Omnichannel retail management with the Stores API.
If you’ve built an ecommerce project with Commerce Layer, you’ll know our Market resource. The Market resource is an all-encompassing container of business rules that you set up to define whatever it is you are calling a “market”. Truth is, “market” probably isn’t even the best name. Most people understand a market as some type of geographic border, like a country, region, or a state. But a market in Commerce Layer’s sense can be anything that you want to define with your business rules. It’s very powerful and flexible, but like anything with a defined purpose, it can have some limitations.
For example, imagine you operate a vast set of physical retail stores in your pre-defined market. Each of those stores carries stock, can accept all sorts of payments methods, and even has its own inventory strategy. Maybe you’ve set up a clienteling experience where your retail sales associates distance sell stock from a store to customer lists via something like WhatsApp. You probably don’t want to make each store its own market. But, each store has a set of unique characteristics that sort of put it into a middle ground. What then?
We recently introduced the powerful Stores API (still in beta) that helps solve this problem. Stores can transform how you manage your physical retail network by offering more granularity for each location, while still being connected to the business rules that define your Market. This blog post will dive into some capabilities, use cases, and advantages of the new Stores API. As mentioned, it is in beta, so the features and use cases may evolve a bit. But this will get you started.
Meet the Store resource
The Stores API allows businesses to map and manage physical retail locations within a Commerce Layer Market and data model. This feature is particularly valuable for brands looking to create a unified commerce experience that spans digital and physical touch points.
It may seem obvious, but Stores are your physical shops, like retail locations, pop-up stores, etc. Once they are mapped to a Market, you can do things like manage in-store sales and more. Maybe you operate different merchants in your Market. Stores allow you to specify different merchants if required, or you can simply inherit the merchant from the associated Market. You can also assign the store's stock location and enable store-specific payment methods. Price list associated with the market will be inherited. And, you can create store-specific coupons or promotions, or gift cards that work both in-store and online.
When creating a Store, provide a name and assign it to the associated market. Stores can be put in scope when requesting an access token to provide a hierarchy. If needed, you can also:
- Add a custom code (up to 25 alphanumeric characters)
- Specify a different merchant
- Assign a stock location
- Add store-specific payment methods
Both stock availability and payment methods for stores are prioritized based on your strategy. They both have intelligent fallback mechanisms based on the granularity of your setup. Once you’re up and running, you can experiment with the following:
- Leverage store-specific configurations to create localized shopping experiences
- Carefully define stock location hierarchies
- Experiment with store-specific payment methods
- Implement an endless aisle strategy to maximize inventory flexibility
By providing more granular controls, the Store resource can transform a traditional inventory and sales management and unlock a number of strategic benefits. You'll be able to more effectively unify commerce across all of your sales channels, optimize inventory, and set other relevant configurations like payment methods, etc.
Strategic use cases
The following use cases demonstrate how retailers can leverage this technology to create more flexible, efficient, and customer-centric shopping experiences across multiple channels.
Unified inventory management
As you plan your inventory and resources, you might want to intelligently connect store-level inventories with broader market stock resources. Or, perhaps you want to use Commerce Layer Links across all of your physical locations to sell stock directly from your stores. Using Links, stores can directly engage customers by sending a personalised "micro store" for items available in-store or elsewhere, attributing the sale to the store. With the Stores API, retailers can create a more dynamic and responsive inventory ecosystem that maximizes product availability and minimizes lost sales opportunities.
- Stores can leverage both their local inventory and the broader market's inventory model, especially with Links
- Automatic stock location prioritization ensures optimal inventory allocation
- Seamless integration of physical and digital stock levels
Localized payment methods
By enabling store-specific payment configurations that can override or complement market-level settings, you can adapt your payment strategy to local preferences, regulatory requirements, or unique operational contexts. Businesses can now configure payment methods:
- Store-specific payment options can be defined
- Fallback to market-level payment methods when store-specific methods aren't set
- Granular control over payment acceptance at individual store levels
Simplified shipment handling
As a company operating complex retail logistics, you might require efficient shipment management to meet customer expectations and reduce operational costs. The Stores API recognizes and optimizes shipments based on store-specific inventory and location, thereby reducing manual processing and enabling faster, more intelligent delivery strategies.
The API streamlines shipment management:
- Automatic dispatch recognition for store-based inventory
- No shipping method required for direct in-store stock transfers
- Instant order delivery marking for store-stocked items
These are a few top use cases for the Stores API. Since it is still in beta, we know other use cases will pop up and features may be expanded. What use cases do you anticipate? Please share them with us and will document it for others to see.
Conclusion
Although the Stores API is still in beta, it offers powerful capabilities for you to add more granular controls over your physical retail locations to help you create more integrated, flexible retail experiences. We are eager to have you try it and provide us your feedback. What features work well for you? What more do you need? We would like to hear from you if you’re testing the new API. The new Stores API represents another step forward in our unified commerce approach. Let us know what you think.