World: 86 percent of retailers to adopt unified commerce features by 2025 - report

Moreover, optimising the consumer experience is essential when seeking to have a unified commerce platform, according to the `Building the Business Case for a Unified Commerce Platform` report issued by the ecommerce solutions provider Demandware. Retailers must stay up to speed with connected and influential consumers because connected consumers set the terms of engagement with them and not the other way around. Unified commerce platforms are expected to become the norm over time as it becomes the solution for retailers. Around 53% of retailers plan to implement a unified commerce platform.

Traditional POS, call center, ecommerce and mobile technologies are converging as ecommerce solutions become the platform of choice to reduce complexity and enable consumer engagements throughout the shopping journey. Retailers are at different points in the journey towards a unified commerce platform, which includes exploration, consideration, strategy, execution and realisation. More than half of businesses are informally planning this business transformation.

For European retailers, digitising the store is a top initiative, showing their intent to innovate and reinvent the physical store. Australian retailers see the need to reduce complexity as a top priority, showing their desire to bring less mature digital commerce operations into the traditional store. The journey includes business and technical obstacles retailers must tackle.

Benefits of adopting a unified commerce platform include margin, brand value and revenue. It helps increase turn and reduce markdowns, reduce out of stocks, makes operations more efficient and facilitate returns. In terms of brand value, it increases frequency and retention by providing better customer service and personalise interactions. It also increases basket size by providing the right recommendations, drives the conversion rate and enhances promotional effectiveness. More than two-thirds of retailers expect these improvements.

Around half of retailers expect the unified platform to also drive IT innovation and efficiency within the IT organization, helping them meet business demands faster and use development capacity more effectively. Store operations will experience the most significant change since the new digital and omnichannel capabilities will require changes to support the new business processes. The journey includes three critical dimensions for creating a consistent consumer experience: organisation, technology and metrics.