How Ecommerce Tech Stack Consolidation Improves the Post-Purchase Experience

In today’s economic climate, ecommerce competition is only getting more brutal. It’s tempting as an online business owner to add a new tool to your tech stack to gain a competitive edge. 

But before you know it, those tools promising better loyalty programs or improved fraud detection number in the dozens. Then you risk falling into the trap described in a 2025 keynote by Wunderkind chief revenue officer Richard Jones: “We've been sold a dream that more technology equals better performance. But here we are drowning in tools, drowning in logins and dashboards.”

The solution? Consolidate your fragmented set of tools into a unified ecommerce tech stack. 

Besides reducing costs, you’ll centralize data, giving you a more complete picture of how your customers behave. Doing so will allow you to fine-tune the pre- and post-purchase customer experience for greater ROI.

Read this article and find out what ecommerce tech stack consolidation truly means, its core benefits, and how you can begin consolidating.

Typical components of an ecommerce tech stack

Mature ecommerce businesses usually include the following systems in their tech stacks. As these tech stacks become more multifaceted and fragmented, the benefits of consolidation become easier to understand. 

#1: Ecommerce platforms

Your online storefront is the core component of your tech stack. Other components are responsible for making the customer experience on ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce as frictionless as possible.

#2: Order and inventory management

Order management systems keep track of orders from multiple sales channels. These systems depend on inventory management systems, which keep track of real-time stock levels. Without inventory management, a customer might purchase an out-of-stock item, resulting in disappointment. 

Inventory management systems also use past sales patterns to help forecast demand.

#3: Payment gateways

Payment gateways provide a safe and secure pathway between your online store and customers’ chosen payment processors. 

Systems like Stripe, Square, and Shopify Payments offer this service while notifying customers when orders ship and arrive at their destinations.

#4: Fulfillment and shipping

If self-fulfillment is no longer an option for your ecommerce business, you’ll need to outsource it to a warehouse or series of warehouses. Your fulfillment partner will use software that automates picking, sorting, and shipping your products. Besides printing shipping labels at scale, the software should route orders to warehouses closest to customers’ shipping addresses.

This fulfillment software should also integrate easily with your payment gateways to provide customers with accurate shipping information.

#5: Customer service and support

A 2024 Gartner study found that 24% of Gen Z and 26% of Millennial shoppers surveyed will abandon customer support if they have to wait on hold for too long. Worse, they might abandon your brand altogether if hold times don’t decrease. 

With support software like Gladly or Gorgias in your tech stack, chatbots can handle routine inquiries, and you can route important customers to specific agents.

#6: Product information management

Customer support teams, warehouse personnel, marketers, and of course shoppers depend on accurate product information. Without it, marketers might create ads with misleading information, and customers could buy products that disappoint.

Product information management is especially important if you sell products across multiple channels, like Shopify, Meta, and Amazon. Tools like Plytix allow teams to update product data in a single platform and see it distributed to all channels where your products are available.

#7: Marketing automation tools

Email and SMS campaigns, review requests, push notifications, and social media posts are the lifeblood of customer engagement for ecommerce companies. You can manage each of these tactics with separate tools or consolidate them under a marketing automation tool like Klaviyo.

#8: Returns management

Returns are an expensive fact of life for retailers, and a pillar of the post-purchase customer experience. Customers expect returns to be fast, easy, and free. But if they’re not, these shoppers may take their business elsewhere.

With returns management software, returns don’t have to demolish your profit margins or alienate your customers. These tools allow customers to initiate a return online, choose an exchange instead of a refund, and receive store credit in minutes instead of days or weeks.

#9: Fraud detection

An unfortunate but necessary component of your ecommerce tech stack is fraud detection software. According to a 2024 study from Juniper Research, “The value of ecommerce fraud will rise from $44.3 billion in 2024 to $107 billion in 2029; a growth of 141%.”

Ecommerce fraud detection software monitors user behavior, analyzes transaction patterns, and flags suspicious emails and IP addresses. Although humans must sometimes intervene, these tools help prevent many unauthorized purchases and account takeovers.

#10: Product protection

Customers wishing to safeguard their products from accidental damage can purchase product protection at the point of sale. 

You’ll need a protection plan provider whose software integrates cleanly with your ecommerce platform and offers customers a quick, intuitive portal to manage claims.

#11: Shipping protection

Products may often be lost, damaged, or stolen before they even reach the customer. Shipping protection eases the stress related to these events. 

Like product protection, customers can purchase shipping protection at the point of sale. Customers also expect to file a claim without any friction, which is the responsibility of the software automating shipping protection.

#12: Data and analytics

Each platform in your tech stack most likely has some sort of dashboard that displays the results of its activities: unopened emails, customer service CSAT scores, number of delayed orders, and more.

