Modern gaming laptops are so good that eking every last drop of performance out of the hardware isn’t always necessary. Even so, gamers can take things even further with the MUX switch. This is now a fairly common piece of tech that could easily boost your gaming laptop’s performance by 10-15% in most cases. Stay tuned to find out how it works and why your next gaming laptop should have one.

Also read:Is AMD Ryzen... Read more

When social media giant Facebook (now Meta) purchased everyoneas favorite mobile messaging app WhatsApp, users were promised their data would be private and that they wouldnat be subject to the shady things that Mark Zuckerberg and crew are known for. As time has gone on, more and more privacy has been taken away from Whatsapp users in the name of “analytical data.”

Gone are the days when you could trust this app to be totally private and not expect to get data mined for valuable information a information that could easily be sold to advertisers. Here we show you the best alternatives to WhatsApp that actually respect your privacy.

Also read:How to Send Disappearing Messages in Popular Chat Apps

Donat let the name “Pretty Good Privacy” mislead you. PGP encryption is the gold standard for encrypted communication and has been used by everyone from nuclear activists to criminals since its invention in 1991. While the execution is complex, the concept is simple: you can encrypt text, making it unreadable to anyone who doesnat have the key to decode it.

Also read:Why Encryption Is Not Working on Windows 11 Home, and How to Fix It

How Does PGP Encryption Work?

Imagine you want to send someone a letter but donat want anyone except the recipient to be able to read it. The best way to... Read more

You’re probably looking at a very busy summer ahead. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a voice assistant in your car to help with appointments, shopping lists, and directions? You can get an Amazon Echo Auto with Alexa for under $20. You have to admit that’s a deal that’s hard to pass up.

The small device connects to the Alexa app on your phone using your car’s speakers via auxiliary input or a Bluetooth connection with your phone. It connects to your car via a vent mount. Amazon created it specifically to add convenience to your car trips, employing eight microphones and far-field technology to allow it to hear you over the traffic, your music, air conditioning, etc.

Your boredom with the same local radio stations ends here. You can control the Amazon Echo Auto through the Alexa app on your phone and ask it to stream Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, SiriusXM, Audible, and radio stations via TuneIn and iHeartRadio. Catch up on your favorite podcasts and be fully entertained.

Sometimes you may experience a steep rise in temperature or a sudden drop in performance while using your PC. It can be attributed to the various processes running in the background, specifically “Windows modules installer worker”, as it tends to eat up a huge chunk of CPU and disk resources. Luckily, there are many ways to fix this error. We discuss a few of them below.

Also read:How to Fix Wmpnetwk.exe High CPU and Memory Usage in Windows

What Is Windows Modules Installer Worker?

Windows Modules Installer Worker (also known as WMIW or TiWorker.exe) is an essential cog in the machinery of your operating system. Its... Read more

Gaming laptops are finally powerful and affordable enough to be viable systems for gaming enthusiasts. The thing is, they’re notoriously hard on battery life while gaming. While you’re not likely to get much game time playing the same way you do while plugged into the wall, there are some things you can do to make gaming, when you don’t have an outlet handy, last longer than 15 minutes.

Also read:Shut Down vs Sleep vs Hibernate vs Fast Startup: Windows... Read more

Being human means that we’re prone to forgetting. Fortunately, with the help of technology, it’s easy to stay on top of our to-do lists with minimal effort. One of the most convenient ways to remember everything on your list of chores is to set location-based reminders. Need to be reminded to call your great aunt on her birthday? You can instruct your phone to send an alert once you’ve made it to your favorite cafe for your lunch break. Creating location-based reminders like these is simple if you have an Android device, and this article looks at all the options for doing that.

Also read:How to... Read more

Do you remember the last time you upgraded your phone? Most daily use items in our lives need periodic refreshes or an all-out replacement on a regular basis. Your eCommerce website is no different. In the quickly evolving world of online selling, thousands of eCommerce sites are surprisingly still using SiteGenesis, a reference architecture created in 2009 by Demandware (an eCommerce company acquired by Salesforce in 2016, now known as Salesforce Commerce Cloud). You rarely see a first-generation iPhone anymore, and we believe your eCommerce site should be the same. This blog will cover why still being on SiteGenesis is a problem for your business and your customers.

To understand why relying on SiteGenesis is a problem, we must cover its history briefly. Like any other technology, it has gone through iterations; SiteGenesis 1.0 was developed for desktop storefronts in 2009 by Demandware. When 2.0 was created five years after the initial version, it introduced a responsive web application that included some basic tablet and mobile support to keep up with the times. After Salesforce had acquired Demandware, they released Mobile-First Reference Architecture (MFRA) as the next solution.

