While bricks-and-mortar storefronts are still very popular among consumers, it’s impossible to disregard online activity if you want to succeed in modern retail at any scale larger than a single, mom-and-pop store.

That’s the message we keep hearing at Tech Wire Asia from retailers, suppliers, warehouse companies and even logistics businesses. A walk down any street in Asia confirms the message: everywhere, people have their attention on their phones, messaging friends and keeping up to date with all the latest news and gossip. Plus, of course, doing a little shopping too, while on the move.

Online or in-store

People still love going to stores too. There are certain areas of retail— like clothing, fashion, beauty and skincare, for example— where many still prefer the face-to-face experience, or at least, it’s an integral part of the shopping activity. But, despite physical stores’ continued importance, to ensure the best customer experiences today, there must be a significant digital element to any retailer’s operations.

Today’s retailers are all about letting the customer call the shots. The customer has always been king, for sure, but today’s busy consumers are never more than a screen tap or swipe away from a competitor’s offerings. That means you must be right on top of all the parts of a successful retail operation, and that comes from the right software and technology platform.

In the trade, Aptos is concerned with empowering businesses to offer omnichannel retail— what it calls “unified commerce” in the US. In practical terms, it means breaking down the barriers between shopping online and in-store, between pick-up and deliveries, and between the different data silos in the business, like marketing information and customer preference data.

Because what Aptos can do is help make sure that every important aspect of the shopper’s experience is seamless and positive. Creating great interactions between customer and retailer is all about building emotional bonds (from personalized offers sensitively positioned, for example) and trust (trust in quality, and trust in payment methods, for example).

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Retail via microservices

What’s different about Aptos’ offering is that they are modular. In layman’s terms, that means you don’t have to deploy every part of the solution. Instead, you can mix-and-match the modules with your specific requirements. Aptos offers a range of solutions that cover different aspects of modern retail operations, from planning, through to business analytics.

The result is a fully joined-up retail system that lets customers move seamlessly between store and online, all from a single source of information for the retailer.

That makes reporting and analytics easier: it’s the full picture that’s examined, one that doesn’t have to be assembled from the different parts of the business. This approach will save your operations staff hours of manual work, time that can be better spent on perfecting strategies.

In the same way, your marketing function will see collected data from all customer (and customer-to-be) interactions with the company, and so those guys will be able to target the most fruitful demographics and create the customer experiences that will make brand advocates for your company.

Reporting after a sale is, of course, highly important, but what probably holds more weight when considering the provision of the customer’s individual experience, is planning. Aptos planning solutions allow you to manage the full merchandise lifecycle and provide the customer with the best online and in-store experiences: making sure your assortments are curated and tailored to your shoppers’ wants, the right product is in the right store, in the right quantities — even the right offers being given suitable prominence.

Planning that sort of level of attention to detail is where Aptos excels: forecasts, merchandise, assortment planning, allocations, replenishment, supply chain issues, and so on. As a modern retailer, you must let the customer call the shots. That takes specialist software and technology, and that circles us back neatly to Aptos.

To learn more about the company, its solutions, and how technology can drive change in all aspects of your business, get in touch with a representative local to you today.