Arc’teryx & PacSun Share Unified Commerce Successes at NRF’s Big Ideas Session
- January 30, 2025
In today's rapidly shifting retail landscape, meeting the ever-changing expectations of the ‘blue dot consumer’ are a challenge for brands big and small. Recently, at NRF’s Big Ideas session I was delighted to moderate a panel on Unified Commerce discussing best practices and actionable insights on creating seamless, engaging shopping experiences.
Shirley Gao, Chief Technological & Digital Officer at PacSun and Joe Granato, VP of North America Stores & Global Retail Operations, Arc’teryx shed light on what it truly takes to build a frictionless retail experience to meets the demands of consumers in 2025 – below are their key insights 👇🏼
Understanding the Question: Why Unified Commerce?
Unified Commerce refers to the integration of all front and back-end processes and channels within the retail journey: from warehouses to point of sale, to online, store, in app and even social channels. Sounds sensible right? But why is Unified Commerce gaining so much traction now? In short, it is because of the way consumer behavior has shifted over the last five years.
Consumers today expect to be known, understood and looked after by the brands they choose to spend their (hard-earned) money with. Increasingly, they are demanding personalized shopping experiences at every step of the buying journey, from search and discovery to payment and fulfillment. And this is precisely why Unified Commerce is gaining such momentum. If done right, Unified Commerce brings a wealth of opportunities for retailers to engage better with their customers, give them that shopping experience they have come to expect irrespective of the shopping channel, strengthen loyalty and ultimately grow their revenue.
Manhattan’s recent 2025 State of the Industry report which surveyed 250+ retail executives across North America revealed that shoppers who engage with retailers across multiple channels generate 1.5X higher lifetime value, spend 15% more per order on average and exhibit a 70% higher YoY retention rate compared to single channel customers. It’s clear, retailers who crack this code aren’t just witnessing stronger sales but are fundamentally rewriting the economics of retail.
Arc'teryx on Elevating the Customer Journey
Arc'teryx is renowned for its high-quality outdoor apparel and is recognized as being at the forefront of innovative retail strategies. Joe Granato spoke about the ‘time-value proposition’ with their guests (customers) which sets the stage for how the various systems talk to each other, the experiences they aim to offer, and overall, their unified commerce strategy.
In today’s world consumers are highly savvy, they shop across multiple channels, have done their research and more often than not, start their shopping journey from a digital perspective before coming into a store. This makes the time value proposition critical and sets the base for the company’s Unified Commerce strategy which serves two key audiences, guests and frontline staff. Their goal is to have their people enabled to serve the guests faster than they can do themselves because for the customer “10 seconds is an eternity.”
With Manhattan Active® Omni Arc’teryx gets the right information to the frontline staff, in the fewest number of clicks, in the most fluid way so that they can serve the guest in that moment. For Arc’teryx, success in the future is based on the value it provides the shopper and its frontline users, the store associates. With Manhattan’s POS solution they have successfully enabled a deeper relationship and immediacy to deliver a seamless experience to both.
By leveraging advanced data analytics, Arc’teryx has been able to gain added insights into customer preferences and behaviors too. This data-driven approach allows the team to tailor its offerings, ensuring that both online and in-store experiences are aligned with customer expectations. With centralized performance metrics, the team is successfully maximizing its ‘in-the-moment’ decisions to fulfill more demand from the stores where product is available, without compromising its in-store experience, even during peak times like Black Friday.
One notable initiative (and success) is the integration of Arc’teryx’s inventory systems. Customers can check product availability in real-time, whether they're shopping online or visiting a physical store. This transparency has not only improved the ultimate guest shopping experience but has also driven footfall to more bricks-and-mortar locations too.
PacSun on Bridging the Digital-Physical Retail Divide
PacSun, a leading retailer in youth fashion, has embraced Unified Commerce by focusing on the convergence of digital and physical shopping experiences. Shirley Gao highlighted the need to identify the most critical technology improvements and transformation opportunities and then unify them from a variety of different perspectives (customer experience, inventory etc.) so there was a ‘single point of truth’ whether fulfilling online or in-store orders.
The use of RFID has certainly increased inventory accuracy, while using Manhattan’s order management and fulfillment (for the last several years), and point of sale and store inventory management offerings (more recently) has resulted in a single, highly accurate view of inventory across its entire retail estate. This not only allows PacSun to fulfill orders across channels like Pacsun.com, the PacSun App, Instagram checkout, Amazon and TikTok, it provided the opportunity to do a real-time evaluation of certain processes, including shipping handling costs, store labor constraints, store backlog and fulfillment options in relation to the proximity to the customer.
Last year, PacSun rolled out Manhattan’s POS and store inventory management offerings across 300+ stores within three months, just in time to handle the peak holiday shopping season. Their ability to work offline with Manhattan’s POS also allowed them to continue transacting in mall locations in case there were ever server/ network challenges.
With a unified commerce system, it's one transaction, one checkout. Not to forget returns which is now a major part of the customer’s experience and merchant’s journey. Today, with one scan PacSun can process return and refunds to the original payment or to store credit and create an upsell opportunity so customers can come back to the store.
“Some want to have their discovery online; some want to come to the store to engage, and some want to take a selfie and post on social media. Those are all your opportunities as a brand to make a connection and foster that relationship,” commented Shirley Gao.
Three Key Takeaways for Retailers
The experiences of Arc'teryx and PacSun offer valuable lessons for retailers aiming to implement Unified Commerce strategies: First, invest in technologies that facilitate seamless interactions between online and offline channels. The right solutions can equip staff with the knowledge and tools to deliver the best brand experience possible. Secondly, personalization: Utilize data analytics to deliver frictionless selling and offer personalized retail experiences, enhancing customer satisfaction, loyalty and profitability. And, finally, consolidate customer data from all channels and leverage advanced performance insights for smarter decision-making to gain a comprehensive understanding of shopping behaviors and preferences.
Arc'teryx and PacSun, have fully embraced Unified Commerce and are thriving in today's continuously evolving, competitive, marketplace. By integrating channels and focusing on personalized, seamless experiences, retailers can meet and exceed customer expectations, drive growth and foster long-term loyalty.
Ultimately, a store is not just a store anymore. It is a relationship, commerce, data-creation, entertainment and (most importantly) experience hub, and Unified Commerce enables brands to deliver all of this.
