Unified commerce

Running unified commerce with physical and online stores is often associated with difficulties in correct pricing across channels. Discounts, personal offers, and loyalty points are just some parameters that provide complexity.

All parameters need to be taken into account with lightning speed to ensure that customers always get the correct prices no matter where and when they shop. But how does that work?

The answer is the Fiftytwo suite of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that help integrate different systems.

It facilitates lightning-fast handling of master data about articles, campaigns, customers, stores, etc. This includes continuous ingestion into your POS solution of master data from your organization’s ERP system.

Such continuous ingestion is paramount to keep article information, prices, and discounts incessantly aligned across every sales channel in a unified commerce ecosystem that may include eCommerce, Scan&Go solutions, Click&Collect, loyalty programs, customer apps, etc.

Fiftytwo offers two series of powerful APIs that let you work intelligently and flexibly with all aspects of your unified commerce environment:

• APIs hosted by us: Read more about our cloud-based APIs

• APIs hosted by you: Read more about the series of APIs for on-premise use

If you don't have software development skills in your organization, reach out to us and a Fiftytwo consultant can help your organization use the APIs.

Examples of how the 52ViKING solution can greatly help you achieve unified commerce success, based on some traps and how to avoid them:

• Centralized price management

  Prices have a huge impact on buying decisions, so tactical pricing is an efficient tool for boosting sales.

  However, if price changes aren't reflected simultaneously across all of your sales channels, you can quickly lose customers, get negative publicity, or lose money on having to sell articles at outdated sale prices.

  With the dynamic pricing core of 52ViKING you can avoid price fluctuations and mismatches across channels.

• Consistent discounts

  Special offers and discounts draw new customers into your stores and help retain existing customers, who may buy more and even recommend your stores to their family and friends. The more relevant and personal the offers and discounts are, the better.

  However, customers' excitement may quickly turn into confusion and despair if their benefits are inconsistent and change from channel to channel.

  With the consistency of centralized management through the dynamic pricing core of 52ViKING you can avoid that the power of volume discounts, member discounts, and personal discounts ends up turning into a lethal cocktail of mistrust and potential revenue losses.

• Smoothly integrated channel experience

  Festive seasons often mean lots of gifts and presents. When that's the case, it's likely that some of them may need to be exchanged.

  If channels don't work together, festive spirits may quickly turn sour, for example if articles purchased online can't be exchanged in physical stores, or if it turns out that a gift card can only be redeemed in a single store in a village far north of the Arctic Circle.

  The 52ViKING solution ensures a smooth channel integration experience for your customers, which is essential for your unified commerce solution to be credible.

• Availability of offers

  Three for a tenner can be highly attractive offer, but it can also backfire if it only turns out to be available on some channels.

  What if a customer sees a great offer online, but gets disappointed when they visit a physical store, where the articles are sold out?

  The centralized approach of the 52ViKING solution helps make sure that you won't miss the sale, because your physical stores seamlessly integrate with your webshop, so that you can still take the customer's order and get paid, and the customer can get their goods through home delivery or pickup at another store. In fact, you'll have endless aisles.

• Mobile fit

  One way or another, most businesses offer their goods online. However, not all of them have realized that more and more customers do their shopping on their mobile while they're on the go.

  Perhaps a bus shelter advertisement makes a passenger go to the mobile version of your webshop while they wait between two connecting busses. If your mobile webshop doesn't offer the advertised goods, it's your business who misses the connection.

  With the 52ViKING solution in your unified commerce landscape, you can be sure of not missing sales opportunities on any channel.

• Consistent offerings

  It can be very evident to customers if your chain's communication across digital channels (website, social media, etc.) is done by is done by different people.

  That's not conducive to a consistent customer experience, but even less so if offers advertised on some social media turn out not to be available in your webshop.

  When 52ViKING facilitates consistency in offerings and pricing across your channels, you get a much greater ability to communicate your offerings consistently across channels, which is key to unified commerce success.

• Holistic and coherent customer relationships

  True unified commerce is about creating a personal and coherent experience across all of your sales channels, so that customers can deal with retailers in a consistent manner, wherever, whenever, and however it suits them best. The dynamic pricing core of 52ViKING ensures exactly that.