While this significantly changed the storefront architecture to better support mobile, the the reference architecture code for eCommerce was still intact. Finally, Salesforce Reference Architecture (SFRA) was released in 2018 as an alternative to SiteGenesis to catch up with the rest of the industry's progress.

So, what's the big deal? Didn't everyone make the upgrade? No. While the upgrade from SiteGenesis to SFRA isnat on the same level as a total replatform, it still requires significant time and effort to make the switch. Weare talking months and maybe even years if you have multiple brands and hundreds of geographies. The reality is, 60% of original SiteGenesis users are still stuck using this old technology. Keep reading to understand top challenges for brands using SiteGenesis.

Poor Support For Mobile Experiences

In 2015, mobile internet traffic overtook desktop traffic. Similarly, eCommerce transactions are increasingly on mobile devices. Statista predicts that 44% of all eCommerce will be mobile by 2025. So much so that most modern storefronts are 'mobile-first' designs to cater to the expectations of today's customers. Despite the updates, SiteGenesis still lacks native support for mobiles and tablets, making a mobile-first approach impossible to achieve.

With heavy customization work, SiteGenesis developers can deliver an operational mobile storefront. However, even these clever hacks have their drawbacks. With mobile visitors abandoning sites that take longer than 4s to load, attempting to improve their conversion rates is a losing battle. Losing out on mobile sales could cost your brand dearly with dollars left on the table.

See How Elastic Path Delivers Unique Customer Experiences

The Elastic Path Demo Library features multiple demos that showcase the power and scale of our products.

The Glass Ceiling of Poor Page Performance

The slow load times are one of the consequences of an old architecture that wasn't created with today's performance standards in mind. With a monolithic architecture, performance improvements are limited compared to a more modern componentized architecture built with scalability and speed in mind. Since a monolithic codebase is so tightly woven together and inter-reliant, developers can spend many hours shaving off milliseconds.

Still, it's unlikely to achieve site speeds in line with customer expectations without a modern architecture. Slow pages provide poor customer experiences and affect your brand's ability to succeed. In fact, with every second a page loads faster, conversions increase by an estimated 3-5%. To learn more about how site speed affects your store, check out our blog here.

No Code Extensions Cost Potential Revenue

Since the SiteGenesis architecture was created in 2009, there wasn't a need at the time to consider scalability or code extensions to support unique experiences, let alone a modern componentized architecture. Instead, developers need to clone templates and add code for new functionality like a shop the look experience to make any updates or add functionality. Duplicating code in a monolithic architecture has implications for site performance since every functionality in the codebase is heavily tied together (tightly coupled).

That also means that any updates that are made to an eCommerce store are slower to stand up since they need to be extensively tested with the entire system after a lengthy development process.

As a result, any innovation like adding a mobile self-checkout becomes extremely difficult and risky on SiteGenesis. Continuous improvement/ development, therefore, isn't a viable option on SiteGenesis. Trying to keep up with modern features like Buy Online Pick up In-Store (BOPIS) or adding a new payment gateway to cater to customers' demands becomes impossible.

Cost Implication of an Antiquated Architecture

On top of the inherent drawbacks of working with SiteGenesis to keep up with modern commerce needs, the cost of doing so is also significantly higher than modern architecture alternatives, like MACH. With longer development timelines and extensive testing, more resources must be attributed to any project. Which always means higher costs.

Overall resource hours aside, as proprietary software, SiteGenesis also requires brands still using it to find developers with increasingly rare and specialized skill sets. Typically, these developer resources are also more expensive to hire and drive the Total Cost of Ownership even higher. To learn more about TCO and how you can reduce yours, check out our guide here.

Are You Experiencing These Challenges?

So how do you get your SiteGenesis store past all these problems? Salesforce encourages customers on SiteGenesis to transition over to their newer SFRA. While SFRA does overcome significant issues with SiteGenesis, it still requires a large project to make the switch. And, once you do, you are still using monolithic architecture instead of MACH-based technology that supports a Composable Commerce approach.

If youare ready to upgrade SiteGenesis, wead suggest you consider looking at alternatives to Salesforce. At Elastic Path we offer a complete migration package from legacy Salesforce to our modern, MACH-based Elastic Path Commerce Cloud product. Check out our Salesforce Migration Guide to learn more.

