Breaking the Silos: Why Unified Commerce is a Solid Strategy for the Modern Journey
Imagine this for a second. You’re a famous sports shoe brand with a solid online and offline presence. One of your best customers walks into one of your stores, looking forward to their in-store experience. Unfortunately, the salespeople at the store don't know who this customer is and have no record of their purchase history on hand. They could've sold more shoes to this customer, but because of a lack of data, it results in a missed sales opportunity.
The above example highlights a reality retailers must adjust to, or they risk losing market share to competitors. In its 2025 Digital Trends report, Adobe cited that 71% of consumers expect brands to anticipate what they want with customized offers. Additionally, 78% of those surveyed want digital and physical touchpoints to be seamless. To do this, teams must break down the data silos within their retail environments.
For retailers to be ahead of the curve in 2026 and beyond, they must shift from a segmented omnichannel to a unified commerce* approach. Think of it as a switch from having “connected touchpoints” to “connected decision-making.”
*Unified commerce: A retail strategy that integrates and connects all customer-facing and backend systems into a single platform to ensure a seamless customer experience.
After all, consumers want to experience your brand and expect a smooth experience when they move from app to website to store.
Eric Hazan, Senior Managing Partner at McKinsey (Paris), accurately articulated this transformation by saying, “We are entering the world of ‘phygital’ - physical and digital at the same time, where there is not a physical world or digital world in retail, but rather a completely connected one.”
Let’s explore what unified commerce is, its benefits, and why this approach is a true differentiator in retail.
“We are entering the world of ‘phygital’ - physical and digital at the same time, where there is not a physical world or digital world in retail, but rather a completely connected one.”
Eric Hazan, Senior Managing Partner at McKinsey (Paris) [Source: Anchanto]
Why the Omnichannel Approach is Now Table Stakes
The main challenge for retailers who still rely on the omnichannel approach lies in how consumer behavior has significantly shifted. A Harvard Business Review study points out that 73% of retail shoppers use multiple channels before making a purchase.
Further studies also indicate that only 7% of consumers shop entirely online while 20% shop exclusively in physical stores. Many of those shopping online also jump between applications and websites, while others also shop through a brand’s social media store.
Research by Salsify conducted in 2025 across the U.S., the U.K., and Canada indicate that more than 50% of consumers go to 2-3 channels for mid-range items like apparel and electronics, and more than half review 4+ channels for purchases like furniture.
These statistics highlight that the market prioritizes channel continuity over channel existence, implying that omnichannel is a baseline expectation for consumers, not a competitive advantage.
Why Data Fragmentation is the Hidden Flaw
For a unified commerce approach to succeed, retailers must first address the challenges created by data fragmentation. Many teams still run on disconnected systems, making it difficult to consolidate consumer data, inventory, and orders in real time.
Anchanto provides a detailed breakdown of how limited real-time visibility and analytics impact retailers and ultimately, customer experience:
Selling across several online and offline platforms creates difficulties in holistic sales tracking performance, customer preferences, and inventory levels.
Not having systems that rapidly collect data and generate reports impedes retailers from having real-time visibility, impacting decision-making.
Inefficient data visibility also affects order management across retail outlets, prolonging delivery times, and increasing the likelihood of inventory shortages.
If data regarding fulfilment location is missing, last-mile delivery optimization becomes an impossible task.
While retail channels may appear connected externally, customers will encounter friction if the backend is siloed, preventing a seamless omnichannel experience.
“Last-mile delivery: Indicates the final critical stage of the supply chain, where goods are shipped from a distribution center, warehouse, or last-mile delivery hub to the end customer.”
[Source: Kaizen.com]
Photo by Microsoft Edge on Unsplash
A Single Source of Truth for Top-Performing Retailers
Before we dive in, it’s important for us to highlight the differences between omnichannel commerce and unified commerce. SAP has a great analogy for this: Think of omnichannel commerce as a jazz band, where each player follows their own tune. Unified commerce can be compared to an orchestra that follows one conductor and sheet of music, like a “single source of truth.”
