The term “Unified Commerce” denotes a business approach aimed at unifying in a single middleware all applications that can generate a touchpoint between the business and the end user.
The goal of a Unified Commerce approach is, therefore, to have a single, centralised view of the customer to ensure a consistent, fulfilling, tailored and valuable experience across all touchpoints.
It can thus be considered the medium through which a unified, true omnichannel experience, is achieved.
The concept of Unified Commerce can, therefore, be seen as a kind of evolution of the omnichannel approach such that it ideally combines eCommerce, order fulfillment, complete inventory management, omnichannel customer engagement and retail.
And it is in this transition, in the union, not only between physical and digital, but between front-end and back-end that this approach complements the omnichannel approach.
In essence, all channels refer to a single technology platform that can manage and direct data from both physical stores and online channels in real time.
As we can easily guess, the added value of such an approach is provided by personalisation, made possible by in-depth knowledge of the customer himself.
Gartner defines Unified Commerce as “a commerce framework that leverages the harmonious integration of retail processes/systems to provide complete consumer transparency on the back end and a unified customer experience on the front end, regardless of the channel used to make the purchase.”