The more dashboards you have to consult, the more difficult it can be to surface the most important insights or notice connections between data sets. Does a rising number of unopened emails correspond with a rising number of delayed orders? These customers may have decided not to engage with your communications out of frustration.

To address these concerns, many ecommerce companies add a data-centralizing tool to their tech stack. These tools absorb data from multiple sources to help teams make better decisions.

What ecommerce tech stack consolidation is and is not

Ecommerce tech stack consolidation is a strategic approach to auditing and integrating your digital tools. It targets situations like these, among many others:

• Your designated customer relationship management (CRM) platform can send marketing emails, while your email marketing platform has CRM capabilities. Do you need both tools?
• Your fraud detection tool only monitors ecommerce purchases — not returns, exchanges, or product and shipping protection claims.
• Your inventory management systems and package tracking software are separate and not integrated.
• You store critical customer and/or product data in separate databases, which may be inaccessible to employees who make important decisions.

If any of these situations applies to your business, your operational costs are likely higher than they need to be. And while consolidation can reduce these costs, you won’t fully realize its benefits until you understand what it doesn’t address.

What consolidation is not

Consolidation isn’t about cutting as many software solutions as possible. Instead, it’s about investing in platforms that add the most value. That means your consolidation strategy could falter if you approach it in either of these two ways:

• A one-and-done project: Ecommerce tech stack consolidation isn’t a one-time event but an ongoing process. As your business evolves, you may need to integrate new tools and trim outdated ones.
• A short-term fix to reduce costs: Sure, you’ll see immediate savings by removing unnecessary software subscriptions. But if you focus solely on cutting costs, you may overlook innovative technologies that can help your business scale.

You read that right. Consolidation might mean adding a tool to replace one that no longer adds value. Without this mindset, consolidation will hobble business growth.

Benefits of ecommerce tech stack consolidation

The outcome of tech stack consolidation is a more nimble business and consistent customer experience. Here are the benefits that lead to that outcome.

Unified ecommerce data

A key feature of a consolidated ecommerce tech stack is a “single source of truth,” or centralized hub, for critical business data. The goal? When an employee consults this database for a customer’s purchase history or the inventory level for a particular product, they always get accurate information.

A consolidated ecommerce tech stack eliminates confusion resulting from conflicting data stored in multiple automation tools. 

Without consolidation, you risk exposing your business to various conflicts, which can erode your customer relationships. Here are just a few:

• Separate online and in-store customer data. Suppose you balance physical stores with ecommerce but don’t link customers’ online purchase history with their in-store loyalty program data. Store associates unaware of a customer’s high lifetime value from shopping online are unlikely to give them an in-store experience worthy of that CLV. 
• Inventory data discrepancies across channels. If you outsource fulfillment, your ecommerce inventory must sync with your warehouses’ software. The last thing a customer wants is to purchase something online only to get a notification later saying the product is out of stock. 
• Customer service data not linked to sales data. Customers with high lifetime values expect a certain level of service when they call customer support or use live chat. If they don’t get it, they may question their loyalty to your brand. For this reason, customer support agents must be able to easily access data related to customers’ purchase history. 

Consolidating data analytics might mean investing in a business intelligence tool like Talend, which services retail ecommerce companies. Here’s how it works, followed by a use case.

Once you integrate your software tools with Talend, it centralizes data from “online search, web and brick-and-mortar purchases and returns, support inquiries, social media, and more.” That creates a 360-degree view of your customers, which updates in real-time as behaviors and preferences evolve.

Here’s an example:

• Say a customer buys an item online.
• When it arrives, the customer leaves a negative comment about it on Instagram.
• They return it to a physical store, only to find an item there they love. 
• The customer promotes the newfound item on TikTok, where it gets shared by hundreds of the customer’s followers. 

The sooner you pinpoint this development, the sooner you can pivot your marketing efforts to boost sales. You might respond this way:

• You quickly shift inventory to a warehouse that fulfills online orders.
• You launch an online promotion that incorporates the customer’s TikTok post. 
• To support this initiative, you shift resources away from promoting the item the customer returned to the store.

This, of course, is just a hypothetical example. The bottom line is that consolidated data plays a crucial role in helping drive customer satisfaction. Your customer base will reward you with the greatest benefit of all for ecommerce businesses: loyalty.

Cost Savings and Enhanced Employee Productivity

Ecommerce tech stack consolidation involves more than eliminating or merging redundant software solutions to save money on subscription fees. It also involves getting the most out of the systems you end up with. 

Underutilized systems indicate a lack of efficiency, which is money down the drain. After surveying 405 marketing leaders in 2023, Gartner learned respondents were only using 33% of their marketing tools’ capabilities. That’s a decline from 42% in 2022 and 58% in 2020.

Bloated tech stacks also diminish employee productivity. The more systems employees have to learn, the longer it will take them to get back to what they may have been hired to do in the first place, like selling products and building marketing campaigns.

