COMMERCE BUSINESS MODELS
Help shoppers discover your brand, choose with confidence and come back.
B2C commerce serves individual consumers. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) commerce gives brands a direct route to those customers. Universal Commerce supports both with connected storefronts, product discovery, guided selling and order journeys across digital channels.
Discuss your commerce roadmapFROM BUSINESS NEED TO CUSTOMER VALUE
Connect structured product information, availability and useful buying guidance to web experiences and AI discovery initiatives. Help customers understand the differences between products before they arrive at checkout.
Use AI Shopping Assistants and Concierge services to answer catalogue questions, compare options and guide relevant recommendations. Escalate uncertain answers and service exceptions to your team.
Connect order capture to inventory, fulfilment and returns. Bring order context into customer service so shoppers can continue a conversation without repeating their story.
ILLUSTRATIVE WORKFLOW
A shopper discovers a product through an AI-assisted search, compares suitable options with a storefront assistant and checks availability. The orchestration layer coordinates checkout and order routing. After delivery, the same order context supports service, returns and relevant repeat-purchase journeys.
HOW UNIVERSAL COMMERCE SUPPORTS THE MODEL
Connect customer experiences to the capabilities, intelligence and data behind them. Select the components and deployment approach that fit your business.
Deliver connected web, mobile, social and conversational experiences with consistent product information, customer preferences and service context.
Coordinate discovery, recommendations, promotions, checkout, order routing and post-purchase service across your selected commerce applications.
Compose catalogue, search, CMS, PIM, cart, checkout, payments, OMS and loyalty capabilities using suitable platforms from the MACH ecosystem and existing enterprise systems.
Use Frontier models for language and reasoning tasks and Sovereign AI models where deployment and data-control requirements call for them. Ground responses in approved product and order data.
Connect product, inventory, order and customer events in a unified commerce data lake. A semantic mesh gives business meaning to these records so analytics and AI can use consistent definitions.
Capabilities are assembled from the selected platforms and integrations. Scope, licensing, data readiness and existing-system compatibility are confirmed during solution design.
Explore the complete architecture →MEASURE THE BUSINESS IMPACT
Agree a baseline, data source and owner for each measure. Compare results over time and across appropriate customer or operational cohorts.
| Business priority | Measures to track |
|---|---|
| Discovery | AI referral traffic, product-page engagement and search success |
| Conversion | Add-to-cart rate, checkout completion and assisted conversion |
| Order value | Average order value and contribution margin |
| Relationships | Repeat purchase rate, retention and service resolution time |
Start with a single brand, region or storefront journey. Connect product, inventory and order data, choose the assistance or fulfilment workflow with the clearest customer benefit, and compare results against the existing experience before expanding.
Use Composable Commerce for modular capabilities, Agentic Commerce for guided assistance and insights, and Autonomous Commerce for governed workflow execution.
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS
B2C describes selling to individual consumers, including through retailers. DTC describes a brand selling directly to consumers through its own channels. A business can use both models and share product, order and customer capabilities across them.
Yes. A phased approach can connect a new experience or AI assistance layer to existing commerce, ERP and order systems. The scope depends on available APIs, data quality and the business processes that need to change.
Dealer fulfilment, location-aware routing and agreed assortment or pricing policies can help align the direct channel with partner operations. The operating model and integration scope should be agreed before launch.
No. Outcomes depend on catalogue quality, customer experience, channel adoption and execution. Set a baseline and evaluate assisted conversion, margin and repeat purchase alongside customer feedback.
YOUR NEXT STEP
Bring your customer priorities, current systems and operating requirements. Let’s map the capabilities and integrations your next phase needs.
Discuss your commerce roadmap