Integrated Commerce - The Future of eCommerce and Big Box Retail
Tuesday, September 8, 2020Eric Zegarski
Integrated Commerce - A Multi-Channel Appraoch to Bridging Online & Offline Commerce
The commerce landscape is changing. During 2020 eCommerce has seen exponential growth as businesses of all sizes are pushing to go online. According to
Shopify’s COO, Harley Finkelstein, “The number of new stores created on Shopify grew 62% between March 13 and April 24, compared to the prior six weeks.”
In addition, retail is taking a break. Earlier this year
Walmart and
Target announced that they will be closing their doors for Thanksgiving. In the United States, that weekend is seen as the official launch of the holiday shopping season. In addition, retailers across North America are scaling down their brick and mortar operations. You can read more about current eCommerce trends
here.
Now more than ever, a multi-channel commerce strategy will allow you to champion your commerce strategy. Your multi-channel operations should be driven by centralized an eCommerce store that is supported by other sales channels like marketplaces (
Walmart &
Amazon), and retail distributors if applicable. Your goal should be to be everywhere your customers are.
An integrated commerce network will allow you to manage all your sales channels effectively. Your business will have organizational wide transparency. Integration will limit the risk of error due to human entry, free up resources to focus on crucial business matters and increase monetary savings. Your ERP will serve as a record of truth of your commerce activity. Leran more about the benefits of integration
here.
The future of commerce is an integrated commerce network. This network will bridge the gap between offline and online sales channels. We explore the future of commerce and look at the following:
- eCommerce's exponential growth
- Industries experiencing online growth
- Big Box retailers’ plans for the upcoming holiday season
- How retailers are adapting to the changing commerce landscape
- How commerce integration can benefit your business
- How different departments benefit from integration
- How a cloud-hosted integration solution on Microsoft Azure is designed to scale with your organization
