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In 2020, the worldwide in-store retail sales were 22.13 trillion dollars US and e-commerce sales were 4.13 trillion dollars US. By 2023, we expect the sales to increase and reach 23.6 trillion dollars US (in-store) and 6.8 trillion dollars US (e-commerce). While physical retail is the dominant channel in the market, forms of non-store retailing are becoming more and more popular. Online retailing is taking over a v portion of the market: desktop and mobile commerce are examples of business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. In this era of data multiplication, along with the diversity of information channels, the next challenge for retailers is to offer a unified shopping experience, integrating offline and online channels.
Indeed, unified commerce answers the following paradox: although a customer buys mostly in-store, it is where the retailer knows him the least, whereas a customer is best known online even if it is where he buys less. Unified commerce optimizes the customer’s in-store experience and provides them with a more personalized offer thanks to the knowledge gained online (preferences, latest purchases online, wish-lists, etc.). This can be done efficiently by providing sellers with applications gathering customers’ information. However, today too many retailers don’t meet the expectations in that field. Indeed, according to a Salesforce’s report, across the 70 physical stores they studied, the average mobile score was 1.74 out of 5 (grading areas like in-store app and tailored push notifications). In addition, ordering, payment, delivery and after-sales service must be intrinsically linked to provide a seamless and homogenous experience. Unified commerce enables retailers to combine in a digital commerce platform all the aspects of their customer relationship (Point of Sale capabilities, customer relationship management, inventory management, e-commerce, order fulfillment...).
The objective of implementing such a system is to improve the consumer’s experience to make the shopping as pleasant as possible. Clienteling allows brands to improve their customer knowledge and thus refine customer loyalty and ultimately profitability.
CRM Market Overview :
The CRM industry has been booming for the past several years, and the growth is expected to continue with a global spending on CRM of $48.2B in 2018 the CRM is projected to continue it’s projected growth to reach $80B market worth by 2025. The combined market share of the top 5 CRM vendors is 41.2% with Salesforce leading the pack with a 30.2% in market share in 2020, riding on a 19.4% jump in CRM revenues. Adobe was number 2, followed by Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.
All companies, from SMB to multinationals, must have an insight on customer behavior in order to progress their business relationships and drive sales growth. The degree of engagement and there sources directed towards this end may vary from one company to another, but the cornerstone fact is that all companies need to address this issue in order to survive.
As the CRM market is flourishing, Software companies are leaning towards a new model of their products, ont that is more user-friendly. This intiatied a flood of more cost effective and less complicated solutions, all geared towards industry-specific needs.
With a plethora of choice, many businesses that had previously hesitated to invest in software andres earch the best options are now doing so.
Clienteling Market Overview:
App powered clienteling that is scalable across a multitude of store associates is becoming increasingly critical for any Retail business that wants to thrive in the next decade. With a market seize nearing $1Blast year in just North America, the surge to digitasion is increasing rapidly as retailers are realizing the importance of putting in place processes and tools to promote customer satisfaction through the personalization of the shopping experience.
With clienteling, data collection rates see increases of as much as 300% and retention rates by as much as 200%.
The need for the clienteling capabilities is crucial to cement the omnichannel way of customer engagement. According to to a survey by SessionM, 90% of consumers use their smartphones to compare prices or research products and 85% would still prefer to shop in brick and mortar store rather than online, hence why many business are using retail apps, along with store associate apps, to better connect employees and consumers and to promote guided selling.
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To summarize our research, we created a positioning matrix. We focused on CRM and clienteling solutions, which explains why ERP-centered products received a lower mark. Solutions received two grades which enabled us to classify them in four different groups: challengers, leaders, niche player sand visionaries.
The detailed methodology applied is explained in the 5th paragraph.
Best suited for:
Brands that are willing to exploit the collected data in order to deliver a highly personalized customer experience. It is recommended for retailers that are looking for a strong activity of their sales network (store to web, store to store, etc.). Bayretail has a rich data model meeting the expectations of all retail professions.Indeed, sales associates are empowered thanks to the mobile application in store using clients’ profiles and Artificial Intelligence to make recommendations. In addition, with "Customer 360“, offices have an overview of stores and associates’ performances and clients’ preferences. The application also has basic OMS features. What really differentiates Bayretail from its competitors is that it is designed on Salesforce. It is the only Salesforce native clienteling solution. BayBridgeDigital handles, on the one hand, tvhe clienteling part in store and on the other hand the collected data directly on Salesforce. Since it was designed as a Salesforce add-on, retailers can take advantage of other Salesforce features when using Bayretail (such as Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud). Being on Salesforce, Bayretail is able to safely handle large volumes of data.
