How We View Unified Commerce: 5 Key Elements

Jon Beck

There are 5 key elements to harmonize and align to achieve Unified Commerce, namely: store experience, digital experience, customer service, order management and data management. Each element is critical to optimizing speed, profitability, efficiency, accuracy and customer engagement. In doing so, retailers will achieve end-to-end visibility and an elevated, more profitable shopping experience.

With true Unified Commerce, retailers leverage a single platform, a single view and a single process across channels, in essence, One Truth. With common data and definitions, we can more clearly see how the consumer is shopping our brand.

Jon Beck, CEO

In this article by Waleed Abbas and Katrina Mossman, the Columbus team explores the pros and cons of using a headless approach to building and executing a Unified Commerce strategy.

Columbus Consulting’s Terrance Young looks into the evolution of multi-channel commerce and how retailers are evolving into a more connected consumer-centric model.

Columbus Consulting Partner, Lynn Hughes explains how and why a retailer’s Point of Sale system is to critical building a Unified Commerce business model. 

Meet Our Unified Commerce Leadership

Lynn Hughes
Katrina Mossman

Here Are Some of The Retailers We Have Helped With Unified Commerce Needs

What is included in the 5 Components of Unified Commerce?

Store Experience

  • Customer Data & Loyalty
  • Cycle Counts
  • Full Omni – BOPIS+
  • Loss Prevention
  • Inventory Management
  • Payment Gateway
  • POS System
  • Pricing & Promotions
  • Private Label Credit Card – PLCC
  • Radio Frequency ID – RFID

Digital Experience

  • Content Management System – CMS
  • Customer Data & Loyalty
  • Digital Asset Management – DAM
  • Ecommerce System
  • Full Omni – BOPIS+
  • Mobile Devices Inventory Management
  • Payment Gateway
  • Pricing & Promotions
  • Private Label Credit Card – PLCC
  • Product Inventory Management – PIM

Order Management

  • Full Inventory Visibility – POS, ERP, WMS
  • Full Omni – BOPIS+
  • Order Aggregation From All Channels
  • Order Fulfillment – Optimizing Backend Order Orchestration
  • Order Status & History
  • Order Updates – Deletion & Creation

Customer Service

  • Customer Service Representative (CSR) support with Customer
  • Order corrections and customer remediation
  • Order history (current, past)
  • Order on behalf of customer

Data

  • Customer Data & Analytics
  • Customer Data Deduping
  • Customer Data Platform
  • Customer Privacy
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Data Governance
  • Data Management
  • Data Science Modeling
  • Digital Marketing Platform
  • Targeted Customer Interactions

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