Does your checkout need a checkup? For nearly all eCommerce businesses, the answer is an emphatic yes, according to Elastic Path partner, Stripe. In a recent study that surveyed leading B2B and B2B eCommerce sites and customers, Stripe discovered that 96% of sites in North America, as well as 95% in Asia-Pacific and 94% in Europe, had at least five basic errors in their checkouts. The problem not only spans regions but also organizations of all sizes, from startups to large, established eCommerce sites with teams focused on increasing conversions.

You might be wondering whatas so bad about a few minor checkout hiccups. It all comes down to friction. The longer and more complicated the checkout process, the more likely that customers will get frustrated and give up: 19%, or nearly 1 in 5, of the eCommerce customers in Stripeas study said theyad abandon a transaction if checking out took more than a minute. The numbers were even higher in Europe and Asia-Pacific, where 21% and 34% indicated they wouldnat stay. Even if customers manage to complete the purchase, they could end up leaving with a negative impression of your company which can negatively impact repeat purchases.

With all this in mind, itas clear that optimizing your checkout is critical to your eCommerce siteas growth and success. It can be a big task, but the sooner you start, the sooner youall reap the benefits. Just follow these steps.

Step 1: Identify Trouble Spots

Even small snags in the checkout process can have a big impact on customer frustration. Stripeas research found that the most common errors fall into four main categories:

Check Out Our Elastic Path Payments Product

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1. Checkout Form Design Minor optimizations such as address auto-complete, descriptive error messaging (i.e., alerting customers when they try to use invalid cards), and credit-card number formatting can speed the checkout process along and increase conversions. But Stripe found that nearly half of top businesses made at least three mistakes in this area, including 51% that didnat support auto-complete and 36% that didnat format numbers in blocks of four. 77% also did not offer an option to save payment information for future purchases, creating an obstacle to repeat business. 2. Mobile Optimization With 50% of customers doing most of their shopping from a mobile device, and more than 50% of all eCommerce traffic coming from smartphones, itas clear that mobile eCommerce is here to stay. However, shoppers abandon carts on mobile devices at more than twice the rate of desktop, often because of mobile-unfriendly practices that make checkout difficult. These include not supporting mobile wallets such as Apple Pay (76% of North American businesses surveyed) and Google Pay (88% of North American businesses surveyed), and not having a responsive form that automatically resizes for a mobile deviceas smaller screen. 3. Localization As eCommerce grows globallyait reached $26.7 trillion in 2021amore and more companies are finding they need to support purchases from international customers. This is where localization becomes important. A full 40% of customers outside the US and Canada prefer to pay with a method other than a credit card, such as a digital wallet or bank transfer, and expect sites to offer them the option to do so.

In a separate study, Stripe found that businesses enabling popular European payment methods saw a 40% increase in incremental sales. In addition, buy now, pay later methods such as Klarna and Afterpay not only appeal to international customers in Europe, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand but can help boost sales in the US and Canada by offering the ability to pay in installments.

4. Buyer Trust and Security Security during checkout is a delicate balance. Customers want a secure payment experience, but some security measures add time and friction to the process. One of the ways eCommerce websites can help alleviate the problem is by enabling customers to check out as guests, without collecting or storing their personal information. Another option is to allow customers to log in through their social media accounts, which keeps their information on a site they already trust. However, Stripe found that 18% of sites surveyed didnat allow guest checkout, and 90% didnat allow customers to check out by connecting to a social media profileaboth missed opportunities to build trust.

Step 2: Optimize and Correct

To optimize your checkout, youall first need to do an audit of your current process. To learn more, read the latest research from Edgar, Dunn & Company, commissioned by Stripe: The State of North American Checkouts in 2021. It covers in-depth detail about the five most common problem areas, including best practices and tips on what to look for. Once youave figured out where any issues lie, you can correct them, starting with the ones that are easiest to implement and will remove the greatest amount of friction.

Weave put together sixteen quadrants of top eCommerce vendors in these categories: eCommerce platforms, Search, Payment, Loyalty/Rewards, CMS, CRM, PIM, Conversational Commerce/Chatbots, ERP, Email Marketing, Social Media, System Integrators, Tax, Analytics, & OMS.a-a- a-

Whatas Driving Innovation?a-a-

• Using AI to cross and upsell, and visualize purchases (virtual dressing/show rooms)
• Subscription models
• Buying behavior influenced by a strong sustainability practice
• Multichannel customer support
• Personalized marketing
• Growing B2B segment with enabled automation
• Growing D2C segment