Main features:
• Clienteling : Book appointments in store and interact with clients (e-mail, SMS, Wechat, Whatsapp), task and product recommendation with Artificial Intelligence,RFM Segmentation, look- builder.
Digital-in-store mobile application functionalities and UX
Cautions
Best suited for:
Global brands which want to improve their clienteling. This solution is present worldwide. It has a few but very big clients, about 25 such asCartier, Gucci, Marc Jacobs... Clientela is quite focused on top of the line brands like its prices. Their field of action is more about drive-to-store, scheduling and clienteling rather than CRM and ERP.
In summary, this is a tailor-made solution for the clienteling more than a turnkey solution, focused on big brands and offering superior service. This solution is made for a company that wants to bring a highly personalized experience to its customers. It has to be integrated with your CRM, products and ERPs, it is not omnichannel.
Main features:
Clientela Inc. offers a clienteling solution which can be integrated with the client’s CRM and ERP. There is an app for shop sellers and it has to be integrated to the client’s app and website for selling.
•Clienteling : Classic features such as uy online, reserve or buy in-store and add to wish-lists.The specificity of this solution is that it all can be done without an app, by texts for example.
•Online booking : Book appointments basedon employees schedules, personalized SMS and emails, Apple Wallet integration.
•Specialist finder : Clients can connect with specialists of the product and agents can connect prospects to the right store employee.
Strengh:
• Designed for very extensive brands
• Provides a highly tailored solution and a very responsive customer service
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Small and medium french companies, charities and media which need to do clienteling based on texts, chats, mails and emails. This is a local French company based in Angers and Vannes since 2020. They claim to be a familial and local business and they chose to work only with French companies. 20% of their call center agents are over 50 year sold so this company may not be able to seduce young customers and be up-to-date on new trends but it has a lot of experience.
This solution is not made for unified commerce, only for clienteling, it is not made for in-store salespeople.
Main features:
This solution does not offer apps or AI, and uses traditional ways of communication.
Strengh:
• This small company allows a close partnership and a responsive customer service
• Easy to implement and use
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Companies in the B2B business. This solution offers to integrate and automate systems that help its client to secure repeat business and to streamline their operations. They only work across North America where they have more than 350 clients. They have 12 years of experience.
They can make a custom solution based on Zoho services. Zoho CRM is a flexible software package that can be tailored to specific needs. It gives a repeatable, easy-to-use system that empowers client’s teams and visibility into operations.
This solution adapts to the personalization needs.
Main features:
Hero Technical Solutions offers a solution tailored to the customer for clienteling, CRM and ERP. They build softwares using Zoho tools, which can be seen as a salesforce competitor.
Strengh:
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Global brands and retailers who want to empower their mobile experience. Predict spring focuses on its mobile app particularly as well as on mobile point of sales. It is present in California, New-York city, London and Tokyo so it offers a world wide solution. Their favorite fields are: apparel &footwear; health & beauty; home furnishings and wineries. They do not deal with clients as big as Cliente la Inc.
This solution is made for a company that wants to bring a personalized experience to its customers. It uses 3 apps specialized for a specific user (client, associate... ) so it tries to be omnicanal.
Main features:
PredictSpring offers various solutions to fit retailers.
• Clienteling : A personalized shopping experience with the predictspring mobile app. It gives a view on each client data and recommendations.
• Endless Aisle : Customers can order any product to be delivered to home or in store. It permits to show in-store products as well as online products to the client.
• BOPIS & BORIS and Curbside Pickup (BuyOnline, Pick-up In Store & Buy Online, ReturnIn Store): the client can now buy on-line and pick it up or return it in the store or be delivered in its own car.
• Store fulfillment : Possibility possibility for stores to fulfil orders from the customer’s nearest location, no need to ship everything from the warehouse in order to reduce shipping costs.
