As the President of an eCommerce-focused Microsoft Partner, Mike Bolton has spent the past 16 years following the industry’s growth closely.

“(eCommerce) is our art, it’s our focus, and it’s our practice,” he tells PartnerTalks.

Bolton heads Evenica, an organization that leverages Dynamics 365 Commerce to provide B2C retailers with a cloud-based, omnichannel eCommerce experience. With retail clients spanning a range of sectors, from professional sports brands to alcohol retailers, Bolton has learned how to build value for a variety of consumers.

Customers’ personal experiences are, he has found, paramount.

Increasingly, customers expect brands and retailers to use technology to engage with them in "meaningful" ways. They like big-box stores to emphasize checkout speed and convenience, whereas shoppers at specialty stores prefer technologies that provide a richer, more customizable experience.

The Kearney Consumer Institute found that by implementing Augmented Reality (AR), Mobile Point of Sale (MPoS), Cashierless Checkout and Interactive Screens – all of which Dynamics 365 Commerce supports in its solution, either natively or through integration – retailers can successfully bridge the gap between consumers’ expectations and experiences.

Bolton says that Microsoft’s innovations offer his company a host of opportunities to grow.

“We’re building relationships (with consumers) in a holistic, omnichannel way,” he says.

Evenica uses the Microsoft stack to leverage the proliferation of consumers’ IoT-connected devices. In the future, Bolton says Evenica will work with Microsoft’s soon-to-be-released Dynamics 365 Commerce B2B solution as well.

For now, through the Microsoft stack, Evenica grows customers’ engagement by using advanced analytics to understand, predict, and better serve them.

By synergizing mobile apps with websites and in-store smart screens, Bolton tells PartnerTalks that Evenica builds a seamlessly-personalized customer experience.

“Imagine walking into a store and being shown where to go to find the products you’ve liked online through digital displays,” he says. “That creates a very powerful customer engagement.”

Emerging research also indicates that it builds powerful customer loyalty