touchpoints by centralising your inventory information in near real time.  

With a unified inventory management system in place, you can guarantee you’ve got the right inventory available in each location, without carrying the cost of overstocking or “buffers”. You can optimise your product range by matching stock to each store’s location, community and demographics while still giving access to your complete range via endless aisle. You can also react to trends quickly, and forecast demand based on historical data, sales forecasts and seasonal variations.

See how Night ‘n Day started with inventory to create great customer experiences and increase net profit by around $12,000 a year for each store.

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Stage 2: Extend your brand experience across all channels

Once your inventory is under control, you’re free to increase your purchasing, ordering and fulfilment options. To do that, you’ll need to move from multichannel silos to a unified commerce platform that provides a strong order management capability.  

Exposing, rather than replicating, inventory and customer data from your platform to each channel means everything stays in sync. Your staff and customers will have consistent product visibility and can expect fluid and accurate interactions, whether in-store, on mobile or online.  

And with real-time data on stock levels, you’ll be able to see where inventory is located, find the lowest cost or fastest fulfilment route, and provide better promotions. 

Here’s how Cue Clothing is using unified commerce to combine physical and digital channels into a ‘one-brand’ experience.

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Stage 3: Create delightful, personalised shopping experiences

Now you can build genuinely meaningful customer experiences. With a single view of customer, order and inventory data, you can treat each customer as an individual, all the time – one person with one account, interacting with one unified brand. 

Make your loyalty programme your cornerstone for innovation, delivering the unified and personalised experiences customers expect. Use AI and data from online and offline channels to deliver timely and personalised communications, recommendations, offers and rewards across in-store and digital touchpoints, including desktop web, mobile web, mobile apps, email and social. 

By delivering each customer a powerful, tailored, one-of-a-kind experience across all channels and touchpoints, you’ll create rich emotional connections, drive up conversions and send transaction values soaring.

Here’s how Z fuels more sales and repeat visits with its Pumped loyalty programme.

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Stage 4: Innovate

Your unified commerce platform is now your hub for innovation - a springboard for adding new channels and services to take advantage of new capabilities and deliver results at a speed and scale that would be unachievable within a traditional omnichannel model. 

By using agile methodologies and APIs to expose data and functions, and easily plug in and deploy new services, channels and devices, you’ll reduce integration and maintenance overheads, increase real-time accuracy and enjoy virtually limitless scalability and agility. And by seamlessly embedding purchasing opportunities into everyday activities, you’ll make the shopping experience seamless for the consumer. 

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

See how APIs can help you innovate at pace and build powerful ecosystems to give customers extraordinary experiences.

This post was originally published May 2019 and updated on 28 August 2023.

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If you’re urgently revamping your omnichannel capabilities and want advice on which projects to tackle first, our checklist could help. It will let you assess where you are at against retail leaders and decide what you need to improve. Download it here.

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Show me the ROI: 5 tests to justify your retail software purchase

Are traditional ROI measures good enough in today's environment?  

Everyone’s focused on ROI for their enterprise technology purchases nowadays. ROI has always been important, but at a time when consumer confidence is low and customer expectations continue to rise, new technology investments are being held to an even higher standard.  

But making the shift to a new retail management system can be difficult.  

Research has shown enterprise software failure rates range from 30-70%, and some observers say that fewer than 10% of major software purchases fully meet expectations. Stories  about  outright software failures do appear in the media, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg - people don’t talk publicly about failures because they do not want to be associated with them.  

For some companies, their investments become a black hole, sucking up funds to salvage the situation. They pour money and resources into further development, implementation and maintenance, only to find after a few years that they’ve fallen by the wayside.   

And many projects may not be outright failures but lead to serious business disruption when the software goes live. Chaotic stores frustrate customers, supply chains go haywire, data integrity and security can be compromised, employee frustration kills productivity and integration challenges hinder efficient operations.  

Plus there’s the loss of innovations that can give you a competitive edge. A successful solution will be implemented faster than expected and meet or exceed the expected ROI, letting you create frictionless and differentiated omnichannel customer experiences that drive loyalty and grow revenue.  

You don’t want a project that fails to deliver the desired returns because the wrong product was selected.  

So how do you justify your technology investment?  

There are five tests technology purchases need to pass, and the first is the most important by far: 

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Test 1: Does it deliver your strategy and help drive forward your KPI's?

Evaluate how the software will help to achieve the strategic goals and objectives of your organisation.   

It should be a solution to the challenges you face or help you take advantage of new opportunities. It needs to offer clear benefits like boosting productivity, cutting costs, improving customer satisfaction or increasing revenue. If it doesn't directly address your needs, it's probably not the right fit. 

