Insights - NRF '25: Omnichannel and Composability Define Meaningful Experiences

NRF ‘25 Retail’s Big Show is where retailers come by the tens of thousands to go hands-on with technology that is transforming store engagement and technology companies deep dive to uncover the challenges retailers face and issues they need to solve. At this year’s action-packed show, we saw that the store continues to be the hub of commerce and plays a significant role in unifying all sales channels to deliver the seamless experiences retailers need to achieve to remain competitive. Technology vendors presented unified and composable platforms, self-check-out technologies, smart shopping carts, AI tools and more as they look to assist store associates to support the business in achieving their transformation goals. 

Abhijit Killedar, OneView’s CTO, shares some of the top challenges facing retailers today, particularly the importance of implementing an omnichannel strategy that includes clienteling and loyalty programs to foster more personalized experiences and improve cross-channel engagement. Additionally, retailers expressed their need to harness the power of store data to incorporate effective AI use cases and to create a seamless experience from online to in-store. Retailers embraced the concept of a composable unified commerce platform as a way to break free of the constraints of their legacy solutions to offer them increased control and flexibility to deliver fast-evolving digital experiences as needed. 

Putting Omnichannel at the Center of Your Retail Strategy 

Feedback: Omnichannel continues to be an important topic of conversation. Retailers are looking for solutions that will improve the fragmented shopping experience that consumers face as they interact with brands from one sales channel to another.

Q: Why is an omnichannel strategy crucial for enhancing the customer experience?

A: An omnichannel strategy provides consistent, personalized, and seamless interactions across all customer touchpoints. This approach leads to increased satisfaction, loyalty, and improved brand perception. 

Key benefits include:

• Consistency that ensures uniform branding and service levels across channels.
• Personalization that delivers tailored experiences based on integrated customer data.
• Seamless transitions that facilitate a seamless flow across sales channels.
• Improved Customer Retention that encourages repeat business through positive experiences.
• Enhanced engagement that supports customers effectively across their buying cycle.
• Sharper customer insights for a deeper understanding of customer behavior and preferences.

Deliver a Customer Experience that Drives Retention

Feedback: Retailers continue to focus on improving their customers' brand experiences and are looking for efficient, agile tools to do that, with a heavy focus on clienteling and loyalty.

Q: How do clienteling and loyalty enhance the customer experience?

A: Clienteling and loyalty are pivotal as they foster long-term relationships by empowering store associates to understand individual customer needs, leading to increased sales and repeat business.

 Key benefits include:

• A more personalized experience that offers tailored recommendations through engagement and purchase history tracking.
• Improved customer retention that increases the likelihood of repeat visits through personalized service.
• Increased sales by identifying and catering to high-value customers.
• Brand advocacy that encourages loyal customers to promote the brand and their experiences.
• Customer feedback gathers insights to improve products and services and makes this readily accessible to the store team.

In-Store Order Fulfillment for Omnichannel Orders

Feedback: Retailers need a solution that enables efficient in-store fulfillment of online orders while leveraging the investments in their existing order management solution to improve order efficiency, time to fulfillment and positively impact brand loyalty.

Q: How does omnichannel fulfillment enhance ROI and customer loyalty?

A: Omnichannel fulfillment is crucial as it transforms stores into efficient fulfillment centers, reducing delivery times and costs while enhancing flexibility in inventory management. 

Key benefits include:

• Avoid losing sales due to a lack of product availability by expanding fulfillment sources to all outlets in your network and having the ability to choose the location closest to your customer.
• Using stores as fulfillment centers enables faster and less costly delivery options, including pickups or same-day or next-day shipping.
• Utilizing stores minimizes the need for separate warehouse facilities, leading to lower transportation costs.
• Stores that act as mini-warehouses allow for better stock control and the ability to quickly replenish items based on local demand.  
• Picking up online orders in-store offers customers added convenience and faster product access while giving associates upselling opportunities.

The Importance of Leveraging Store Data

Feedback: Many retailers wanted to better understand the role store data should play in their overall transformation strategy.

Q: Why is leveraging store data crucial for retailers?

A: Leveraging store data is essential as it transforms the store into a vital component of a holistic commerce strategy, seamlessly blending physical and digital experiences. This approach helps retailers move beyond siloed thinking, integrating digital commerce, social commerce, and physical commerce into a unified strategy. 

Key benefits include:

• Customer segmentation enables targeted promotions and product recommendations by identifying distinct customer groups.
• Personalized marketing facilitates the creation of relevant campaigns tailored to specific customer preferences,
• Demand forecasting optimizes inventory levels by leveraging micro and macro data to anticipate future demand.
• Dynamic pricing adjusts in real time to maximize profitability.
• Targeted data can be deployed to improve experiences by addressing rapidly evolving customer pain points to create  fluid and responsive shopping journeys.
• Data-driven loyalty program optimization enables programs to incentivize repeat purchases.

Breaking Free of Legacy Point of Sale with a Composable Commerce Platform

Feedback: Retailers are frustrated with the limitations of their legacy point of sale solutions and need a platform that offers them more control and flexibility to deliver digital experiences quickly.

Q: What are the benefits of transitioning to a composable commerce platform?

A: A composable commerce platform marries the power of enterprise point of sale with agility of modern order fulfillment tools, continuous visibility into cross-channel orders and transaction flows, real-time inventory management, and cloud-native integration capabilities that include third-party and legacy solutions. These capabilities free retailers from the legacy solution “black box” to gain the freedom to extend the modern store experience with any required integrations, including loyalty, clienteling and enterprise promotions solutions. With the retailer’s objectives in control, they are empowered to elevate sales and omnichannel fulfillment through personalized upselling and cross-selling at every engagement point. 

Key benefits include:

• Cloud-native, enterprise-grade point of sale.
• API-first architecture for the best use of new and existing assets to maximize ROI.
• Independent digital composability to tailor store experiences to gain associate efficiency while exceeding customer expectations
• Synchronization between all brand sales across both digital and physical touchpoints. 
• Hardware independence and platform capabilities enable mobility, self-service and retailer-specific experiences to be rapidly deployed from a single codebase. 
• Scalable payment processing supports secure and diverse payment and localization options.
• Ease of integration with other key business applications delivers a more holistic view of the business and provides actionable insights.