Consumers can buy through the online store, the app, a consultant's store or at a point of sale. This journey is also expanding to vending machines and autonomous retail operations.
For the company, each channel is an opportunity to be closer to the customer. But expanding points of sale requires connecting what happens in each of them to the management of the business.
The questions every new channel brings
Before opening a new channel, the operation needs to answer:
- how the order enters the operation;
- how the payment is tracked;
- which commercial rules apply;
- how the sale relates to inventory, distribution and the network.
When each channel answers these questions differently, parallel controls, manual checks and disconnected data start to appear. The IDBCONNECT core organizes this connection.
New channels, one common operational foundation
The IDB360 ecosystem brings e-commerce, consultant store, app and POS together around IDBCONNECT. Its evolution includes the ongoing integrations with vending machines and autonomous retail.
At the center of this architecture are orders, payments, inventory, commercial rules, network and commissions, along with integrations and fulfillment.
sales channel → IDBCONNECT core → order, payment, inventory, rules, network and commissions → consolidated data.
Each channel keeps its own characteristics. Connecting it to the core makes it possible to bring its information into management processes, according to the business model and the scope of the integration.
The company can then plan new channels considering both the purchasing experience and the structure required to sustain them.
Autonomous retail also needs control
A purchase without in-person service still involves products, availability, payment and replenishment.
A vending machine creates a touchpoint with the consumer in a different environment. For the company, this opportunity needs to come with processes that make it possible to manage the channel.
The same applies to autonomous retail: the experience may happen in a different way, but the operation still needs management.
IDB360 is advancing these integrations to expand the possibilities of the IDBCONNECT ecosystem, connecting new sales formats to the structure of the business. Because this is an evolving front, the scope of each integration is assessed according to the project and the partners involved.
Channels connected to the company's strategy
For direct selling, multi-level marketing, affiliate and commercial network companies, new channels need to coexist with the relationships and rules that sustain the operation.
When the model includes sales attribution, network participation or commissions, these conditions should be part of the integration design — not handled after the channel is already running.
Consolidating information also creates a foundation to track indicators, feed BI and operational intelligence, and understand the role of each channel in the operation.
Expand where it makes sense for your customer
The next channel should be chosen based on your audience, your products and your operational capacity. Not every channel makes sense for every business — and each one needs to be connected to the same management foundation.
Your brand. Your operation. Our technology.