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Test 2: Does it deliver REAL value?

The ‘shiny object’ syndrome is prevalent in retail. People can get fixated on the latest trends and fail to assess how the investment helps to deliver a return on investment.   

How much will the system cost in terms of licenses, implementation, training and maintenance? Compare those costs to the benefits you expect to see. Consider both the tangible and intangible returns, such as increased revenue, reduced operational costs, improved decision-making, enhanced scalability or competitive advantage. A positive ROI should be evident over a reasonable timeframe.  

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Test 3: Does it deliver operational savings?

People are your most important resource. If your investment saves them time, that frees them up to work on higher value activities.   

The system should be user-friendly with intuitive workflows and features that align with users' needs and preferences. You want a solution that your store and head office staff can easily adopt and start using right away. No one wants to deal with complicated interfaces or spend hours in training sessions. And a solution that provides a positive user experience will yield higher productivity gains and better overall results. 

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Test 4: Can it grow with you and adapt to change?

Assess whether the system can scale and adapt to your organisation's changing needs. It should be able to handle more data, channels and touchpoints, easily integrate with other systems, be flexible enough to adapt to new technologies and scale to provide long-term value.  

You don't want to be stuck with an outdated or narrow point solution that won’t let you evolve to meet changing customer needs.  

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Test 5: Can you rely on the vendor for new functionality and ongoing support?

Biggest isn’t always best. A mid-sized company will have fewer layers of bureaucracy, giving them more agility and responsiveness. It also means that you’ll be an important customer of influence to your partner - they will value your business and work hard for it.  

Assess the reputation and support provided by the vendor. Do they have a good track record of successful implementations in the current, disrupted omnichannel retail climate, with customer reviews and references?  

Are they known for their customer service? You’ll want a partner that will be there for you when you need it, ensuring you can easily add new functionality and connect to third party systems (via APIs) to cultivate your retail ecosystem. 

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By putting your potential software investment through these five tests, you’ll find a solution that meets your needs and is cost-effective, adaptable, user-friendly and supported by a trusted and reliable partner.  

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Want help to ensure your software investment pays off? 

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

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For insights into 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:

New in Infinity – August 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels and deliver to changing customer needs. 

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

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Streamline stock sorting by setting preferred sort criteria 

It’s now easier to sort and find stock items in Infinity using the criteria that makes the most sense to your business. When you browse for items in the inventory, your previous sort selection will be retained for the next session. So, for example, if you prefer to sort items by description, they will automatically be sorted in that order the next time you open Infinity.   

Empower store staff to control stock at new stores 

We’ve streamlined the effort involved in creating a new branch by providing a choice of which stock items will be sent to the store. When inventory items are copied from a source branch to the new branch, you can choose to only send the active items, or decide to set them all active and send them all. This empowers store staff to decide which items they want to keep, giving them more control over their stock. It also means your Head Office staff no longer have to be involved in setting up the inventory for a new store.  

Manage financial risks by setting store-specific cash limits 

Keeping cash in the cash drawer can be one of the most important financial and security risks your stores face on a day-to-day basis, and those risks can differ across branches. You can now empower stores to handle those risks in the way that meets their needs by allowing them to set their own cash drawer limits.   

Keep promotions running smoothly during franchise ownership changes 

Changing franchise ownership in the middle of a promotional cycle can be disruptive and potentially cost your stores valuable revenue. You can now minimise that disruption by easily transferring existing pricing and promotions when a store moves from one cluster in your organisation to another. This saves you having to recreate the promotions and means offers keep running without missing a beat. 

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INVENTORY

Make supplier searches easy with non-case sensitive name check 

We’ve improved the user experience when creating purchase orders and receipts by making the supplier name check non-case sensitive. This means that you will find the supplier without any trouble when there’s a difference in the capitalisation of their name on the item record and the supplier record.   

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CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Speed up loyalty prepay enquiries with full transaction info 

Your Loyalty support staff can answer Loyalty prepay customer transaction enquiries more quickly now that they can see more details about those transactions, including the date, the receipt number and the external transaction code.    

Improve efficiency during cents-per-litre rule searches 

Searching for specific cents-per-litre rules has been made more seamless and less time-consuming now that fuel administrators can easily filter and sort them.   

Customise error messages when external fuel balances unavailable 

Your Loyalty program administrator can now be warned that a customer’s external partner cents-per-litre fuel balance is currently unavailable using an error message that meets your customised business needs.  

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POINT OF SALE

Boost sales by providing customers with estimated arrival dates 

Securing a sale can sometimes come down to being able to tell the customer that the item they really want to buy will soon be available. Infinity now allows your store staff to see more details about the estimated arrival date of goods on purchase orders, as well as quantities on draft orders, allowing them to drive sales by giving customers the information they need to make purchasing decisions.  

