Unified commerce is a response to the current challenges faced by franchise organizations
Today's consumers expect convenience. They want to order and pay effortlessly, and return or exchange products just as easily—whether they shop online or in-store. For an independent retailer, delivering a seamless and consistent customer experience is already a significant challenge. For franchise organizations, there can be an additional layer of complexity.
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Get advice from one of our payment expertsThe Netherlands is home to nearly 1,000 franchise organizations. Just under half of them operate in retail and hospitality, accounting for around 20,000 locations in total. Consumers generally perceive a franchise’s physical stores and online channels as a single entity. When they order online, collect an item in one store, and later return it at another location, it should feel like one seamless, continuous transaction with the same organization. According to the trend report Trends in Consumer Behavior That Are Impacting Franchises by FranExpo, omnichannel is no longer a differentiating service—it has become a basic requirement for franchise brands to remain relevant. Yet for franchise organizations themselves, implementing omnichannel or unified commerce is often far from straightforward.
One Brand, Multiple Stakeholders
Consumers see a single brand, but behind the scenes the organization often consists of multiple stakeholders and processes. Different franchisees and locations, separate payment flows and contracts, and systems and reporting tools that do not always integrate seamlessly. This is precisely where many franchise organizations face challenges. How do you give franchisees the freedom to run their business while maintaining control and ensuring a seamless, consistent customer experience? The success of a franchise model lies in finding the right balance between centralized governance and decentralized flexibility.
Franchisors and franchisees generally share the same overarching objective: building customer loyalty and achieving sustainable growth. However, when you look closer, their challenges differ. For franchisors, it is crucial to maintain control over brand consistency and quality, gain centralized visibility into data and performance, and roll out innovations across the entire network. Franchisees, on the other hand, want the freedom to operate as independently as possible, with minimal administrative and operational complexity, while being able to respond quickly to evolving customer expectations. In Transforming the Traditional Franchise Model, commerce platform Sitoo explains how franchise organizations are increasingly looking for ways to combine centralized control with local flexibility. It is within this balance of interests that concepts such as unified commerce and a centralized payment environment are becoming increasingly important.
The Backbone of the Franchise Model
In an organization where many different elements come together, implementing a unified commerce environment is far more than an operational matter. A centralized platform can serve as the backbone of the entire franchise model. It is where payments, order flows, reporting, and customer data converge. For the central organization, this provides a clear overview of overall performance and real-time insight into revenue at the location level. It also creates the foundation for introducing and managing payment methods quickly and in a controlled manner. For franchise organizations where each location or channel uses its own payment solutions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver a consistent payment experience and offer the same range of payment methods everywhere. New developments and payment methods, such as Wero, can be made available centrally and activated as needed, without requiring individual rollouts at every location. For franchisees, this translates into greater convenience, flexibility, and speed, with fewer disconnected systems, less administrative work, and faster operational readiness.
How Bakker Bart Benefits from Unified Commerce
A centrally managed unified commerce approach creates a commerce infrastructure that gives franchisees the flexibility to adapt to changing market developments and customer expectations. A strong example is Bakker Bart, part of Vital Food Group. Within the franchise, there was a growing need for a scalable way to manage digital ordering and payment moments across multiple locations. Digital ordering kiosks and self-service concepts not only improve convenience for customers but also contribute to higher average order values and faster customer throughput during peak periods, such as the lunchtime rush.
By operating through a single centralized payment platform, Bakker Bart gained greater visibility into transactions and revenue per location, reporting became more consistent, and new franchisees could be onboarded more quickly. At the same time, customers enjoyed a familiar and consistent payment experience regardless of the location they visited or the way they placed their order.
This case demonstrates how a unified commerce approach can positively impact many different aspects of a franchise operation. The centralized environment enables new stores to open and become operational quickly. Franchisees no longer need to manage multiple contracts and payment providers. All payments are processed through a single platform under one contract. According to Vital Food Group, this allows entrepreneurs to focus on what truly matters: their store and their customers.
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Growth Requires Alignment
Ultimately, unified commerce in a franchise environment is about much more than technology. In fact, it is hardly about technology at all. The real question is how a franchise network can scale efficiently without creating unnecessary complexity. Franchisees need the freedom to run their businesses independently, while consumers expect a consistent and seamless experience regardless of the channel or location. At the same time, franchisors need to maintain control over brand standards, quality, and performance. For an increasing number of franchise organizations, unified commerce is the answer to that challenge.
Curious how your franchise organization can create the conditions for controlled growth without losing control of brand consistency, quality, and the customer experience? Discover how Buckaroo supports franchise networks with centralized payment management across all channels and locations. This gives headquarters real-time insights and centralized reporting, while franchisees benefit from faster onboarding, reduced administrative burden, and a single contract.
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