HotWax Commerce Blog

Unified Commerce is taking hold of the retail industry on a global scale. According to the 451 Research Global Unified Commerce Forecast, digital commerce’s share of business-to-consumer sales will increase from 10.2% in 2018 to 17.3% in 2022. Retailers today must be ready to take advantage of all the channels and devices where customers are most active to gain a larger piece of this $5.8 trillion pie.

In a previous blog, we discussed the role that Unified Commerce has for enhancing the customers’ shopping journey from product discovery to purchase. Need a quick refresher? Unified Commerce enables retailers to support buyers’ habits across multiple channels such as mobile, web, social, and even physical stores. But this overview is just scratching the surface of what makes Unified Commerce important to a brand’s success. There are other factors at work that can take your company to new heights.

What your business really needs are channel-agnostic technologies that integrate easily with your tech stack and can be deployed to your customers. But what are these channel-agnostic technologies and how do they work in delivering a Unified Commerce experience? Ask and you shall receive. In this blog, we’ll discuss the Omnichannel Commerce Cloud and how it can help your business deliver on the promise of Unified Commerce.

The retail industry has changed forever. The advancement of technology, especially mobile devices, has ushered in a new era of how customers prefer to shop. A 2017 Harvard Business Review study found that 73% of people prefer to use multiple channels during their shopping journey, and this has since grown to more than 90%. All retailers must now have omnichannel strategies in place to take advantage of ever-evolving consumer preferences, or they risk being left behind more digitally savvy brands.

The retail industry continues to evolve with the times, and the growing popularity of the buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) sales model is contributing to the market’s rapid growth. BOPIS blends the best of physical retail with the online experience, which allows both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce sales to thrive. Still not convinced how BOPIS has ushered in a new era of the retail industry?

We are living in a mobile-first world. Millennials and GenZ have foregone the window shopping of their parents’ generations and are instead browsing storefronts on their mobile devices, constantly on the hunt for their next purchase. Studies show that, in the US, more than 50% of eCommerce website traffic comes from mobile, and this number jumps to as much as 80% in China. These numbers are only expected to grow year over year, yet surprisingly very few brands are prepared to meet and capitalize on this demand.

As the retail apocalypse continues to rage and some of the world’s most iconic brands retreat into bankruptcy, it’s time to start seriously re-evaluating and re-defining commerce. The future is clear to anyone that’s been paying attention: omnichannel retail.

Let’s cut to the chase: if you’re not already offering a pick-up in-store option, you should be. Premium retailers provide a variety of purchase, pick-up, and return options because, frankly, consumers are demanding unprecedented convenience and flexibility from their shopping experience.