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Bridging the Omnichannel Gap in Retail with Dynamics 365

27 January 2022
Sam Peterson
Sam Peterson
Bridging the Omnichannel Gap in Retail with Dynamics 365

Even with over a decade’s long existence, omnichannel is still a challenge for most retailers worldwide because they still seek to understand how to bridge gaps in the business-critical strategies. The existing strategic gap translates lesser knowledge about omnichannel retail and shows the organizations’ inability to perform and deliver per the defined strategy. Besides, the fast-transforming global retail landscape is trying to find the best ways to eliminate the gap between traditional and modern retail experiences.

Dynamics 365 Commerce (previously known as Dynamics 365 Retail), now called unifies innovative capabilities and tools that allow retailers to streamline buying experiences for customers across channels while empowering enterprises to gain an insightful view of their customer data, along with operations and sales.

Customer Journey Mapping: Understanding Pain Points

Are you truly seeing your retail business from your customer’s perspective? Mapping the customer journey is about understanding every step they take, from discovering your brand to post-purchase interactions and uncovering where friction occurs.

Common Pain Points of a Retail Business

Inconsistent Omnichannel Experience: Customers expect seamless transitions between online and offline platforms. Is your website syncing inventory with your stores?

Complex Checkout Processes: Are customers abandoning carts because of long or confusing checkouts?

Limited Personalisation: Without tailored recommendations, are you missing chances to create meaningful interactions?

Post-Purchase Disconnect: Do customers struggle to track orders or make returns?

With Dynamics 365 Commerce, you can identify and address these pain points through unified data and intelligent tools:

  • Real-Time Insights: Track behaviours and preferences across channels for a connected view.
  • Streamlined Processes: Simplify checkout and returns with centralised systems.
  • Enhanced Personalisation: Use AI-driven recommendations to deliver products and services that match customer needs.

By proactively addressing challenges, you retain customers and transform them into advocates for your brand.

Personalisation Strategies

Did you know that 80% of customers are more likely to purchase when brands offer personalised experiences? Personalisation isn’t just a trend—it’s a necessity in today’s retail landscape.

Effective Personalisation Tactics

  • Dynamic Product Recommendations: Are you effectively leveraging customer data to upsell or cross-sell?
  • Custom Loyalty Programs: Do your rewards reflect individual preferences and shopping habits?
  • Tailored Promotions: Are your campaigns aligned with customers’ locations, past purchases, or browsing history?

Dynamics 365 Commerce empowers retail businesses to offer personalised offerings. By delivering bespoke experiences, retailers can build trust, drive sales, and foster lasting loyalty:

  • AI Insights: Use predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs.
  • Unified Data: Build a single customer view from all touchpoints, enabling deeper personalisation.
  • Seamless Integration: Personalise across platforms—from digital storefronts to in-store engagements.

Integration with Emerging Technologies

Are you ready to future-proof your retail operations? Staying competitive means embracing technologies like AI, IoT, and augmented reality.

Emerging Technologies in Retail

  • AI for Predictive Analytics: Can you anticipate what customers want before they ask?
  • IoT for Smart Shelving: Do you have visibility into inventory at the granular level?
  • AR for Immersive Shopping: Are you giving customers virtual try-ons or 3D product views?

Dynamics 365 Commerce enables these innovations to foster a seamless retail experience:

  • AI-Powered Decisions: Leverage Dynamics 365’s intelligent analytics for actionable insights.
  • Connected Operations: IoT integration provides real-time updates on inventory and store conditions.
  • Seamless AR Integration: Enrich product pages with interactive content to enhance online experiences.

By aligning with emerging tech, retailers improve efficiency and redefine customer engagement.

Sustainability Practices

Is your retail business aligned with the growing demand for sustainability? Beyond a trend, eco-conscious operations are a competitive edge.

Sustainability Challenges in Retail

  • Inventory Waste: Are you overproducing or carrying excess stock?
  • Energy Consumption: Are your stores and warehouses optimised for efficiency?
  • Ethical Sourcing: Can customers trace the origins of your products?

