Why Unified Commerce Success Depends on Integrated POS Systems

Insights for retailers wanting to leverage retail technology solutions to drive a seamless customer experience 

The retail sector is awash with buzzwords and constantly evolving trends. For business leaders, it’s difficult to sift through all of this information to find the insights you need to make better decisions. That’s why the team at Extenda Retail summarized the main topics impacting retailers today in this roundup blog – keep reading to discover all you need to know about unified commerce and integrated point-of-sale (POS) systems.

Unified commerce is a hot topic in retail and it’s something many of Extenda Retail’s clients and technology partners ask about. To put it simply, unified commerce is a way of delivering seamless customer experiences across all touchpoints – whether that’s e-commerce, in-store, mobile or a blend of all three.

Retailers may be familiar with omnichannel or multichannel operations, but unified commerce is different for a few reasons. Traditional omni or multichannel approaches aren’t flexible enough to support the fluid and fast ways customers shop today. Unified commerce is the most advanced strategy when it comes to the customer experience – that’s because it merges front-end and back-end operations in a single platform. 

Unified commerce is critical for retail success and longevity in the market today, so setting out a strategy or clear roadmap is a good starting point. Think about the KPIs you want to measure (such as more targeted marketing campaigns, fewer inventory mismatches, implementing a wider range of delivery options) and start researching the vendors out there that can support you in achieving these. 

However, without the right systems in place, retailers can find it impossible to implement a unified commerce strategy. Chaotic customer data, inventory issues, fragmented customer experiences, and outdated or disconnected POS systems can all be barriers to unified commerce.

POS stands for point-of-sale, and this term covers everything that enables retailers to process transactions. So a POS System can be physical hardware (like a traditional till) but also modern cloud-based software. 

An ‘Integrated’ POS System is cutting-edge technology that speaks to other systems in a retailers’ IT architecture such as CRM, e-commerce and accounting. By connecting to these other platforms, an integrated POS facilitates data exchange, fast collaboration, and easier management of staff, processes and inventory.

Many retailers have a traditional POS in place and think that’s as far as they need to innovate - the POS is working ‘fine’ and would be costly to change. But when you look behind the scenes, often their systems are disconnected, customer data is underutilized, there’s risk of security breaches and data leaks, and the shopping experience is quite linear. That’s why an integrated POS (such as Hii Retail) is vital for retailers to future-proof their business and stand out in the marketplace.

There are a range of ‘red flags’ retailers should look out for when assessing the capabilities of their current POS. If you notice issues such as the ones below, this could mean that you have a fragmented POS system:

🚩 Inventory mismatches

Overstock, deadstock, empty shelves or confused calls with the warehouse? It could be time to upgrade your POS system.

🚩 Inconsistent customer experiences

Do your customers complain that there’s a clunky transition between online and offline channels? You should be looking into how your POS is functioning.

🚩 Operational inefficiencies

If tasks take employees longer then they should, or customers are often queuing at checkouts, it sounds like you have a POS issue.

🚩 Stressed staff

Linked to above, if your POS is sub-par, your staff will know about it and see the results on the shop floor (queues, stock issues, irritated customers etc.)

🚩 System downtime

Can your system handle busy periods and reliably pull data from a central database? If the answer is ‘no’, it’s time to hunt for an integrated POS solution.

There are excellent free resources available for decision makers that want to benchmark their current POS software. For example, Gartner has published a comprehensive Market Guide detailing the market dynamics and Representative Vendors (including Extenda Retail) in Traditional Tier 2 POS Unified Commerce Platforms. Or, if you’re already on the hunt for a new POS, Extenda Retail’s POS Comparison Guide will help you choose the perfect solution for your specific business needs.

Unified commerce is centered on the customer experience. Its goal is enabling seamless shopping across both physical and digital touchpoints so customers can move back and forth but always get the same branded experience. An integrated POS is the engine behind unified commerce operations. It’s doing all the hard work in the background: harmonizing customer and product data, keeping staff on track, speaking with other systems in your ecosystem, and providing you with the insights you need to delight customers.