• Personalization : High level of personalization with personalization quiz and analytics integration to measure personalization’s efficiency on the revenue.
• Omni channel platform : fitting room app(request rizes & items, eliminates waiting time, request associate assistance), Store AssociateApp (modern POS, clienteling, endless aisle, targeted marketing), Consumer App (barcode scanner, geofence notifications, loyalty cards, store check-in).
• Inventory Management : Real time inventory visibility from store-to-warehouse, store-to-store and advises on when and where order to avoid being out of stock.
Strengh:
• Especially made for Health & Beauty, HomeFurnishings, Apparel and Footwear, Wineries
• Provides a 360 CRM, omni channel platform, POS and inventory management
Cautions :
• Customer service not very responsive
• Not made for small retailers: at least 10 shops
• Phones for clienteling
Best suited for:
Businesses with a sufficient size (fixed price is 80K € on average) whose employees will be very close to its clients, like a luxury brand for example. Newstore’s main promise is its user-friendliness: the layout is sober and has a limited amount of color tones. It will also be best suited for businesses that want to focus most on their effort on stock management and that have a true need for their service to be omnichannel.
This solution can connect to both CRM and ERP systems and stores all data in the cloud. Note that the company and staff’s main language is english, as the NewStore is mainly based in the US, UK andGermany. Finally, NewStore could suit a business with a need for numerous partners.
Main features:
Order management, mobile POS and inventory management in the cloud.
These three specialities are available through five main products:
Strengh:
• NewStore has many partners, amongst which we find Salesforce. This allows the solution to benefit from the commerce, service and marketing cloud.
• User-friendly and intuitive interface
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Brands that want to deliver a personalized customer experience and have a diversified sales network. The application used by sellers gives them access to their customers’ profiles, provides them with recommandation and allows them to improve the shopping experience. The clienteling application unifies online and physical information. Octipas also has an OMS feature to orchestrate orders across the different selling channels and control inventories and merchandise receptions.In addition, Octipas gives brands an in-depth knowledge of their clients and performances thanks to its CRM partners. It has a lot of common features with Bayretail. The main difference is that Octipas is not a Salesforce ISV.
Main features:
Strengh:
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Brands that want a customer-centric Order Management System (OMS) unifying stocks and orchestrating orders. OneStock provides an overview of the stocks for each sales channel, both physical and digital. Retailers use the visibility of inventory across their business to optimize order fulfilment. In that sense, OneStock’s solution is close to Newstore’s. OneStock is an extension of brands’ e-commerce websites. Indeed, since this solution unifies the data in store with the brand’s e-commerce website, retailers need to dispose of an e-commerce website beforehand. Note that, asa Salesforce Commerce Cloud partner, OneStock is readily available to its customers. Moreover, when clients shop in store, sellers have access to their profile and their preferences. Storing this data requires the client to already have a CRM: OneStock plugs the application to an already existing CRM solution.
Main features:
Sellers have access in real-time to an insight of the available stocks, taking into account physical stocks in other stores, current orders and products or categories excluded for logistical or economic reasons. This allows them to handle Cautions stocks’ shortages and find alternatives for clients.In addition, the deliveries are organized to minimize time, costs, environmental impact andin-store residuals.
Strengh:
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Medium sized retail companies in France andin Europe. Proximis seems to have developed particular expertise for companies whose physical stores are franchises or cooperatives.In addition, they offer adapted and ready-made solutions for smaller companies that would only have one or two physical stores. Proximis offers a solution that can be updated in a safe and efficient way to the various existing systems as well as to the CRM or ERP already present within the customer’s organisation. The Proximis solution is particularly adapted to retailers whose staff has arole in advising and accompanying the customer throughout the purchase process. The customer experience can take place on all the channels that the customer can use. The solutions proposed by Proximis seems to be similar to NewStore’s solutions, but they are different in that they are aimed at smaller companies and offer their services in french.
