TheIndustry.fashion LIVE! Aptos and PMC Retail on unified commerce

During TheIndustry.fashion LIVE! The Connected Store in partnership with Bleckmann, sponsored by Aptos and True, a crowd of fashion industry professionals spent the day learning about how to deliver a true, seamless omnichannel retail experience.

For the last panel of the day, Zaki Hassan, General Manager of Europe and APAC at Aptos joined Richard Willis, Principal Consultant at PMC Retail to discuss the role of unified commerce.

More and more businesses are now adopting ominichannel strategies to better serve customer needs anytime and anywhere. Whether it’s online or offline, through social media or third-party partners, brands and retailers need to consider all channels together – making them feel like an extension of one another whilst enticing customers with personalised experiences, flexible payment options, on demand delivery and more.

Taking this further, unified commerce is the evolution of omnichannel. It connects backend systems with customer-facing channels via a single platform, integrating sales channels, systems, products, interactions and data to simplify and elevate the entire retail experience for customers and businesses alike - with full flexibility and easy adaptability.

Retail technology company Aptos provides unified commerce solutions for retailers to help them understand how to orchestrate every aspect of their enterprise for optimal unified commerce experiences.

"As retail evolves, we're always focussed on a common mission, which is the customer journey and how we provide retailers with the tools and technology to offer the best customer experience possible. With unified commerce, the idea is that there is no more concept of separate channels," Hassan said.

"Unified commerce is about creating common technology that brings a retailer's front-end and back-end operations together on a single platform," added Willis. "It's also important for businesses to work with the right technology partners, so that they can become more agile and therefore experiment a lot more, adapt and change."

Both Willis and Hassan agree that this use of technology can differ from business to business, depending on factors such as the customer journey and value prepositions. "A luxury retailer has a different set of requirements to a value fashion retailer or department store, for example," said Willis.

"The customer journey is different, so the technology landscape is also going to be different. It's important for retailers to start with their customer experience and know what they're trying to achieve before looking at their technology roadmap."

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