Customers have become more mobile – they want flexible shopping and delivery options to suit their lifestyle (such as buy online pick up in store) and expect personalized experiences. Both unified commerce and integrated POS systems were born out of a need to keep up with these tech-savvy consumers and push the boundaries of what retail offers.

An integrated POS will underpin your unified commerce strategy and bring a range of benefits. For example, Hii Retail customers have experienced fast time to value after implementation of their integrated POS technology – unifying customer data, inventory and transactions across all channels.
Let’s dive into the benefits of a POS driving unified commerce operations in more detail:

Benefit 1: Save money

Integrated POS solutions require no manual updates and don’t need continuous maintenance fees, so you’ll never get surprise bills.

Benefit 2: Realize fast results

Retailers see fast results once an integrated POS is up and running. You can add, remove, update, and scale features at the click of a button, without impacting day-to-day operations.

An example of this is Plantagen. The gardening retailer and wholesaler eliminated long and manual onboarding processes with soft rollouts of their Integrated POS – and saw smooth transitions to the new system.

Read the full story here >

Benefit 3: Maximize staff productivity

Staff are no longer stuck at checkout zones, so instead they can focus on value-added tasks such as managing stock and providing excellent customer service.

Auchan Retail, one of the world’s largest retailers, were looking for a user-friendly integrated POS solution that their staff could learn with minimal training. The POS also needed to be the same across all store formats and geographies.

Learn how Auchan Retail drove unified commerce >

Benefit 4: Boost profits

Employees can use the integrated POS to look up similar items and cross-sell / up-sell on transactions – meaning more profits, motivated staff and satisfied customers.

Benefit 5: Deliver outstanding shopping experiences

Customer loyalty is boosted because an integrated point of sale system always delivers consistent brand experiences, sends personalized offers / discounts and offers flexible ways to shop.

A great example of this is Iberian Sports Group. The multichannel leader in sports equipment sales was seeking a cloud-native checkout solution to deliver unified next-generation customer experiences.

Discover more about the ISG / Extenda Retail partnership >.

Shrinkage has seen a 47% surge since 2020, so it’s no wonder that retailers are looking for ways to tackle this.

A unified commerce strategy fosters better data sharing and accuracy, which means retailers can identify theft and fraud more easily. By connecting all front and back-end systems (such as surveillance cameras and inventory management tools), decisions can be made about store layout, product offerings and introducing extra security measures such as RFID tags.

An integrated POS will also contribute to tackling shrink. Many modern POS Systems offer Self-Service Loss Prevention functionality. This technology uses Machine Learning (ML) and predictive analytics to identify suspicious behavior or shopping patterns. Retailers that use our SSLP tool have caught up to 4x more theft per year, resulting in significant savings and a morale boost for staff.

Integrated POS systems and unified commerce are intrinsically linked. A legacy or disjointed POS will do more harm than good so it’s essential for retailers to have a strategy in place for migration to an integrated POS.

There’s a real opportunity at the moment to embrace new technologies such as Mobile POS, attendant apps, scan & go options and more to impress customers and stay ahead of competitors. It’s a good time to review your current POS offering - is it connected or disparate? Have you noticed any POS red flags (such as shrinkage, disjointed customer experiences or operational headaches)? What are others doing in the marketplace?

It’s never too late to implement a unified commerce framework – the technology is available on the market, it’s just a matter of whether retailers are ready to make the switch.

This blog is a quick roundup of the topics and trends that our retail experts have been monitoring when it comes to unified commerce and integrated point of sale solutions. 

We’ve learnt that next-gen POS systems are vital to harmonizing data, delivering standout customer experiences and entering the world of unified commerce. But this is just the start of your unified commerce journey…

If you’re ready to evolve your retail business from omnichannel to unified commerce operations then don’t miss our free eBook “Unified Commerce and the role of integrated POS Systems”.

This resource covers the basics of unified commerce, outlines why POS systems are key to harmonizing operations and offers a glimpse into the future of retail. All underpinned by insights from industry thought leaders such as Gartner, Techopedia, Coresight Research, IKEA, The Retail Bulletin and more.

Click to download your free copy of the eBook >