The retail industry is becoming increasingly more complex, and retailers must be truly multi-channel in order to meet customer expectations and grow their business. The Aberdeen Group’s 2007 Benchmark report The 21st Century Retailer Managing Customers, Merchandise, and Date states that “an overwhelming 84% of retailers surveyed conduct sales in more than one channel.” Unfortunately, multi-channel retailers don’t have the technology they need to provide a seamless shopping experience across all channels. Alpha Bay’s Adaptive Integrated Retail System—AIRS®—gives retailers technology innovations that dramatically increase revenue by providing the customer channel transparency! Whether customers make a purchase on the web, from a catalog, at the Point-of-Service, or with a Mobile POS device, the transaction information is sent in real time to the corporate server and instantly becomes part of the valuable business intelligence available.

Real-time, multi-channel transaction and inventory information enables the retailer to have the product available for the customer when and where they want it. However, the Aberdeen Group further reports that retailers lack integrated multi-channel inventory data. Traditionally, the three main retail channels – brick & mortar, web store, and call center – have been treated as three separate business entities with three separate databases and IT systems. The challenge of deep cross-channel integration of front-end systems with back-end systems and operations is met when the right technology tools are in place to overcome any weaknesses in current operations so retailers can have the right product, at the right place, at the right price, available in the right channel, at precisely the right time.