commercetools releases InStore app for omnichannel selling

by | Jan 20, 2025 | E-commerce News

commercetools announced Instore, a new application that brings its composable commerce capabilities into physical stores. With the addition, the platform now lets enterprise retailers power their online and offline shopping experiences with a single platform.

Key benefits of commercetools InStore include:

  • A unified backend to manage pricing, promotions, products, carts, and orders across all channels. 
  • The ability to replace multiple systems with one solution to reduce operational expenses. 
  • Cross-channel customer journeys to improve loyalty and revenue. 
  • Handles physical devices like cash drawers, safes, printers, payment devices, and scanners.
  • Processes refunds without receipts purchased in any channel.
  • In-store features like mobile checkout, personalized recommendations, and real-time inventory tracking.
  • Improved in-store customer service, as associates are equipped with tools to help customers based on their profile and purchase history.

Sounds great, but I questioned one statement on InStore's landing page

“commercetools is the first and only commerce platform to seamlessly unify digital and physical store operations. Our powerful industry-leading solution enables you to consolidate all your product information, customer data and sales transactions onto a single backend, managing updates in real-time and providing accessibility across all customer-facing channels.”

First and only? Don't Shopify and other e-commerce platforms already offer integrated online stores & POS systems?

I was confused until Kelly Goetsch, COO of Pipe17, explained on LinkedIn: 

“It’s fundamentally different from all the other POS offerings, in that it allows retailers to use existing legacy POS (think NCR, Toshiba, etc.) and have those systems call back to commercetools APIs from the store. One channel, no re-training cashiers, no finicky iPads. Nobody has done this yet! Now commercetools truly has the only real omnichannel commerce product on the market.”

In other words, commercetools isn't locking merchants into their proprietary POS system with InStore. Very cool! Thanks for the simple explanation, Kelly. 

In other commercetools news this week… The company appointed Shiri Mosenzon Erez as chief product officer and Eric Speciel as chief customer officer. Shiri brings over 15 years of experience to the role, having previously served as chief product officer as Ocado Technology, where she led advancements in ecommerce logistics and supply chain solutions. Eric has more than 15 years of experience leading global SaaS companies such as PTC Zuora and Rapid7.

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