Dynamics 365 Commerce supports sustainability in retail by enabling:

  • Optimised Inventory: Use real-time insights to reduce overstocking and waste.
  • Sustainable Supply Chains: Gain visibility into your sourcing and suppliers.
  • Energy Monitoring: Leverage IoT to track and reduce energy usage across locations.

Disconnected Data and Disrupting Modern Buying Scenarios

While ensuring omnichannel experiences to the consumers, retailers face many roadblocks, primarily due to the lack of unified data in the existing systems. The disconnected customer data affects customer communications and restricts retailers from gaining meaningful business insights, including customer preferences and inventory.

The best solution for modern retailers is to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail that connects company- wide customer data and automatically updates relevant customer insights in real-time. Moreover, integrated Artificial Intelligence (or AI) capabilities define customer segments seamlessly and ensure smooth customer communications.

Dynamics 365 Commerce enables enterprises to improve and enhance customer engagements through various smart tools, including an e-commerce site builder that targets specific customer segments with diverse experiences, including geo- location and other attributes derived dynamically from their online browsing.

Legacy Solutions and Aligned Complexities

Organizations invest heavily in their existing legacy solutions to maximize benefits from such investments. Instead, businesses may end up dealing with undesired complexities in the current systems if they continue to avoid investing in a new unified solution. However, integrating add- on tools into the existing solutions might work well to keep the operations performing without compromising the currently implemented systems.

Microsoft Power Apps help businesses build customized solutions that connect existing customer data and integrate sales services and operations. Dynamics 365 Commerce coupled with Microsoft Power Apps allows enterprises to leverage the organization- wide customer data using the existing systems. Thus, the new unified solution empowers retailers to use the data lying isolated across the separate systems—without replacing those.

Improvising with Altering Customer Needs Can Help

Retailers’ inability to adapt to the fast-changing customer habits is another roadblock while ensuring omnichannel experiences to their patrons. Enterprises, therefore, must plan to streamline their back-end operations that would help them adapt to the modifying customer behaviors and preferences. In addition, implementing the right technology infrastructure, like Dynamics 365 for Retail, allows retailers to connect all the available customer data and ensure better customer experiences.

Modern consumers look out for reviews and social channels before making a purchase decision. Industry insights reveal that social commerce sales in the U.S. contributed about $36.6 billion in 2021. Integrating this new demand generating technology sources are critical for modern businesses to gain customer intelligence.

Dynamics 365 Commerce Services allow retailers to engage with widespread customers through a common data model along with advanced, emerging commerce platforms. Dynamics 365 Commerce Solution also empowers retailers to develop in- house capabilities for tracking and monitoring reviews posted across commerce engines while automating the reviews’ solicitation from customers through post- shipping emails and other such actions. Besides, Dynamics 365 Commerce uses deep data that connects platforms and helps retailers explore how targeted customers respond to social storytelling.

Rising Customer Expectations

Worldwide customers’ expectations have evolved, as they now desire more convenience while buying. Moreover, customers today understand and expect retailers to capture their buying patterns and trends. Retailers, therefore, are aggressively looking for tools to understand consumers better and ensure personalized user experiences.

Businesses may lose sales if customers feel inconvenient, whereas many companies are still trying to provide the options that customers expect. National Retail Federation suggests that nearly 97% of consumers have backed out due to their inconveniences during the purchase journey. The trend is common, primarily in smart services, like curbside pickups, next day delivery, and easy returns.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps retailers improve customer experience and personalize customer engagements across channels. Global enterprises are leveraging Dynamics 365 retail business solutions to include more product information for customers and staff at the point of purchase.

Microsoft Dynamics retail enables enterprises to improve their omnichannel capabilities and deliver personalized customer buying experiences. Retailers, therefore, look to Dynamics 365 for retail implementation to bridge the omnichannel gap while helping them exceed customer expectations and boost their business success.

Next Step

Team Dynamics Square helps businesses connect data effectively by leveraging Dynamics 365 solutions and enabling them to overcome the discussed four primary roadblocks and bridge the omnichannel gap in retail.

Engage Today for a customized Dynamics 365 Commerce Trial.

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