Making unified commerce a reality

Customers expect increasingly seamless, flexible shopping experiences – and they decide when, how, and where they will engage with businesses. A solid reflection of this is the surging demand from businesses that want to provide capabilities around “endless aisles,” cards on file, card-linked loyalty, streamlined reconciliation, custom prompts for customer engagement, and offline processing. The desire for control and convenience isn’t just a trend. It’s a clear indicator of the evolving commerce landscape.

A retail strategy that focuses on unified commerce can help to create a consistent shopping experience across channels for each customer, whether they’re shopping online, in person, on mobile devices, or even calling into a business’s call center. Businesses need a unified view of their customers’ behaviors and preferences – which is precisely what a payment solution with omnichannel retailing capabilities can offer.

A centralized vault is at the heart of interconnected payments

At its core, a vault stores sensitive customer data – including payment information – on behalf of a business. When a customer transacts on a business’s website, the business can save important payment information to facilitate future online and in-person purchases. Enabled by one centralized vault containing all in-person and online customer payment data, a unified commerce solution can create personalized shopper profiles and translate to speedier transactions – no matter where the customer decides to buy. Unified commerce extends the vault across channels, helping businesses get a more comprehensive view of their customers and provide more-personalized experiences.

Unified commerce experiences

Since customers expect seamless online and in-store experiences, the need for a unified commerce approach has never been greater. Some scenarios include a customer:

• Buying online and returning in person or by mail.
• Picking up online orders curbside.
• Paying in person and getting part of an order, then receiving the rest of the order via mail.
• Placing an order from a semi-attended kiosk.
• Paying in person, then purchasing a subscription.
• Receiving a text when an order has been delivered.

A centralized vault can enable even more targeted cross-channel rewards and promotions. For example, when a customer:

• Is picking up an online-purchased item in store, they receive a just-for-you offer based on past purchases.
• Returns an online-purchased item in store, they’re notified of similar items that can be shipped from a different location.
• Repeats an in-store purchase, they receive an online subscription offer.
• Is shopping in person, they get approved for a buy now, pay later purchase.
• Is purchasing plane tickets, they receive an offer for travel insurance based on previous insurance purchases.

The possibilities are many, but the solution is clear: Creating a unified view of a shopper across multiple channels can help businesses deliver conversion-driving shopping experiences.

At PayPal Braintree, we're not just observing the way unified commerce is evolving – we're at the forefront. By continuously innovating to support and drive new unified commerce experiences that cater to modern customer preferences, we’re ensuring businesses remain agile and responsive to their customers’ needs.

See how PayPal is enabling Adorama to offer next-level experiences to their customers in both the digital and physical realms.

To learn more about how to make unified commerce a reality for your business, download our Evolving Payments ebook.