The Future Of Sustainable Omnichannel Commerce

In A Decade of Digital Transformation in 12 Months, 46 C-suite executives spoke with PYMNTS for its Q2 eBook on what the world will look like as recovery rolls on and the next iteration of normal rolls out. In this excerpt, Nandan Sheth, head of Carat and digital commerce at Fiserv, reveals the three key components that will be essential to the future of sustainable omnichannel commerce.

Read the entire eBook here.

Over the past year, there has been unprecedented change across many industries around the world. The pandemic has fundamentally altered the way industries operate, and has shifted the manner in which customers behave. As businesses settle into a “new normal,” there will be no going back to the way things used to be. Businesses wanting to capitalize on opportunities in the post-pandemic world must create sustainable omnichannel commerce that spans digital and physical channels. The concept of combining digital and physical is far from new, but the pandemic has made it a prerequisite of success, and the role of payments has become increasingly important. No longer just a means to facilitate the movement of money, payments orchestration enables the creation of differentiated commerce experiences that enable businesses to create more commerce.

Here are three key components that will be essential to the future of sustainable omnichannel commerce:

Blending of Digital and Physical

All customer experiences must be re-envisioned through the lens of the omnichannel customer, and must be built to ensure that their experiences are seamlessly connected across digital and physical channels. Examples include leveraging hyperlocal geo-fencing to deliver a 2-for-1 digital promotion to a customer walking only a block away, and then ensuring that the merchant recognizes and can redeem that digital promotion when the customer enters the physical store. The same can be true for the returns process, long a thorn in the side of retail. In an omnichannel world: That same customer can initiate their return on a mobile device, then walk into the store and drop off the unwanted item with a simple scan of a mobile QR code.

Seamless Integration

Conceptualizing new, enriching experiences can often be the easy part of omnichannel, while connecting back-end systems across platforms, gateways and providers remain the nuts and bolts of any successful payments experience. Through 2022, 50 percent of large organizations will have failed to unify engagement channels, resulting in a disjointed and siloed customer experience, according to Gartner.

Communication across customer devices and between systems requires seamless integration of technology and instant communication of information between third-party providers. Integration not only ensures that a commerce experience works, but it can also help provide businesses with data and information that enables them to further enrich the omnichannel experience.

Optimization of Omnichannel

Once a business has built an omnicommerce ecosystem that engages customers, optimizing the omnichannel business model becomes critical to ensuring that it is sustainable. Every merchant needs to be able to manage and control payment processes across channels, which includes mitigating costly fraud risks, managing processing expenses by routing transactions efficiently, and optimizing authorization rates to maximize revenue opportunities. With payments now embedded across many devices and channels, a business’ ability to manage and control the orchestration of digital payments is pivotal to building an omnichannel commerce model that is supported by sustainable economics.

While the pandemic gave us a decade of digital transformation in 12 months, digital innovation over the next year will move just as fast — and the ability for businesses to build sustainable omnichannel commerce in that short time span will define their success.