Fragmented systems are creating operational drag and commercial barriers for retailers, as many struggle to turn their unified commerce ambitions into execution, a new study from PMC, a global leader in commerce technology, reveals.
Original research of over 100 senior retailers and brand leaders in its ‘Race To Unified Commerce’ report, produced in collaboration with Retail Economics, showed that 70% of Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) brands have yet to fully integrate their core systems, risking data flow fragmentation and siloed operations which can slow down decision-making, reduce agility and create operational drag.
Omnichannel retailers showed marginally more integration maturity than their DTC counterparts, with 62% saying they were already on their journey to fully integrating core systems within their tech stacks across ERP, POS, martech platforms such as CRM and order management systems (OMS).
This, the study suggested, is impacting three core pillars of performance, with 56% of retailers reporting the impact of fragmented systems on both profitability and customer experience (CX) and a further half (54%) saying operational effectiveness had been compromised.
“Retailers using modern integration technologies are able to unlock far greater value from their core systems, creating a continuous flow of data that improves visibility, streamlines operations and enables faster decision-making,” said PMC’s CEO Rich Lowe. “Yet where legacy approaches persist, they create unnecessary complexity and innovation drag.”
“By unifying data through clean, connected and modern systems architecture, retailers can start to untangle that complexity to unlock growth,” he added. “And, as retailers prepare for Peak Trading, agility becomes even more critical; brands need the interoperability to act fast, stay in control and capitalise on revenue opportunities.”
Speaking at PMC’s Commerce Leaders Summit, Retail Economics’ CEO, Richard Lim, also warned that the existing integration burden on retailers would only rise as customer journeys become “infinitely more complex”, driven by the emergence of new channels, retail formats including resale and rapid AI adoption. And this will require retailers to reassess – and address – the gap between their unified commerce ambitions and current execution, Lim said.
For those unifying their tech stacks and turning towards centralised analytics, 58% report faster decision-making and a further 45% cite significant cost savings, while half (48%) see measurable revenue growth.
