In a dynamic industry like eCommerce, it is critical to constantly look for ways to innovate faster, provide seamless customer experience, be more cost-effective, and to predict customers’ needs. Integrations between different systems (between ERP and eCommerce, for example) often present challenges in achieving such agility and it is hard to obtain 360-degree customer focus.
Microsoft is evolving Dynamics 365 Retail platform to include native and fully integrated e-Commerce channel. It would enable retailers to achieve:
- full omnichannel experience: retailers can turn on omnichannel features with minimal configurations
- complete customer view: by combining ERP back-office and the eCommerce store into a single platform, a full, 360-degree view of the customer across POS, e-Commerce and call center channels is made possible
Here we’ll give you a detailed explanation of the Dynamics 365 Commerce platform and how it can enable you to provide better service to your customers and obtain more seamless operations.
Dynamics 365 Omnichannel Capabilities
The most notable aspect of Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Commerce is that it provides a flawless omnichannel experience for customers across POS, commerce, and call center channels. It is powered by unified and integrated back-office, which provides powerful capabilities around aspects of eCommerce such as merchandising, promotions, inventory, search, and product recommendations.
The whole system works coherently to deliver far better customer experience via powerful, AI-supported features that enable customers to easily find the best product or service.
Merchandising
With powerful back-office merchandising capabilities, retailers don’t have to worry about integrating systems or duplicating merchandising efforts across systems, as Dynamics 365 Commerce merchandising is accessible across commerce, POS, and call center channels.
Promotions
Dynamics 365 Commerce provides robust and powerful promotions and discount engines. These capabilities are available across all channels and have been enhanced by Microsoft to provide an even better eCommerce experience. The platform enables you to roll out promotions across multiple channels for major retail events and, by keeping all your promotions in one system, Dynamics 365 Commerce offers easy visibility on your promotions across all channels.
Wishlist
The customer’s wishlist is also shared across channels as an out-of-the-box feature. Customers can add items to their wishlist on the website. If a customer makes a visit to the store, the 360-degree customer view lets in-store clerks suggest items from that customer’s wishlist.
Loyalty and gift cards
These features are provided out of the box by platform and are automatically shared across all channels. Customers can gain loyalty points regardless of the channel their purchase comes from. They can also use gift cards in the same way.
Customer segmentation
The platform provides powerful customer segmentation capabilities by assigning customers to different groups and offering them different product assortments, promotions, and discounts. This capability can be easily extended to other channels for better customer experience.
Order management
All online orders are synced with back-office and are easily distinguishable in different views, such as online orders versus in-store orders. Dynamics 365 also allows the call center channel to provide better customer service by making edits to the orders.
Fulfillment
Dynamics 365 already provides powerful warehouse management features, which are seamlessly extended to the online channel. Your online store can be linked to a specific warehouse or a group of warehouses. The platform has improved commerce capabilities to allow inventory checking at the channel level, which improves overall customer experience.
Dynamics 365 Commerce Features
Content management system
A powerful and strong CMS system is essential in eCommerce systems, to attract maximum customer interaction. Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce provides very powerful authoring capabilities. The system’s modern and robust templating features ensure maximum reuse of existing artifacts.
Assets management
Re-using assets across multiple channels is easy and straightforward in the Dynamics 365 Commerce platform. For your website, the platform offers a powerful focal point feature where AI-driven Azure Cognitive Services automatically define a focal point for product images across different viewports. Out of the box integration to Azure Media Services, videos are automatically processed to provide the best possible user experience.
Accessibility
All out-of-the-box features of Dynamics 365 Commerce are ADA Compliant. Microsoft will also soon be introducing Accessibility Insights integration, which will automatically review all new content and provide results on accessibility compliance.
Javascript and CSS injections
For retailers using a variety of marketing tools, the platform offers an easy way to include any scripts and CSS overrides for the best possible integrations and most immersive user experience.
Product Recommendations
The platform offers AI-based product recommendations for up-sell and cross-sell which would enable retailers in generating more revenue.
Ratings and reviews
The platform offers out of the box ratings and reviews functionality with AI-driven moderation and profanity checks.
Rediscover your Business Potential by Partnering with Visionet
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce represents an omnichannel solution that enables retailers to increase revenue and ROI while keeping operational costs low. This is achieved through personalized, customer-oriented engagement, optimized workflow, and AI-powered functionalities. With this platform’s powerful capabilities, simple eCommerce stores can be launched in a matter of weeks.
As a strategic partner with Microsoft, Visionet was involved with both the private and public previews of the platform. Visionet’s unique knowledge of the platform, coupled with deep expertise in Dynamics 365 and the eCommerce space, positions us to help retailers easily manage back-office operations and achieve new eCommerce success.