As consumers, we have grown used to instant gratification, up-to-the-minute accuracy and fast responses from retailers. We rely on websites and social media when deciding whether to purchase a product. Checking stock online before visiting a store has become common to prevent wasted time. We buy items online and get instant updates on the order’s progress.
Retail organisations do not achieve all this by working quickly across disconnected systems. The brands that do it well have platforms supporting inventory syncing, unified customer information and up-to-the-minute information about stock.
If your organisation struggles to keep up with the current pace of the industry or you simply want to improve, MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail can back your strategy and drive digital transformation. It provides a suite of pre-configured connectors, APIs, and integration assets tailored for retail environments. Here is how it can digitally transform your business.
A 360-degree view of the customer
Your customers expect personalised marketing and services when interacting with your brand. Getting this right requires a 360-degree of the customer that encompasses their past purchases or any digital interactions with your brand. Siloed data across Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), commerce platforms, and marketing systems limits the ability to understand customers comprehensively. MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail bridges these gaps by integrating these systems and giving your team a unified view of customer data.
MuleSoft Accelerator enables connectivity through the Anypoint Platform, which leverages pre-built APIs and connectors for various retail applications and databases. Such integrations allow your company to aggregate customer data from multiple touchpoints — online shopping behaviour, in-store purchases, social interactions, and more — into a single customer 360 profile.
With a complete customer 360 profile, marketing teams can tailor campaigns to increase return on investment (ROI), and customer service agents can deliver personalised experiences.
Integrate with Salesforce Data Cloud
Salesforce Data Cloud combines and analyses customer information to provide your organisation with a federated view of the customer for enhanced personalisation and predictive analytics.
The MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail contains an out-of-the-box template to connect customer data across your business with Data Cloud so that marketing teams can use this information to personalise campaigns. MuleSoft Accelerator also enables greater personalisation on your e-commerce platforms, a must-have when today’s customers have become used to high levels of personalisation when shopping online.
By leveraging MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail, your business can enrich customer profiles by combining data from diverse touchpoints, offering highly personalised services and predicting customer behaviour. You can tailor marketing strategies to individual customer preferences for more impactful campaigns. Customer service agents can provide more personalised solutions by accessing complete customer histories. Integration leads to higher customer satisfaction and enhances operations, making businesses more effective and efficient.
Sync products across relevant applications
Maintaining consistent and accurate product information across various applications is key to delivering an excellent customer experience. Without synchronised product data, retailers risk displaying incorrect product availability or pricing information, leading to customer dissatisfaction and potential loss of sales.
MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail helps you synchronise product information across platforms to ensure that your customers view the latest information about your products. Traditional processes rely on manual updates, but MuleSoft Accelerator provides assets that help automate them, reducing the likelihood of errors and ensuring that all retail applications display accurate product details. Syncing all your products also streamlines your backend processes so your team can better manage inventory.
From a customer perspective, accurate and consistent product information enhances trust and satisfaction, which is crucial for building long-term relationships and driving repeat business.
Manage sales orders
Managing sales orders becomes challenging when data exists on various systems, such as e-commerce platforms, ERP systems, and CRM databases. This fragmentation often results in inefficiencies, delays, and errors. Manually updating data between platforms adds complexity and administrative burdens, impeding your company’s ability to deliver a seamless customer experience.
MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail provides the assets to sync sales orders in real-time across multiple systems, ensuring consistent and up-to-date data. Centralising sales order information eliminates manual data handling and allows your team to focus more on customer engagement and less on operational issues. Reduced order processing time enhances customer satisfaction as consumers expect to receive instant confirmation of their orders.
Manage inventory in real-time
Traditional inventory management involves manual data entry or periodic syncing, making the process susceptible to errors, stockouts, or overstocking. These inefficiencies can result in lost sales opportunities and increased holding costs, greatly affecting your bottom line. When shopping online, your customers expect your inventory to be up-to-date, and any mistakes can lower satisfaction and loyalty.
MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail helps to enable real-time inventory management, automatically updating inventory levels across your systems, providing customers and your teams with a unified and accurate view of stock levels.
Mistakes or delays also make it harder to forecast your needs; for example, you might sell out of stock before you can order more. Improved visibility over stock reduces the risk of stockouts or overstocking. Real-time inventory data also enhances customer satisfaction by providing accurate product availability information, ultimately increasing sales and customer loyalty.
Conclusion
MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail provides the connectors, APIs and templates needed to transform your retail operations. It provides the tools needed for gaining a 360-degree customer view, simplifying sales order management, syncing product information across platforms, and integrating with Salesforce Data Cloud. By leveraging MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail, your organisation can achieve real-time data flow across systems, improving operational efficiency, reducing errors, and enhancing customer satisfaction.
MakeSense can help you implement MuleSoft Accelerator for Retail
Does your retail organisation need a digital transformation? We can tailor MuleSoft’s platforms to address your unique business challenges and align with your goals. Whether it’s modernising legacy assets, unlocking data for digital use, or defining future-proof API-led architectures, our team can guide your transformation journey. Visit our MuleSoft Expertise page for more information.
