What Is Kibo? Everything You Need to Know About the Commerce Platform

What Is Kibo? Everything You Need to Know About the Commerce Platform

What Is Kibo? Everything You Need to Know About the Commerce Platform

Kibo commerce is the only extensible, unified commerce platform that delivers personalized omnichannel experiences. We’re proud of our role in helping companies realize their omnichannel commerce goals, especially in such a dynamic market.

The past year has been a challenging one for retailers and brands who face the ongoing effects of the pandemic and continued changes in consumer behavior. As we emerge from this pivotal moment in time, retailers must be prepared for a renewed surge in retail sales combined with changing shopper expectations. 

The National Retail Federation recently predicted that retail sales will grow by up to 13.5%, reaching more than $4.4 trillion in 2021. As the economy (and consumer spending) bounce back, retailers are tasked with providing exceptional omnichannel experiences to consumers who’ve become experts at navigating both in-store and digital channels. Retailers must meet shoppers exactly where they are in the moment with personalized and connected shopper experiences.

That’s where Kibo comes in.

What Is Unified Commerce?

omnichannel retail vs unified commerce

Unified commerce is the proven way of delivering customer-first commerce. It connects all offline and digital retail sales channels and data sources via one centralized platform.

The goal of unified commerce is to create a single source of truth based on inter-woven and information-sharing commerce solutions that leverage customers’ transactional data. The Kibo platform enables a single order, customer, and user experience across all consumer touch points and experiences. 

From the consumer’s perspective, a successful unified commerce experience is seamless. They can move from one shopping touchpoint to the next and maintain the ability to finalize their purchase regardless of where their journey begins or ends. 

The Leading Unified Commerce Solution

The Kibo platform, used by leading brands like Office Depot, Sainsbury’s, Jelly Belly, and Adidas, operates on a single, continuously updated multi-tenant enterprise platform. We unify the entire shopper journey by providing: 

AI-Driven Personalization

Kibo is powered by Monetate and Certona, AI technology that enables marketers to achieve complex personalization across the full customer journey. A/B testing, product recommendations, and out-of-the box workflows can be implemented across all touch points including web, mobile, email, client apps, and call centers. 

Extensible Ecommerce

Kibo’s future-proof architecture is built for organizations at every stage of their ecommerce journey. Marketers can launch personalized customer experiences quickly with advanced out-of-the-box capabilities and easy-to-use workflows. 

Distributed Order Management

Kibo’s modern order management solution enables retailers to personalize the entire order lifecycle. This includes in-store and digital purchases. Our AI-powered decisioning engine optimizes order fulfillment with automated order routing. Retailers can create order routing rules through our business process manager and deploy role-based UIs and POS tools to empower stores to fulfill orders, adjust order routing rules, and react quickly to real-time conditions.

As the leading ecommerce solution provider, Kibo has been recognized as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Experience Optimization Platforms, Q4 2020, The Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites, Q2 2020, and The Forrester Wave™: Order Management Systems, Q2 2021.

Deliver Personalized Experiences

Personalization is important to shoppers. In a recent study, 62% of 5,000 consumers surveyed said it’s important for brands to personalize online and in-store retail experiences. The Kibo platform uses Monetate and Certona to power AI-driven personalization features across all touch points. For example, Kibo enables retailers to dynamically display relevant products and content to shoppers using various signals like location, past order history, and shopping behavior.

Personalization should go beyond one or two touchpoints. With Kibo, retailers can apply personalization to the entire customer journey, incorporating touchpoints like social media ads, product pages, shopping carts, and in-store interactions. We call this end-to-end personalization.

A Unified Platform Built for Technical Users

Kibo offers out-of-the box functionality for business users, but also supports the flexibility, scalability, and security that technical users demand. The platform’s modern microservices architecture makes it easy for tech teams to integrate their organization’s tools and technology into the Kibo stack.

Some key technical highlights include:

  • Multitenant cloud hosting for automatic, hassle-free updates
  • PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and SOC 3 compliant
  • API-first architecture built to integrate in your tech stack
  • Microservices model for flexible deployment and scaling
  • Kibo open-source SDKs to code in your preferred language
  • Kibo Marketplace for integration with 3rd-party services
  • Machine Learning capabilities
  • And more

Kibo is a microservices, multi-tenant SaaS platform. Our API-first approach to development makes it easy to integrate and launch applications quickly. The platform also fully enables headless commerce for those customers who want even more control. Finally, we take security seriously. We’re constantly enhancing the platform to improve extensibility, security, privacy, and scalability.

Who Owns Kibo?

Kibo is owned by Vista Equity Partners, an investment firm based in Austin, Texas. The Kibo platform was launched in 2016 after acquiring three commerce technologies—MarketLive, Shopatron, and Fiverun in 2015. Vista created a unified omnichannel commerce solution by combining the above three platforms into one go-to solution for retailers. Shortly after, Kibo purchased Baynote and Mozu. And in 2020, Kibo purchased Monetate and Certona, two leading personalization providers that enable Kibo’s AI-driven personalization features.

Headed by Vista’s CEO and Founder Robert F. Smith, an American investor, inventor, engineer, and philanthropist, Vista Equity Partners focuses their investments on enterprise software, data, and technology companies. Vista works closely with Kibo to collaborate, refine, and optimize our unified commerce approach and strategy.

Kibo is named after a volcanic peak and the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa. We chose this name as a reminder to aspire for greatness and reach new heights.

It also reminds us that we can’t achieve greatness alone. We’re dedicated to helping our clients reach their goals by focusing on collaboration, support, and our clients’ individual success.

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