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The retail landscape has undergone a radical transformation. Today’s consumers are fully omnichannel, moving fluidly across sales channels without distinction. For franchise and cooperative networks, this shift presents both a significant opportunity and a considerable challenge.
While their decentralised structures can be a strength, they also complicate the delivery of a unified customer experience and consistent operational management. To succeed, these networks must align global strategies with local needs.
The unique challenges facing franchise and cooperative networks in the age of unified commerce
The rise of omnichannel commerce exposes several structural complexities within franchise and cooperative models:
- Diverse catalogues and local requirements
While a shared core product range often exists, individual stores may supplement their offerings with products from local suppliers to better meet customer expectations. Balancing this local flexibility with the need for a consistent online shopping experience remains a constant challenge.
- Independent pricing
Franchisees and cooperative members often have the autonomy to set their own prices. While this allows for local agility, it can lead to price discrepancies that confuse or frustrate consumers.
- Decentralised inventory management
Inventory is typically managed at the store level, sometimes alongside a central warehouse. This decentralisation makes it more difficult to maintain real-time visibility of product availability and to coordinate cross-channel orders effectively.
- Inconsistent service activation
Services such as Reserve & Collect, Click & Collect, or delivery may be enabled at some stores and not others, depending on individual store capacity and strategy. These inconsistencies must be reflected in the online customer journey to avoid confusion.
- Custom service schedules
Each store operates with different preparation times and service windows, based on internal operations and staffing.
- Complex commission sharing across stakeholders
When a purchase involves multiple entities—such as a sale made in one location, stock supplied by another, and delivery fulfilled by a third—fairly distributing commissions can be operationally complex.
- Timely fund distribution
When a store contributes inventory for a sale completed through a different channel, it's essential that it quickly receives the corresponding funds to maintain healthy cash flow.
- Fragmented customer journey
Consumers expect a simple, straightforward experience. They want to browse a diverse catalogue, create a single basket containing items from multiple sources (stores, central warehouse), and complete one payment—without being affected by the underlying operational complexity.
Planet’s unified commerce: Expert solutions for franchise and cooperative retail
With deep sector expertise and powerful capabilities, Planet Unified Commerce delivers practical answers to these omnichannel challenges:
- Flexible, unified catalogue management
Our platform supports a central catalogue while allowing each store to showcase local product additions. This ensures customers see a consistent, consolidated view of available products, while respecting the uniqueness of each location.
- Store-specific pricing configuration
Planet Unified Commerce supports localised pricing strategies tailored to each franchisee or cooperative member—while still enabling brand-wide pricing consistency when required. This flexibility ensures alignment with local market conditions.
- Sales context creation
Set up tailored sales contexts that govern pricing, service availability, and stock strategy by country, sales channel, or store cluster.
- Centralised visibility of decentralised inventory
Real-time insight into inventory across all stores and warehouses, with awareness of activated services (like click & collect or ship-from-store), helps prioritise stock availability and improve fulfilment—regardless of the purchase channel.
- Store-level service configuration
Services such as reservation, delivery, or in-store collection can be enabled or disabled per store. This allows individual locations to retain control while ensuring customers are informed of exactly which services are available.
- Multi-actor commission tracking
The system tracks the role of each stakeholder in a transaction—whether selling, supplying, or delivering—and applies transparent, automated commission rules.
- Automated financial flow management
Planet’s unified commerce identifies the source of inventory and origin of sales, enabling fast and accurate transfer of funds to contributing stores. This supports stronger cash flow and financial clarity.
- Unified shopping experience and basket
Customers can browse an extensive, multi-source catalogue, build a single basket, and make one payment. Behind the scenes, the platform manages all order and payment distribution efficiently across network participants.
Planet’s unified commerce: powering your omnichannel success
In the evolving landscape of unified commerce, Planet’s unified commerce stands out as the expert solution for franchise and cooperative networks.
By offering a flexible, centralised platform built around the customer experience, we empower you to optimise operations, drive performance, and turn structural complexity into a competitive advantage.
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