The cost of complexity: What lifestyle retailers stand to gain from unified commerce

For years, having a custom tech stack has been a badge of honor for big retailers. A digital flex, signaling control, differentiation, and a deep understanding of your brand's specific needs. But in a warp-speed market where brands need to be able to evolve quickly, a custom tech stack has become an anchor—dragging down innovation, getting in the way of efficiency, and generally making life harder than it needs to be.

The future doesn't belong to the rigid and bespoke. It belongs to the agile, to the retailers who embrace unified commerce and ditch the convoluted code of custom systems for the effectiveness of a single platform. EY found that retailers see +150% quarterly growth in GMV by embracing a unified approach.

Unified commerce isn't just a buzzword— it's a lifeline for small businesses and legacy brands alike. It creates a seamless system where every interaction—online or in-store—shares data and enhances customer experiences, crucial in today's world of soaring customer expectations.

A fine jewelry brand shines after switching to unified 

Launched in Toronto in 2013, Mejuri started with a simple but disruptive vision: offer fine jewelry designed for daily wear. Since then Mejuri has carved out a unique niche in the market, promoting the concept of everyday luxury and operating on a direct-to-consumer model.

Mejuri has never balked at upending the status quo, regardless of whether it’s their products or the tech they use to sell. As they grew, they learned a valuable lesson about the cost of complexity. 

Before Shopify, Mejuri was wrestling with an entirely bespoke tech stack that included a custom ecommerce application, a custom payment service, and custom middleware to duct-tape it all together. This customized behemoth required its own team of support engineers to maintain. 

“We’re in the business of selling jewelry, not building custom tech,” said Rohit Nathany, chief digital officer at Mejuri. “When you looked under the hood, we were spending most of our time building and maintaining third-party integrations. We wanted to move fast, and our tech was becoming a blocker for us.” 

Rohit knew that simplification was the key to unlocking their growth potential. So, they embraced the philosophy of a unified system that worked out of the box—no building required. This meant less custom development, fewer headaches, and more resources to focus on the things that really matter, like crafting beautiful jewelry.

Says Rohit, “There is so much to be excited about from marketing to ecommerce to POS, it’s going to be a game-changer for us.”

A legacy outwear line closes the gap and cuts down on costs

Luxury UK-based outerwear brand Belstaff is ringing in more than a century in business, their signature leather jackets standing the test of time. Still, Belstaff faces many of the same challenges as Mejuri and other high-end brands when it comes to disconnected systems. With 12 stores and an expanding presence in the pop-up retail world, the iconic British brand needed a solution that could seamlessly bridge the gap between their online and offline operations.

Before unified commerce, the path to delivering this was paved with complexity and cost. As Navid Jilow, director of technology at Belstaff, explained, disparate systems required separate integrations to understand inventory.

“It meant paying someone to come in and integrate it for us. It also meant paying more for the software,” says Navid. “But all of that complexity is taken away because you've got the point of sale and online capability under one umbrella.”

Maintaining a custom tech stack would have resulted in increased costs and a drain on resources. The multitude of commerce tools available today forces businesses to allocate a larger portion of their budget to managing these systems.

Moving to a unified experience has also allowed Belstaff to provide customers with the seamless experience they want. With the “endless aisle” feature of the unified POS system that keeps inventory in sync across all channels, a sales associate can sell an item to an in-store customer and have it shipped to them. That means fewer customers being told an item is out-of-stock at a location. 

“If a customer purchases a jumper that’s in the store, and then a jacket but it’s in the warehouse, Shopify puts them together and manages the order all under one ecosystem,” says Navid. “We’ve been able to roll out an omnichannel experience to our customers.”

Belstaff’s switch to a unified approach using Shopify POS reaped significant rewards, including an extra $250,000 in sales in the first six months.

"We've got a platform and solution that gives us 99% of what we need, at a fraction of the cost of what others charge," Navid said. “We can't underestimate just how much easier that makes things.” 

The future of commerce is unified

With unified commerce, a retailer’s POS system becomes so much more than just a cash register. It's part of a central hub where everything comes together. It’s the key to creating that single unified view of the customer and the business.

Retailers need systems that work for them, not the other way around. And they’re increasingly deciding that unwieldy, complex custom solutions slow them down—43% of retailers in a survey said their desire for a unified platform pushed them toward Shopify POS.

Innovation thrives in the realm of simplicity. Just like Mejuri and Belstaff discovered, the beauty of unified commerce is that it allows retailers to focus on what they do best: creating wonderful products and meaningful experiences for their customers.