High levels of productivity are also inseparable from the number of systems an employee must consult to accomplish a task. Suppose an employee wants to send a marketing email promoting a new product, and they have to consult these systems to put it together:

• MailChimp (build the email)
• Woocommerce (create a link in the ecommerce platform to embed in the email)
• Salesforce CRM (segment customers for the email and sync the list with MailChimp)
• Linnworks (check inventory levels before the email goes out, shift if needed)

Shopify Plus accomplishes each of these tasks in a single platform, reducing keystrokes and boosting employee efficiency.

Steps to begin ecommerce tech stack consolidation

Ecommerce technology stack consolidation requires careful planning and collaboration across teams. Follow these best practices for a successful transition.

#1: Audit Your Current Software Tools

Start by listing every tool your organization uses, from inventory management platforms to customer support software.

Then itemize all costs associated with each tool. These costs include monthly subscription fees, licenses, and IT troubleshooting hours.

Finally, list the features included with your existing software subscription tiers, highlighting those you actually use.

#2: Identify Redundancies and Must-Have Features

Flag tools where needed capabilities overlap. Say three out of your nine tools offer email marketing. You might be able to shift this feature to a less-expensive software platform that contains other must-have features.

Narrow down your list of must-have features by asking yourself questions like these:

• Is real-time inventory tracking non-negotiable?
• Do I need advanced data analytics or AI-driven personalization? 
• Should I prioritize shipping protection because my products are fragile?

Your answers will help you decide which tools to keep and which to cancel.

#3: Align Stakeholders and Set Goals

Once you have a draft of your consolidation strategy, send it to each of your teams, from marketing to sales to customer service. If they surface any pain points your strategy might cause, refine your strategy accordingly. 

For example, your director of sales might point out that your consolidated tech stack will prolong the sales cycle. You may need to keep a tool you were planning to cut.

#4: Develop a Phased Migration Plan

Phased migration minimizes disruption to business operations and gives teams time to adapt to new systems and workflows.

Say you need to migrate SMS marketing to a more comprehensive automation platform. Make sure you fully troubleshoot this integration before moving on to other business operations. Check for data consistency, user permissions, and performance.

#5: Monitor, Optimize, and Evolve Your Tech Stack as Needed

Again, ecommerce tech stack consolidation isn’t a one-and-done project. As your business needs evolve, so does your tech stack. 

Once you’ve fully implemented your consolidation strategy, continuously monitor performance metrics. Focus on conversion rate, order fulfillment times, CSAT scores, and post-purchase chargeback frequency. If any of these KPIs suffer, audit your consolidation strategy.

Consolidating your post-purchase tech stack

The pre-purchase journey is where customers are won; the post-purchase experience is where they are kept. 

Ecommerce tech stack consolidation can help you keep more customers while boosting the efficiency of your business.

Once an online shopper purchases an item, they can have several reasons to reach out to your business. We mentioned a few of those reasons at the outset:

• Product Protection. A customer usually purchases an optional protection plan with a product. If their product suffers accidental damage, like a pet stain, they can contact you to file a claim.

• Shipping Protection. Like product protection, a customer can purchase shipping protection at the point of sale. Should the shipping carrier damage the product, or if it goes missing, the customer can reach out to you to file a claim.
• Returns. Customers expect returns to be as easy as possible. You’ll need an online portal where customers can start a return and get instructions.

Any of the above post-purchase scenarios is subject to fraud. In addition to software systems that govern returns and protection plan claims, you also need a system to prevent fraud without alienating legitimate customers.

Without consolidating these systems, you risk situations like this:

• A customer suddenly starts returning multiple items.
• You flag the returns for manual review.
• You run the customer’s name and email through your fraud-detection platform and get a match for fraud.
• The same customer files a shipping protection claim using an AI-generated photo of product damage.
• Your fraud-detection software doesn’t integrate with your product and shipping protection systems, so the customer gets a second product for free.
• You then decide to manually review every third shipping protection claim to deter fraudsters. But this means delaying resolutions for customers with genuine claims.

The best way to avoid these scenarios is to consolidate these systems. You’ll un-silo data, reducing friction for honest customers and stopping more types of fraud.

Extend has a solution for post-purchase tech stack consolidation

Extend already offers ecommerce brands both product and shipping protection. Customers who purchase them get peace of mind knowing they have options in case of product loss or damage. They also get the delight of an intuitive and speedy online claim resolution.

Now Extend offers merchants the added advantage of post-purchase fraud detection, under the same roof as their protection plans and returns management. Shoppers used to seamless claim resolution won’t be disappointed by delayed orders due to inefficient fraud detection.

Extend automates the review of images sent with claims, blocking falsified images and flagging suspicious customers who use fake names, email addresses, and phone numbers.

To learn more about Extend’s new features and how they can benefit your ecommerce store, click here to schedule a demo.