Omnichannel Personalization and Unified Commerce for Retail: Salesforce Experience Design in Action

In today’s retail landscape, the line between digital and physical shopping has all but disappeared. Customers expect to browse online, engage on social media, and visit stores—often in a single journey—while receiving a seamless, personalized experience at every touchpoint. For retailers, the challenge is not just to keep up, but to lead: delivering unified commerce and omnichannel personalization that drive sales, foster loyalty, and accelerate innovation. Publicis Sapient’s Salesforce Experience Design offering is purpose-built to help retail brands meet these demands, consolidating digital and physical experiences into a single, cohesive journey.

Retail is now a battleground of choice, convenience, and connection. Consumers are always shopping, moving fluidly between channels. Yet, many retailers are held back by fragmented systems, siloed data, and inconsistent experiences—resulting in lost sales, low loyalty, and missed opportunities for growth. Publicis Sapient addresses these challenges by integrating Salesforce Commerce, Marketing, and Service Clouds, enabling retailers to:

• Deliver consistent, high-quality experiences across every channel
• Personalize interactions at scale, from first touch to post-purchase
• Unify data and operations for a single view of the customer
• Accelerate time to market with agile, experience-led delivery

Our Salesforce Experience Design process is rooted in experience-led transformation, not just technology implementation. We start by understanding your customers’ needs and your business goals, then rapidly deliver value through a proven three-step process:

1. Envision the Experience: Through collaborative workshops, we map current and future states, surface pain points, and align on business objectives. This sets the stage for a transformation that’s both ambitious and achievable.
2. Plan and Prove It Fast: We identify high-value opportunities—such as optimizing returns, enabling buy-online-pickup-in-store, or launching conversational commerce—and deliver a minimum viable product (MVP) in as little as three months.
3. Build, Iterate, and Scale: Using agile methods, we continuously enhance the experience, informed by real user feedback and business outcomes. This ensures ongoing innovation and measurable impact.

Personalization is the new standard in retail. With Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Data Cloud, we help retailers orchestrate data across every touchpoint, enabling:

• Unified customer profiles that consolidate online, in-store, and social interactions
• Hyper-relevant offers and messaging tailored to individual preferences
• Real-time engagement on platforms like WhatsApp, TikTok, and Meta, driving higher conversion and loyalty

For example, a leading British grocer partnered with Publicis Sapient to launch Marketing Cloud WhatsApp integration, turbocharging customer engagement and boosting their omnichannel marketing presence. By leveraging first-party data and AI-driven insights, the grocer delivers timely, personalized communications that resonate with customers wherever they are.

Unified commerce is about more than connecting systems—it’s about creating a seamless journey from discovery to purchase to service. By integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud with Service and Marketing Clouds, retailers can:

• Enable frictionless shopping experiences, such as curbside pickup, scan-and-go, and mobile checkout
• Streamline order management and fulfillment across channels
• Empower service teams with a 360-degree view of the customer, enabling proactive support and loyalty-building interactions

A top British grocer, for instance, transformed its e-commerce and marketing strategies with Publicis Sapient, implementing a modern headless commerce platform and integrating call center operations. The result: a flexible, omnichannel experience that attracts new customers and improves service efficiency.

• Leading British Grocer: After separating from its parent company, this grocer needed a digital transformation that would not disrupt operations or customer experience. Publicis Sapient delivered a modern headless e-commerce platform, digital experiences to attract new customers, and a transformed call center—integrating Service, Commerce, and Marketing Clouds for a seamless omnichannel journey.
• Global Consumer Beauty Brand: With a vast portfolio of brands across geographies, this beauty leader needed a common e-commerce platform. Publicis Sapient defined the technology strategy, orchestrated delivery, and set up a scaled agile product organization. The result: rapid campaign launches, continuous innovation, and ongoing support for 17 personal care brands, all powered by Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
• Luxury Luggage Brand: By codifying their brand into a digital design system and launching a new e-commerce platform, the retailer achieved a 17% increase in sales, 39% growth in traffic, and 5% more new customers year-over-year.
• Major U.S. Convenience Retailer: Implementing reusable design components and a new front-end architecture led to a 25% improvement in developer efficiency, a 90% reduction in defect rates, and a 30% improvement in delivery velocity.

Retailers looking to consolidate digital and physical experiences can take these actionable steps:

1. Start with the Customer: Engage stakeholders to understand needs and pain points across the journey.
2. Map Value Pools: Identify and prioritize experience gaps—such as returns, in-store pickup, or conversational commerce—that offer the greatest business value.
3. Leverage Agile Delivery: Use iterative sprints to deliver quick wins, gather feedback, and continuously improve.
4. Measure What Matters: Define clear KPIs for adoption, satisfaction, and business outcomes, and track them rigorously.
5. Foster a Culture of Learning: Encourage experimentation and adapt quickly to changing customer expectations.

With over three decades of experience in digital business transformation and a deep partnership with Salesforce, Publicis Sapient brings together strategy, design, engineering, and data to deliver holistic, human-centered solutions for retail. Our agile, data-driven approach ensures your Salesforce investment delivers not just technical capability, but real, measurable value—faster time to market, higher adoption, and lasting customer loyalty.

Relevant Links

• Leveraging Salesforce and Direct-to-Consumer Strategies for Enhanced Customer Engagement in Retail
• L’avenir du commerce de détail européen : Personnalisation omnicanale et transformation de l’expérience avec Salesforce et Publicis Sapient (Europe)
• L’avenir du commerce de détail européen : Personnalisation omnicanale et transformation de l’expérience avec Salesforce et Publicis Sapient (Europe)
• Leveraging Salesforce and Direct-to-Consumer Strategies for Enhanced Customer Engagement in Retail
• La Nueva Frontera del Retail en América Latina: Personalización Omnicanal y Experiencia Unificada con Salesforce y Publicis Sapient (LATAM)
• La Nueva Frontera del Retail en América Latina: Personalización Omnicanal y Experiencia Unificada con Salesforce y Publicis Sapient (LATAM)
• Composable Commerce for Consumer Products: Accelerating Brand Launches and Personalization at Scale
• Regional Deep Dive: How Composable Commerce and Salesforce Are Transforming European Retail
• La Nueva Frontera del Retail en América Latina: Personalización Omnicanal y Experiencia Unificada con Salesforce y Publicis Sapient (LATAM)
• Industry Spotlight: Salesforce-Powered Digital Transformation in Financial Services