Omni-channel retailing now the `must have’

With mobile devices of all flavours now the dominant tool for the majority of online retailing users, the rush is now on for retailers to exploit omni-channel access into their retail portals. Not surprisingly, that need is growing a rush from vendors to provide omni-channel solutions to the party.

hybris is amongst the latest in the commercial world to announce a move in the omni-channel direction, with the introduction of  an upgraded version of its hybris Commerce Accelerator system that is now integrated with hybris Order Management Services (OMS).

The aim is to enable merchants to provide customers with a complete omni-channel shopping experience, including browsing and fulfilment, such as buying online and picking up in store, and cross-channel stock-level display.  The company claims this will allow B2C merchants to go live with an omni-channel commerce system in less than four months. This is possible  through the use of storefront templates and channel integrations that can be both deployed quickly and then enhanced with more functionality over time. 

This will allow customers to choose the deployment and purchase model which best meets their needs. The company is offering the package with a traditional on-premise perpetual licence, or as a SaaS service hosted by hybris with a monthly fee based on usage or revenue share.   

The company is targeting both established retail businesses and startups with the new combination. However, Ariel Lüdi, CEO of hybris, sees the latter group as the market he’d most like to target.  

“Emerging companies are the future of business. As their requirements become more sophisticated, the most important consideration for them is being able to react quickly to the often niche requirements of their customers to support this growth and expansion.  As such, they are challenged with finding a commerce solution that will support their future growth aspirations – especially in terms of functionality, deployment costs and timeline.”

The benefits for emerging businesses he sees include ready to use storefront templates for fashion, electronics and B2B, the ability to `Buy Online, Pick Up in Store’ (BOPIS), have a single view of inventory, integrated web content management, ready-to-use search functionality, optimised checkout processes and shopping carts, out of the box integration with key order services such as payment, address verification, tax calculation and shipping, ready-to-use mobile storefronts, plus the integration and SDK for iOS and Android Apps, native integration to Customer Service Workflows, and the ability to operate in a fully internationalised multi-language, multi-currency environment.