Main features:
Proximis has two offers to help retailers in the context of the COVID crisis: the first one is a complete offer that enables to build an e-commerce solution without any existing base, the second one proposes to complete the existing system with the implementation of an order orchestration. Both solutions are composed of three main elements:
Strengh:
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Small and medium size retailers, especially for companies whose presence is exclusively digital. Thus the proposed solution is not particularly adapted to retailers with many physical stores, the privileged communication channels are the digital channels, in particular through the application on the phone of the retailer’s customer. Shopgate is primarily based in Germany and the UnitedStates. As such, they are not yet present in other markets such as the French market. Thus, Shopgate’s solutions are mainly aimed at smallGerman-speaking retail companies, as their products are only available in German or English.While their products are optionally customizable, they mainly offer ready-made solutions in order to facilitate a very fast installation and functional deployment within the client system. They focus on speed of implementation (only a few weeks), which is particularly suitable for smaller companies looking for an initial unified commerce solution at a limited cost.
Main features:
Shopgate has divided its solution into three are as to meet three distinct customer needs, its solutions are :
Strengh:
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Brands that want to empower their store associates to deliver a personalized shopping experience and digitalize every step of it(advisory, payment, delivery or pick-up in store).The data collected on the application about customers’ preferences and information is usedfor follow-ups and interactions. Unlike solutions like OneStock that are really oriented towards stock management, Tulip’s application focuseson customers’ experience and stores’ operation.Note that the OMS integration is coming soon but is not deployed for the moment. Tulip is a clienteling solution. Tulip does not handle the data collected about customers on the application:they integrate their application with the back-end systems retailers may have. Unlike BayRetail, which is designed as a Salesforce add-on, Tulip can’t fully get advantage of the SalesforcePlatform. Tulip still provides a connector on theSalesforce App Exchange, which connects their application to Salesforce’s CRM. However, the latest version is from 2018 and it is costly (50$ per user per month only for the connector).Moreover, the exchanges of data between the application and the CRM are limited.
Main features:
Strengh:
Cautions:
Best suited for:
Large companies with a need for ERP logistic services. As Wynd’s business model is based on a strict percentage basis (1 - 2%) , it only targets, and therefore accepts, large companies that have an international distribution ( like Carrefour for exemple). Price wise, it is the main difference withNewStore and Proximis. Wynd is more of an ERPsolution, as you will see with its specialities, but it does have a CRM and clienteling offer through its partner Maxxing.
It’s logistic offer is highly omnichannel. It can suit both retailers with a need to be close to its clients and retailers whose shop sellers exclusively take care of the isles and the store’s neatness. It’s specificity comes from the fact that it is a french firm and that it is not limited to one sector (mass distribution, fashion & luxury, hotels & leisure, specialized retail, real estate, etc). Wynd can, for example, plug its digital platform onto your existing website for the online-buying process.Furthermore, Wynd is best suited for a catering business, as this solution provides a table reservation and management system. Finally, this solution provides an “à-la-carte” offer, where you can pick tools from their two main features.
Main features:
Cash collection and logistics (order processing).These specialities are available through three main products:
Strengh:
Cautions:
The retail world is changing at a remarkable speed, especially over the past 10 years. Many unified commerce solutions already exist on the market to help retailers benefit from this evolution. As customers get used to having access to information quickly and easily, a true follow up of one’s clients has become essential. An effective logistic remains key, but CRM and clienteling have now become at least as fundamental. Furthermore, retailers whose business structure is not omnichannel will most probably have difficulties to be competitive.
Despite the fact that many solutions do exist, it is not impossible for them to co-exist as they all target different customers, even if sometimes their target markets do overlap. Difference in the offer can come from the fact that they target different geographical. Some solutions stand out like NewStore or Bayretail, thanks to their specialization in clienteling. These solutions place individual tastes and personalization of the buying process at the heart of their offer.
The mark of solutions like Onestock or Wynd does not necessarily mean that they provide poor service in all areas. It only suggests that they are the best option for clienteling or CRM purposes.
A tendency that we have noticed amongst the studied solutions is that access to information is often not that easy. Given that these solutions promise to make their clients’ life easier, they should be impeccable when it comes to user experience and information access. Therefore, an offer which is too customizable can be confusing, compared to a turnkey service.
Finally, what will truly make a difference when choosing your unified commerce solution will be how clearly you have made up your mind. Just like in many situations, knowing exactly what you would like to use the unified commerce solution for will enable you to choose the one that suits you best. The type of technology used (AI, Salesforce, etc) and the potential software’s structure will be decisive parameters.
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