If your work involves supporting digital shopping experiences, you’ve probably heard the term “unified commerce.” But what does it really mean, and how does it actually benefit your business? First, a quick definition: Unified commerce is a holistic approach that brings digital commerce, in-store point of sale, and order management systems together under one platform. When successful, unified commerce makes it easier to see every part of your ecommerce business in context.
Here’s how to tell whether your commerce platform is really unified (or if it’s just kind of… pretending).
Instructions: Below is a list of capabilities enabled by truly unified commerce. For each capability you and your teams currently have, tick the box. At the end of the quiz, we’ll add up the ticks to gauge just how unified your platform actually is.
Your Unified Commerce Score:
13 - 16 checks: Congrats! You’ve got a well-oiled, unified commerce system. It looks like you have most of the capabilities necessary to run a truly connected ecommerce business. Your channels are in sync, your order and inventory management systems are transparent and flexible, your tech stack is consolidated yet scalable, and your teams have access to the right tools and data. You’ve achieved unified commerce bliss.
10 - 12 checks: It looks like you have a solid foundation, but a few tweaks could unlock major performance gains. Review your assessment to determine where gaps exist, and where to focus your optimization efforts for maximum impact.
Below 10: You’re probably leaving revenue, insights, and customer loyalty on the table. The best place to start is to identify your biggest pain points and develop a wishlist of capabilities that would make the biggest impact.
Start by tracing the full customer journey and identifying where friction or inefficiencies occur, whether that’s inconsistent pricing, out-of-stock issues, or slow fulfillment. Prioritize capabilities that solve your highest-visibility problems that affect both customer experience and operational efficiency. Need some guidance? Get in touch with a Commerce Cloud specialist to come up with a gameplan to unify your tech stack.
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In-store associates, customer service reps, and ecommerce teams can access the same customer data (purchase history, preferences, loyalty status, and more).
Discounts, loyalty rewards, and campaigns apply uniformly across web, mobile apps, and physical stores.
Customers can start a cart or wishlist in one channel and continue in another, uninterrupted.
Descriptions, SKUs, availability, and images are synced across online and physical channels.
Stock levels are visible across locations and channels — and they’re updated in real-time. Customers can see if an item is in stock at a nearby store, and associates can locate and reserve items from other locations.
Your customers and employees can view, track, and manage orders from a unified dashboard, whether placed online, in-store, or via app.
You can support advanced fulfillment experiences like buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), ship from store, and curbside pickup. Customers can return or exchange online purchases in-store and vice versa, with seamless backend processing.
There are no delays between order capture, inventory updates, and fulfillment workflows across systems.
You have one unified commerce vendor that allows you to consolidate point of sale, digital commerce, and order management systems — lowering your total cost of ownership and reducing complexity with pre-integration.
A consolidated tech stack and one vendor for ecommerce, OMS, and POS means your IT and dev ops teams can detect anomalies early, investigate performance issues, and pinpoint root causes quickly.
You can handle new channel rollouts (e.g., pop-ups, marketplaces, or new geographies) without costly, custom implementations.
Your platform enables modular integrations for front-end agility, while keeping core commerce data unified.
Staff at brick-and-mortar locations can see online orders, customer preferences, and inventory from point of sale devices — making it easier to cross- and up-sell.
Your teams have access to the same customer data (e.g., between stores and customer service).
Orders are fulfilled from the most efficient location (store, warehouse, 3PL) based on availability and proximity.
Employees don’t need to log in to multiple systems to perform day-to-day tasks.