Seamlessly switch POS stations for faster transactions via auto-logout 

At busy times, your sales staff may need to switch between POS stations to process a high volume of transactions quickly, while also allowing you to keep track of who processed the sales. To meet these simultaneous needs, Infinity can now log users out after a set amount of time, rather than locking the entire station. This keeps the sales process moving while not compromising on the audit trail. This feature is also useful between shifts if a user forgets to log out and means the next user can log in without having to involve a manager in unlocking the station.  

Customise age-check policies store-by-store 

If your business sells items that have an age restriction and you use Infinity’s advanced age check module, age policies can now be set on a store-by-store basis. This is especially useful if your stores operate as franchises and franchisees want to apply different policies. So, for example, one store can decide to age-check everyone who looks under 30, while another store decides to check everyone who looks younger than 25.  

Enhance fuel transaction monitoring by identifying legitimate test deliveries 

Monitoring fuel transactions using Digifort DVR is easier now that the video footage identifies the pumps used for test deliveries to ensure they were legitimate. 

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INTEGRATIONS

Republish cloud event sales invoice transactions effortlessly 

Cloud event sales invoice transactions can now be republished to either RabbitMQ or Azure should they need to be resent to the system that consumes them, ensuring that all transactions are sent and accounted for.  

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TECHNOLOGY

Support for latest Microsoft technologies 

Infinity now supports SQL Server 2022, the latest SQL Server version available from Microsoft. Note that SQL Server 2016 and higher require a 64-bit operating system.  

Faster POS setup with accelerated data replication 

Infinity Point of Sale will be ready to use much sooner following improvements to the setup process. Accelerated data replication can reduce the time it takes to perform the initial setup data synchronisation down to just a few minutes, depending on network speeds and the amount of data involved.  

Reduce costs with enhanced Wishlist integration 

Infinity’s integration with the Wishlist company now supports a multi-tenanted back-end.  

Effortless safety sheet distribution with API integration 

If you sell dangerous goods, distributing material safety sheets across your business can now be done via an API back-end, optimising the management of these documents and saving you the trouble of having to make them available on a site-by-site basis. 

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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.

Seven things to look for in a retail technology partner

With many customer journeys now beginning online, and a growing appreciation of the critical role of in-store teams in the customer experience, the key issue for retailers today is how to extend their online experience into stores to create unified retail.

That means seamlessly integrating all backend systems to deliver the distinctive omnichannel experiences consumers now demand. Can your retail system keep up?

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If you’re developing the roadmap or requirements for your next point of sale or retail platform, start here.

No matter the scale of what you want to accomplish – extending POS functionality, creating a single view of inventory, or starting your unified commerce journey to connect POS, inventory, fulfilment, order and customer data – you need a partner with the right people, processes and technology.

A partner who understands the 24x7 demands of retail and can provide you with the systems to innovate quickly, optimise inventory, maximise margin and deploy frictionless customer experiences - efficiently and profitably.

Here are the important indicators of a good technology partner, plus questions to ask:

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1

Maturity and market responsiveness

Look for a partner who’s been around retail for a while, with a platform built on a modern architecture and sound business model and proposition. They’ll need to understand your fast-paced, data-intensive environment where any significant level of downtime is unacceptable.

Their people will have the capability to help you plan and implement your projects so that they work for you now and into the future. When you choose a partner with a mature platform, they can focus on delivering innovation because the core functionality you need already exists.

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2

Real-world customer experience

Make sure your partner has a recent and proven success record for planning, implementing and managing complex, large-scale deployments across multiple stores, multiple formats and multiple geographies.

Have they implemented unified commerce systems or are they just unifying digital commerce channels? Ask for evidence of the relationships, products and services that help their clients to be successful, including the consultancy, customisation, integration, training and support services you’ll need.

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3

Flexible and innovative mindset

You want a partner who’s got the people and processes to move fast, while cultivating an environment where innovation flourishes.

Check that they have a history of responsiveness and the ability to assess and quickly correct any unforeseen issues. Can they change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act and customer needs evolve.

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4

Broad product capability

Choose a partner that can give you a broad and holistic portfolio, perspective and experience. You’ll need all your core requirements out-of-the-box plus the ability to customise and easily add new functionality.

Offering a unified experience means unifying all the backend systems that run POS, inventory, customers and loyalty, pricing and promotions, analytics and fulfilment. You don’t want to be tied to a point player that can only provide portions.

Your partner should let third parties connect via APIs and cultivate a vendor ecosystem to reduce risk and increase flexibility. You also need to know that your partner has a strategic roadmap and investment committed for new capabilities. 

