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This transformation requires a true unified commerce approach, delivering the convergence of the digital and physical shopping environments to create a holistic customer shopping experience that meets an individual consumer’s multiple shopping personas. According to BRP’s SPECIAL REPORT: The Future of Retail, successful retailers understand that the customer wants the ability to shop in multiple ways depending on their time constraints and current needs on each occasion they engage. Retailers are seeking to build brand loyalty by enabling a personalized unified commerce experience that enables the customer to engage in multiple personas depending on their needs at that time. When retailers can combine the digital and physical environments such as offering proximity-triggered mobile coupons or self-checkout through a mobile app, customers reward retailers with their loyalty to the brand.

According to a new report from Boston Retail Partners, three-quarters of consumers tend to choose retailers who offer consistent promotions and pricing across channels. We have been talking about the cross-channel experience for so long – and in fact, 87 percent of consumers want a personalized and consistent experience across all channels – that it is still surprising to see that many retailers are still struggling to offer consumers a consistent experience across channels,” said Kathleen Fischer, director of marketing at Boston Retail Partners, Boston. Although consumers have come to expect unified and holistic shopping experiences, only 5 percent of retailers can successfully give consumers the ability to “start a sale anywhere, finish the sale anywhere. Retailers are looking to offer consumers more flexibility in how they make and receive orders, by offering services such as “buy online, ship to store,” “buy in-store, ship from vendor” or “reserve online, pick up in-store.”

In addition, while 66% of consumers would choose a store offering same-day delivery over one not offering it, only 32% of retailers offer same-day delivery, and 44% of those indicate the process needs improvement. One omnichannel area where retailers appear to be keeping up with customer expectations is consistent pricing/promotions across channels – 76% of customers are likely to choose a retailer offering this consistency, and 86% of retailers provide it. Smaller percentages of retailers have implemented predictive analytics solutions (37%, 30% need improvement) and real-time retail systems (36%, 9% need improvement). When asked about obstacles to effectively implementing unified commerce, retailers’ top responses were IT/business resource constraints (66%), budgetary constraints (61%), disparate systems (48%), other priorities taking precedence (41%), process challenges (30%), and organizational challenges/silos (23%).

A year ago today, French brand Bash opened its Nolita store with an experimental free rental program called the Dream Closet in an effort to get people new to the brand to try out some product. At a time when acquiring new customers can be five to 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones, brands are coming up with services that are beyond transactional, whether that’s offering personal styling, free alterations and repairs or workout classes, in order to build their audiences. “Bash has identified a creative way to gain exposure and drive interest in their brand amongst their current and potential clientele,” said Kathleen Fischer, director of marketing at Boston Retail Partners. During that process, Yuan said they also ask for customers’ emails, which has given them a sizable database of customer information to aid their marketing.