By: Tom Hermey & Shortly.AI
When architecting an omnichannel technology stack to enable a robust omnichannel retail program you must take into account a far broader set of issues than just your eCommerce website. Systems need to be developed and integrated not just on the web, but also in stores (inventory & signing), mobile apps, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and throughout the supply chain. Lastly, a connected backbone to receive, process, and trigger actions based on the individual consumer interactions across the platforms. There are only so many vendors serving each of these different technological solutions. The more you know about what is out there as possible solutions for your business, the better able you will be to design an omnichannel stack that meets all of your requirements.
What is Omnichannel Technology?
Omnichannel technology enables the cohesive and integrated experience as the consumer transverses and transfers between virtual, online, and physical formats. Omnichannel technology requires new features and functions in existing solutions, but also requires new technologies altogether. We will dig into each of the categories of technology to discuss the new features and functionalities that retailers need to consider when developing their omnichannel technology stack.
eCommerce & Web
Online systems need to be selected for capabilities beyond basic eCommerce product pages and shopping carts. The never ending grids of products must transform into virtual stores and shopping experience that blur the lines between physical, online, and the metaverse. Remarketing must move from simple online reminders to return to your cart to coupons that call the consumer to visit the nearest store with the product in inventory.
The online interface needs to be able to schedule showroom appointments and the showroom must be able to present online content to live customers. The content behind these platforms must be transferable across interfaces. Traditional content management systems were designed to manage the content for delivery on websites. Modern Headless Content systems like Content Stack leverage APIs to enable content delivery across interfaces seamlessly.
In Store Systems
Classic in store systems for inventory, signage, and Point-of-Sale need to be both extended and connected in real-time to the broader ecosystem of systems powering a modern omnichannel retailer. The real-time connectivity helps manage the customer experience across channels. The longer the lag time between updates the greater the disconnect to the consumer. Purchases and electronic coupons need to be exchanged between POS and online inventory systems.
However, these systems also need new features and to be extended beyond their current roles. With increasing buy-on-line-pickup-in-store (BOPS) transactions the POS needs to be able to accept diverse payment models and track order status that previously didn’t exist. Completing a purchase online and picking the item off the shelf with a tablet based check out is completely new.
Consider the evolving trend for checkout lines to be self service and the overlap with online ordering functionality. Tablet based POS systems check outs at fast-food restaurants are becoming applicable to other retail segments.
But there are new in-store systems that are entering the market that include store tracking and augmented reality. Solutions like Sightcorp enable retailers to track the location and activities of shoppers within their stores. Connecting this data with customer loyalty data enables remarketing across real-world and the online world.
Augmented reality (AR) in retail enables the power of online content into the real world shopping experience. A scan of a tag can enable the consumer to interact with the physical product with technologically super imposed features such as color matching, also-bought suggestions, and even see yourself experiences.
Mobile Apps
The concept of a smart phone interaction being a mobile version of ecommerce is a thing of the past. The mobile phone and apps are now a gateway to services that range from ecommerce, to in store experiences, to social networking, and content delivery.
Warby Parker’s app serves as a platform to shop, pay, order, and communicate with consumers. A customer can select their favorite pairs of glasses on the app and the associate in the store can retrieve them. Or if a customer buys online, the app will notify them the order is ready for pickup in store
.
The Etsy app gives exclusive early access to sales, allows customers track their orders, get product updates, and interact with sellers. And the apps need to be constantly connected.
Supply Chain
The days of bulk shipping and disconnected warehouse inventory systems are over. Warehouses are now part of a success omnichannel experience as they can become fulfillment centers and stores can become inventory centers for online orders. Inventory management for smaller retailers that sell through multiple channels has to consolidate inputs and transactions across channels into a central common dashboard. Solutions like Veeqo combine inventory management with order management and shipping and provide advanced reporting and forecasting functionality. And the inventory systems need to be constantly connected.
The Backbone
One common theme across all of the technologies mentioned so far is “need to be constantly connected”. But connected to what exactly? Connecting POS to app to Inventory management to AR systems isn’t practical and doesn’t add any intelligence into the process. This is the role of event stream processing (ESP) systems.
Many vendors compete in the ESP market ranging from open source to cloud services. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all provide proprietary solutions on their cloud platforms, but also enable open source platform subscriptions to tools like Apache Kafka and Storm.
ESP systems, like Apache Kafka is used by 80% of the Fortune 100 companies to manage their event streaming needs. These systems are designed to scale to handle immense transactional data flows.
Kal Waehner has a great blog post on how Apache Kafka is being leveraged by retailers like Walmart and Target to disrupt the retailing industry.
At the 2017 Kafka Summit in New York City, an engineer from Target described how Kafka serves as the backbone to connect a price change or a sale event across thousands of distinct subscriber systems dependent.
Conclusion
Omnichannel is here to stay and the consumer demands are increasing. Consumers expect a connected omnichannel experience and retailers who don’t invest in architecting their systems to adapt will be left behind by their competitors.
About the Author(s):
Mace Hermey is an Montclair MBA student with a concentration in Digital Marketing. He is an experienced enterprise architect and technologist with over two decades of experience designing and implementing enterprise systems. He has worked with a variety of customers across retail, healthcare delivery, publishing, & life sciences industries.
This blog has been written with the assistance of shortlyai.com. ShortlyAI provides AI based writing assistance for content generation.