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5

Consulting and market understanding

Find a partner that will guide you in the right direction and tune technologies to fit your individual business needs. Do they have consultancy skills that span business and technical knowledge? Can they advise you on business processes as well as how the software works? Make sure they understand your wants and needs (as well as those of your customers) and can translate them into products and services.  

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6

Exceptional operations

Check that your partner can meet their goals and commitments, and that they have the organisational structure, skills, experiences, programmes and systems to operate effectively and efficiently. That includes agile — make sure they’ve done the training and really understand agile principles, methods and practices.  

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7

Local and committed to your success

Look for a partner that is a local business, focused on your region’s potential to succeed. A local partner means you can have more influence on the product roadmap and enjoy direct engagement with people on the ground committed to your success (and not distracted by offshore business activity). And a mid-size partner is more likely to view you as an important customer of influence.

This blog was originally published on 21 January 2019 and updated 30 May 2023.

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Want help to innovate and scale new services, faster?

Triquestra has been delivering retail management systems in multiple industries and geographies for more than 25 years. Our product and people are supporting award-winning retailers delivering disruptive, world-first customer experiences that build loyalty and grow sales.

 If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you digitise your business to create the unified experiences your customers now expect.

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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:

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Delivering a unified CX: liquor retail's new priority

The ecommerce boom and ever-increasing consumer demands for more digital and personalised services are rapidly changing the business of liquor retail. Kelly Brown explains why liquor retailers are overhauling how they plan, build and deliver their CX, and shares three steps to take to remain relevant.

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Customers now expect retailers to offer convenience, speed and value throughout the end-to-end shopping journey. They are more discerning and impatient, and don’t care that it can be hard to deliver – they only care about a great experience.  

That is driving a massive shift in how liquor retailers plan, build and deliver their customer experience.   

The retailers making the first move know that a compelling bricks-and-mortar presence blended with an improved digital offering can be leveraged for competitive advantage.  

And that means seamlessly integrating all backend systems and channels to deliver experiences that align with customer expectations.  

However, it’s complicated. 

While liquor retail has always been challenging – fast service is non-negotiable, staff require specialised knowledge and transaction volumes are highly variable – this requires a fundamental transformation of the standard business model. 

Liquor retail has been a laggard in creating new digital experiences and investing in technology to improve front- and back-end operations. Many liquor retailers have legacy solutions that are no longer fit for purpose and have bolted on solutions for the digital space that don’t easily integrate.  

And they struggle to support their customers’ current omnichannel demands, let alone the personalised ‘phygital’ shopping journeys now expected by post-pandemic, digitally savvy consumers.  

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So what steps can you take to differentiate your liquor retail business? 

Here’s a three-pronged strategy that will help create the distinctive omnichannel experiences customers now expect: 

1. Pivot into retail media services 

To remain relevant and competitive in the future, you’ll need to venture beyond traditional retailing and enter new service categories with a higher level of profitability. 

Retail media networks are emerging as one example in retail. Liquor retailers are monetising their existing data and channels by introducing state-of-the-art digital screens closer to the point of purchase, creating a raft of opportunities for alcohol brands to advertise. 

With the demise of revenue from third-party cookies, retail media helps alcohol brands reach the right audience - people who want to purchase alcohol and are legally entitled to do so - and drive higher conversions that increase sales. And as online alcohol sales grow – 15.2% growth is expected between 2022 to 2030 - so will advertising revenues for retailers. 

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2. Deliver a unified customer experience 

Focus on the end-to-end needs of your customers and revamp the customer journey to expand your relationship beyond quick visits to stock up on beverages. 

That means making purchasing online and in stores seamless and convenient through endless aisle, digital payments and ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ services coupled with fast and flexible delivery options. 

Take advantage of the shift in preference for neighbourhood shopping, with local product ranges tailored to each location and community, supported by bespoke promotional programmes. 

And you’ll need to create true omnichannel experiences that seamlessly integrate physical and digital channels to create personalised customer communications, offers, experiences and rewards across in-store and digital touchpoints. 

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3. Embrace complexity to build new capabilities 

To revamp your business and aggressively embrace innovation and new technologies, you’ll need to develop new expertise and capabilities. That will introduce more complexity into your organisation, with sales channels becoming less physical and more digital.  

You’ll want a retail platform that connects your physical and digital channels to let you deliver customer experiences that provide the convenience, speed and variety customers demand. Embrace agile working to innovate and get products to market faster. And by using APIs, you can create an ecosystem of partnerships to deploy new apps, services, channels and devices.  

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Want help to differentiate your liquor business? 

If you want to create distinctive and frictionless customer experiences across all physical and digital channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop a unified customer journey. 

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