Here, we are going to talk about a new Store Commerce app which has recently been released in the Microsoft Store. We are going to delve into an overview of the new Store Commerce, what the functionality is supported by the Store Commerce app and then, we will slide to the benefits.
Store Commerce App Overview
Store Commerce app aims to deliver a rich and immersive experience for the first-line workers such as cashiers, sales associates, inventory associates, stock clerks, and store managers improving customer serving as well as streamlining store operations. Since it has a flexible architecture, Store Commerce is designed to support multiple platforms and form-factors while being easy to deploy, configure, implement, and operate. Supported features include:
- POS;
- Cash and Shift Management;
- Customer Engagement and Loyalty Programs;
- cash-and-carry transactions;
- Clienteling;
- assisted selling;
- Staff, Task, and Operations Management;
- Product Recommendations;
- endless aisle;
- Order Processing & Fulfilment;
- Inventory Management;
- Reporting;
- And more.
The app supports local hardware stations as well, which unleashes an ability to be directly integrated with a payment terminal, printer, and cash drawer. In other words, there is no need for you or the team to configure a shared hardware station in order to use hardware devices.
Needless to say that for the user interface rendering purposes, the app uses the chromium engine instead of the Universal Windows Platform (also known as UWP) app rendering framework. The engine shows better rendering performance than the native JavaScript UWP app in Windows.
Furthermore, it has got simplified application lifecycle management (i.e. ALM) and ISV code developed for MPOS or CPOS to be reused in Store Commerce. Hence, Store commerce provides the benefits of both MPOS and CPOS which eventually gives better performance and effortless POS and extension upgrades. And, finally, you will get HWS dedicated hardware support; and offline support, in the near future.
Customization Capabilities
Store Commerce App can be customized through POS extension support provided by a software development kit (SDK). Organizations may create and modify the POS user experience, out-of-box functionality, add validations as well as custom features.
Keep in mind that any extensions developed through Retail SDK will work for CPOS, MPOS, and Store Commerce. But, the way the extension is developed, packaged, and deployed by MPOS/CPOS may differ. Since Store Commerce renders CPOS, you shall follow CPOS packaging and deployment options to deploy Store Commerce extensions.
Store Commerce or MPOS?
Store Commerce renders CPOS but has full parity with MPOS. Since Store Commerce and MPOS are Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps, they support local hardware station. However, Store Commerce is not supported offline, however will be in the near future.
Store Commerce uses the Chromium engine to render the UI to provide better rendering performance than MPOS, simplifying ALM through Microsoft Store deployment. On the other side, MPOS is self-serviced using Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Service (LCS) and Commerce headquarters.
It is a matter of time before MPOS will be fully replaced by Store Commerce. Hence, if you don’t need offline support in your store, feel free to already start using Store Commerce instead of MPOS.