Moving beyond unified commerce
Retail has spent the last decade chasing seamlessness. From multichannel to omnichannel to unified commerce, the ambition has remained consistent. Connect everything. Remove friction. Serve the customer wherever they are, however they choose to shop.
In many ways, that ambition has been realised.
Today, most retailers operate across multiple channels. Stores act as fulfilment hubs. Inventory is visible across networks. Orders flow between systems. Unified commerce is no longer a differentiator. It is expected.
But something doesn’t quite add up.
Retail has become more sophisticated, yet less profitable. According to NYU Stern School of Business, the average operating margin for general retail now sits at just 4.4%. At the same time, fulfilment costs have surged, with last-mile delivery now accounting for more than half of total shipping cost.
Returns add further pressure. While consumers increasingly expect seamless, low-friction experiences, the cost of processing a return can reach up to 65% of the original item value.
What is good for experience is not always good for margin.
According to Deloitte research, rising fulfilment, labour and supply chain costs are placing sustained pressure on retail margins… .
Every order is a cost decision
Behind every customer order sits a chain of decisions.
Where should it be fulfilled from?
Should it be split across locations?
How fast should it be delivered?
What happens if it is returned?
Each of these decisions carries a cost.
Split shipments, for example, can increase fulfilment costs by 20–30%. Expedited delivery improves conversion but reduces margin. Store fulfilment increases flexibility but adds operational complexity.
Individually, these decisions make sense. At scale, they define profitability.
Retailers are no longer struggling to sell. They are struggling to fulfil profitably.
When unified commerce isn’t enough
Unified commerce solved an important problem. It connected systems, channels and data to enable a more seamless customer experience.
But connectivity alone does not guarantee good decisions.
Many retailers can now fulfil from anywhere. Far fewer can determine where they should fulfil from. This is where margin is won or lost. Profitability is not driven by the number of fulfilment options available. It is driven by how intelligently those options are used.
From connectivity to control
This is the shift from unified commerce to profitable commerce.
Not replacing one with the other, but evolving the conversation.
From enabling experience to optimising cost-to-serve.
From adding flexibility to controlling complexity.
From connecting systems to orchestrating decisions.
Profitability is not the by-product of unified commerce. It must be designed into it.
The role of OMS in profitable commerce
This is where the role of an Order Management System (OMS) becomes critical.
An OMS is not just an orchestration layer. It is a decision layer. It determines how each order is fulfilled based on rules that balance cost, speed, availability and customer promise.
Should an order be fulfilled from a store or a warehouse?
Is it worth splitting, or better to delay?
Which location minimises cost while still meeting the delivery promise?
Gartner positions order management systems as a key platform of differentiation, enabling retailers not just to connect channels, but to optimise fulfilment decisions and improve operational performance.
These decisions happen thousands of times a day.
Without intelligent control, costs scale alongside growth. With the right logic in place, those same decisions protect margin.
Designing for profitability from the start
One of the biggest risks in unified commerce programmes is the belief that your business is so operationally unique that standard, proven logic simply does not apply to you. This assumption (that every process needs a bespoke solution), is where budgets disappear and timelines collapse. Studies suggest that up to 30% of enterprise technology spend is wasted, often driven by excessive customisation, complex integrations and underused capabilities.
In retail, that inefficiency translates directly into lost margin.
What starts as a strategy to enable growth can quickly become a source of ongoing cost. In our experience, designing for profitability means shifting the mindset.
It means questioning whether every new capability adds value, or simply adds cost.
It means resisting unnecessary customisation in favour of scalable, proven logic.
It means building architectures that can evolve without continuous reinvestment.
A more mature conversation
Unified commerce is not dead. But it is no longer the differentiator it once was, because consumers now simply expect it. A seamless experience across channels is the price of entry, not the prize. And like any baseline expectation, it cannot be delivered at any cost.
The retailers that will succeed in the next phase are those who move beyond connectivity and focus on control. Those who treat profitability as a design principle, not a by-product. Because in the end, seamless experiences only matter if they are sustainable.
This is no longer just about connecting everything. It is about making it pay.
Make the case for profitable commerce
If you’re rethinking how fulfilment decisions impact cost-to-serve and margin, explore how leading retailers are moving from connectivity to control.
Frequently asked questions
What is profitable commerce?
Profitable commerce is an approach to retail that treats profitability as a design principle rather than a by-product of growth. Where unified commerce focuses on connecting channels and systems, profitable commerce asks whether each fulfilment decision, capability or integration actually improves margin, not just experience. It is not a replacement for unified commerce, but the next evolution of it.
What is the difference between unified commerce and profitable commerce?
Unified commerce is about creating a seamless, connected experience across all retail channels. Profitable commerce builds on that foundation by adding a layer of intelligent decisioning, ensuring that every order is fulfilled in the most cost-effective way, not just the most convenient one. As unified commerce becomes the baseline expectation, profitability is what separates the leaders from the rest.
Why are retail margins under pressure?
Retail margins are being squeezed from multiple directions at once. Fulfilment costs have risen sharply, with last-mile delivery now accounting for more than half of total shipping cost. Returns are expensive to process. Consumer expectations for speed and flexibility are high. And the technology required to meet those expectations adds operational complexity that carries its own cost. According to NYU Stern, the average operating margin for general retail now sits at just 4.4%.
What role does an OMS play in profitable commerce?
An Order Management System (OMS) is the decision layer that makes profitable commerce operational. It determines how each order should be fulfilled, from which location, at what speed, and at what cost, based on rules that balance customer promise with margin impact. Without that intelligent control, fulfilment costs scale alongside growth. With it, retailers can protect margin at volume.
Is unified commerce dead?
No, but it is no longer the differentiator it once was. Consumers now expect a seamless experience across channels as standard. The question is no longer whether you can deliver it, but whether you can deliver it profitably. That is the shift from unified commerce to profitable commerce.