Toshiba Rolls Out Unified Commerce Platform For Retailers

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions unveiled its ELERA unified commerce platform that will let merchants operate without the bounds of traditional retail IT infrastructures, according to a Wednesday (Jan. 13) announcement emailed to PYMNTS.

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions President and CEO Rance Poehler said in the announcement that 2020 was among the most trying years in recent recollection for merchants, but it has “been amazing to see how many rose to the challenge of serving their communities under adverse conditions.”

“For us, ELERA isn’t only about bringing new technology to market; it’s about enabling retailers and the industry as a whole to thrive — becoming more resilient today, while pursuing a clear path toward a frictionless future,” Poehler said in the announcement.

ELERA harnesses microservices to take away IT limitations, reshaping retail infrastructure into changing, flexible environments through which merchants globally can launch new services in a matter of days. Retailers can then independently pilot, enhance, revise and grow them to satisfy demand without interrupting legacy systems or supplanting them.

In terms of microservices, ELERA offers over 30 pre-packaged microservices like price, promotion, refunds and point of sale (POS) orchestration in addition to over 400 application programming interfaces (APIs) for a tailored build out and integration.

“These microservices serve as a foundation to build transactional use cases both in and out of the store environment for retailers,” according to the announcement.

ELERA also enables more expedient integration and rollout of frictionless commerce technologies, such as smart devices, computer-vision cameras, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, self-service and POS, among others.

And, when it comes to data solutions, ELERA uses the power of big data for actionable analysis that lets firms “stay closer to their customers and gain unique visibility into store performance and in-store customer behavior,” according to the announcement.

ELERA is currently used by the high-volume retail grocery and general merchandise verticals.