Venditan Commerce: The 2023 highlights

Offer a Delivery Pass

We added the ability to offer your customers a 365-day ‘Delivery Pass’, enabling them to enjoy free or discounted delivery throughout the year.

First developed for Sigma Sports, they allow account-holding customers to receive free nominated day delivery on all orders over £30 for an introductory price of £9.99.

How it works

Customers must hold an account with the retailer and be logged in. If their basket total exceeds the configured threshold, they will be shown the Delivery Pass banner during checkout, prompting them to add the pass to their order.

The pass is therefore purchased during checkout, and customers receive an email upon successfully purchasing it.

Once the customer has successfully bought a Delivery Pass, their account is tagged in Venditan Commerce’s CRM, allowing the retailer to offer the advertised free or discounted delivery services in the future.

The price for the Delivery Pass and the threshold spend required for the pass to apply can be configured from within Venditan Commerce. This courier-agnostic feature allows the Venditan Commerce user to determine which delivery services are discounted or made complimentary.

Benefits

​​Offering a Delivery Pass can be a unique selling point and a competitive advantage. It differentiates the retailer from competitors and attracts customers who value the convenience and cost savings associated with free delivery.

Delivery Pass purchasers are likely to become more loyal to the brand as they have already committed to a long-term relationship through the purchase. This can lead to repeat business and increased customer retention.

Customers who have already paid for a Delivery Pass may be more inclined to make larger and more frequent purchases to maximise the benefits of their purchase, leading to a higher average order value.

Display urgency overlays

Automatically overlay urgency-building callouts across Product Listing Pages (PLPs) and Product Detail Pages (PDPs) when specific products are in high demand.

How it works

To begin, Venditan Commerce users can establish their criteria for products deemed as 'selling fast.' This means that when a certain quantity of a product is sold over the specified time frame (X hours or days), Venditan Commerce will automatically tag the product.

This tag triggers a 'Selling Fast' message to overlay automatically on the PLPs and PDPs. The message is fully editable and can be customised based on the preferences of the Venditan Commerce user.

The same principle can be applied to address other callout objects, such as displaying low-stock warnings as well.

Benefits

The implementation of an automated urgency-building system with callouts creates a sense of urgency among customers, encouraging quicker decision-making and potentially leading to increased conversion rates as customers rush to purchase before items run out.

Automation reduces the manual effort required to monitor and update product statuses. Retailers can set criteria once, and the system will automatically apply tags and overlay messages, saving time and resources that can be allocated elsewhere.

Enhancing our Loyalty Scheme feature

In 2023, we have made numerous additions and updates to enhance the capabilities of our points-based Loyalty Scheme within Venditan Commerce.

Loyalty Activity widget

Accessible from the Customer Detail screen, Venditan Commerce now features a Loyalty Activity widget. This tool enables users to more effectively monitor their customers' engagement with the loyalty scheme, providing clearer visibility into the accumulation and expenditure of loyalty points.

SMS updates

We have enhanced the communication capabilities for our clients to engage with customers enrolled in their loyalty scheme. Venditan Commerce now enables the sending of SMS text messages to customers when they've accumulated enough points to redeem a reward.

This feature addresses the challenge faced by some of our clients, where loyalty program users would accumulate points but either remain inactive or not reach the reward threshold, or simply overlook their available rewards. Please note that SMS costs apply.

Schedule SMS and email reminders 

Venditan Commerce users can schedule SMS and email reminders, which serve as gentle nudges to remind customers about their accumulated loyalty points or rewards. This helps in re-engaging customers with the loyalty program and encourages them to continue participating.

Restrict point accrual to specific customer types

Loyalty point accrual can now be restricted to specific customer types. Targeting loyalty points to specific customer types can help control costs associated with the program. 

Businesses can focus their resources on rewarding and retaining high-value customers, rather than providing the same benefits to all customers regardless of their contribution to the business.

Updates to our EPOS software

We have also been hard at work on our EPOS software, adding more features and functionality to keep our in-store solution at the forefront of its capabilities.