Unified commerce helps run your retail business on a single, centralized platform. From your e-commerce store to point of sale (POS) and customer data, it connects the entire operation through a commerce operating system (COS).
This “single brain” framing approach delivers several benefits to retailers who previously struggled with a fragmented omnichannel ecosystem:
It empowers them to make smart decisions, where they show up consistently to consumers at every touchpoint
It harmonizes the front-and back-end operations
It helps to improve customer journeys by tracking purchase history, preferences, and loyalty rewards through multiple channels
It creates greater transparency to drive loyalty by merging data into a single customer profile, proactively solving the siloed data system challenge
It creates real-time visibility into inventory across locations, providing retailers with better buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), and enabling them to adjust rapidly to supply chain interruptions
With these advantages, unified commerce doesn’t just connect a retailer’s operating systems – it proactively facilitates decision-making.
Unified Commerce: A Business Case for Margins
When implemented correctly, unified commerce isn’t just a mere tech upgrade for retailers, but also a robust cost-defense mechanism.
Research by Shopify highlights that the total cost of ownership (TCO) decreases considerably when each retail channel has been consolidated into a single platform. Retail brands that implement a unified commerce strategy generate a 22% lower TCO than their non-unified counterparts.
With unified commerce, retail marketers can also send emails to customers based on their interactions in-store, and store associates can identify returning customers, allowing them to upsell preferred products and add-ons.
With the “single source of truth” framework, retailers achieve greater inventory accuracy through different channels. As inventory becomes a shared pool accessible to all channels, retailers can reduce the need for exorbitant safety stock, decreasing cycle times and overhead costs.
Not only does this improve inventory velocity, but it also boosts customer satisfaction through product availability and faster delivery.
“Total cost of ownership: A calculation that quantifies the total cost of a product or service over its entire lifecycle.”
[Source: IBM]
Customer Value is Still Crucial
Remember that having a unified commerce strategy isn’t just about having more retail data at your fingertips. It’s also about connecting shopper interactions across each channel.
Every retail touchpoint contributes to a single shopper profile, including in-store purchases, browsing behavior, loyalty program activity, online orders, returns and exchanges, and customer service interactions. By having this unified customer view, retail teams leverage what they know about customers to deliver a better and more personalized shopping experience.
For example, the sports retail giant Nike consolidated all its touchpoints and sales channels into a unified commerce platform. Having a centralized inventory management system enabled shoppers to have real-time visibility of Nike products across every channel.
The brand also managed to collect customer data from various sources, including in-store, the online storefront, and the Nike app, allowing its teams to create customized offers and product recommendations for customers.
Nike also leverages its global House of Innovation stores to provide customers with an immersive phygital experience, where shoppers scan products and receive special access to releases or services by using their devices.
So, how can retailers apply what Nike has done to their own ecosystems?
Consolidate each retail channel into a single platform
Leverage data to gain a deeper understanding into customer behavior online and in-store to design personalized experiences, driving loyalty
Provide transparency into product inventory across each retail location
Improve product availability and expedite delivery
Meet customers where they’re at and create a frictionless customer experience across every touchpoint
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Build Your Customer Loyalty with a Unified Approach
The retail environment is in a constant state of evolution, and retailers need to be smart about how they adjust to the 2026 retail margin squeeze.
Having an omnichannel approach is no longer a key differentiator, and retailers must make that strategic shift from having multiple channels to a single commerce engine that makes their entire operation smarter and more efficient.
At the end of the day, customer loyalty will be based on how smooth and frictionless their experience with your brand will be. Get this wrong, and they will move on to the next best alternative.
Bringing the human element back into retail lies at the core of what we do here at Competitor IQ. If you’re thinking about how to build your competitive retail moat, drop us a line.