Improved app update functionality

We have made substantial enhancements to the functionality responsible for deploying software updates to the tills in-store. These updates improve the speed and flexibility of the updates that we make; we can roll out updates to specific client tills, groups of clients, or to all of our clients depending upon our objective.

Retrieve card metadata

In-store transactions can now retrieve card metadata, such as the card scheme. This data is captured and reported in Venditan Commerce, accessible on the transaction detail screen.

Understanding the card schemes preferred by customers allows retailers to optimise their payment processing systems. They can prioritise and streamline the acceptance of the most commonly used cards, ensuring a smoother and more efficient checkout process.

Remove automatically applied offers

We have implemented functionality that allows for the removal of automatically applied offers from till transactions.

Scenarios may arise where the store clerk would like to remove an automatically applied offer so that they can manually set their own price or discount. For example, if they want to sell an imperfect item at a set price or give a special price to a VIP customer.

In such cases, a 'Remove Offers' button is presented to the EPOS user on the transaction payment screen. This button empowers them to disregard automatically applied offers, providing flexibility and customisation in managing in-store promotions.

Collect data from non-customer transactions

Email marketing consent can now be collected from non-account-holding customer transactions, i.e., in-store customers who do not have a full customer account with the retailer.

When collecting the customer’s email address to process an eReceipt, the clerk can ask the customer if they want to consent to marketing and then tick the checkbox on the EPOS modal accordingly.

Swap Delivery Notes for Gift Receipts

When customers place an order intended as a gift to be directly sent to the recipient, they now have the option to exclude the delivery note from the packaging and instead include a gift receipt.

How it works

The customer is presented with a simple checkbox option during the checkout process:

When the order arrives in Venditan Commerce it displays a gift icon next to the order number, notifying the warehouse team of the customer’s preference for a Gift Receipt.

From there, they can simply Print a Gift Invoice and use it when packaging the order.

Benefits

This solution enables customers to send a gift directly to the recipient without including the standard Delivery Note, ensuring that the price of the gift remains undisclosed to the recipient.

Moreover, it offers clear visibility of the customer’s request in the Venditan Commerce user interface and streamlines the process, making it as easy as possible for them to print the gift receipt directly from the order view screen.

Highlighted integrations

We have integrated with many new technologies over the past year, here, we take a look at three in particular.

Klaviyo

Venditan Commerce is seamlessly integrated with Klaviyo, facilitating bidirectional data synchronisation between the two platforms.

Klaviyo, a widely-used marketing automation platform tailored for eCommerce businesses, empowers enterprises to craft and oversee targeted email marketing campaigns, automate various facets of the customer lifecycle, and gain valuable insights into customer behaviour.

By incorporating Klaviyo events on their website, our clients can now track and monitor any activity stemming from their Klaviyo campaigns comprehensively. This tracking encompasses key metrics such as email marketing opt-ins, wishlist additions, placed orders, fulfilled orders, and the specific products ordered.

Through this integration, all pertinent information is synchronised back into the Klaviyo system, empowering our customers to analyse user profiles enriched with data detailing their journey across the website.

Furthermore, we've seamlessly integrated Klaviyo into Venditan Commerce Retail, enabling customers to opt in when requesting eReceipts.

Klarna

We began rolling out the buy-now-pay-later solution Klarna in Q1 of this year.

Their ‘Pay in 3’ product allows customers to spread the cost of a purchase into three interest-free instalments, while ‘Pay in 30 days’ gives a 30-day interest-free window to make the payment in full.

Merchants are now able to integrate one or all of Klarna’s products into their eCommerce websites.

Go-Certify

In Q1 of this year, we announced our integration with GoCertify.

GoCertify facilitates the verification of specific user groups, ensuring their identity is validated before they can use any discount codes.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in web browser tools automatically applying discounts at the checkout of eCommerce websites, posing challenges for both online retailers and their customers. 

The potential revenue loss from selling items at discounted prices is apparent, compounded by the fact that these codes are often intended for specific deserving user groups.