How to Stay Competitive:a-

• If you sell everything, youall end up selling nothing. Carve out your niche by knowing your customer. Successful brands create demand for their products by speaking to customers shared beliefs, lifestyles, and goals
• Map the customeras buying journey from end-to-end with specific touchpoints
• Monitor customer data and respond to it with testing and engagement
• Optimize the experience for all devices

Barriers to Entry:a-

• Taxing
• Customs
• Cybercrime, security issues
• Intellectual property issues

Why Do People Shop Online?a-a-

• Convenience
• Safety
• Faster/zero shipping
• Broader access to brands
• Reviews
• Better pricing

With So Many Pros to the Online Shopping Experience, What is a Major Drawback?a-a-

Not being able to touch, feel, or try a product prior to purchase (51%) followed by possible breakage, no physical store experience, no interaction, fraud, and delivery issues.

Source: 50 Consumers Online Shopping Behavior Trends [Survey] 2022 (brizfeel.com) a-

With the experience of online shopping driving its popularity and growth, brands must optimize the journey every step of the way. By removing friction points (simplified checkout, diverse payment options, quick loading pages, advanced search, mobile optimization), the path to purchase is easy. Leveraging loyalty programs, AI-powered technology to predict behavior, and merchandising options are crucial tools to conversion and retention.a-a-

How Are Customers Finding Brands?a-a-

In the initial brand awareness period, retail websites and physical stores (see showrooming), influence a customeras first pass at a product; however when the buying journey heats up it shifts to more word-of-mouth (product reviews) and social media (social proof) impacts.a-a-a-

What Are People Buying Online?a-a-

It may not be surprising to find that electronics and tech top the list for the most popular items purchased online, however, with a saturated market, niche items have emerged in popularity such as shapewear, travel accessories, and health and beauty products.a-a-

Source: 50 Top Trending Products To Sell Online in 2022 for High Profits (cloudways.com)a-

See How Elastic Path Delivers Unique Customer Experiences

The Elastic Path Demo Library features multiple demos that showcase the power and scale of our products.

eCommerce Platforms:

Adobe Commerce Cloud (Magento)a-

BigCommercea-

Commercetoolsa-a-

Ecwida-

Elastic Patha-a-a-

Fabrica-a-

Intershopa-

Kiboa-

Optimizelya-a-

Oraclea-

Salesforce Commerce Clouda-a-

SAP Commerce Clouda-

Shopifya-a-

VTEXa-

Wixa-a-

WooCommercea-

Search:

AddSearcha-

Algoliaa-

Amazon CloudSearcha-

Apache SOLRa-

Attracta-

Azure Cognitivea-a-

Bloomreacha-

Cludoa-

Commvaulta-

Constructora-

Coveoa-

Elasticsearcha-

FACT-Findera-

Funnelback a-

Google Clouda-

Handshake by Perficienta-a-

Hawksearcha-

Inbentaa-

Klevua-

LucidWorksa-

Prefixboxa-

Sajaria-

SearchSpringa-

Sinequaa-

SiteSearch360a-

Swiftypea-a-

Yexta-a-

Payments:

Adyena-

Affirma-a-

Afterpaya-

Atomea-a-

Authorize.neta-

Blackcarta-

BlueSnapa-a-

Bolta-a-

Braintreea-a-

Breada-a-

CardConnecta-

Catcha-a-

Checkout.coma-a-

Citcona-

Clickatella-

Computopa-a-

Cybersourcea-a-

Dalenysa-

Digital Rivera-

Epama-a-

ESWa-

Fat Zebraa-a-

Flagshipa-

Flowa-a-

HiPaya-

Humma-

Jifitia-a-

Katapulta-a-

Latitude Paya-

Limepaya-a-

LMSa-

Mercado Pagoa-a-

Norbra-a-

Novalneta-a-

Nuveia-a-

Openpaya-a-

Paidya-a-

Payment Clouda-

Payment Depota-

PayPala-

Payvisiona-a-

Penniesa-a-

Progressive Leasinga-

ProMerchanta-

Ravelina-a-

SeQuraa-a-

Sezzlea-

Solupaya-

Splitita-a-

Squarea-a-

Staxa-a-

Stripea-

Till Paymentsa-

Vynea-a-

Worldpaya-

Worldplaya-

Zipa-a-

Loyalty/Rewards:

Annex Clouda-

Antavoa-a-

Captain Upa-

Clutcha-

Clydea-

Cravera-

Datacandya-

Eagle Eyea-

Epsilona-

Five Starsa-

Giftbita-a-

Hashtag Loyaltya-

Highstreeta-

Influitivea-

Kangarooa-a-

LoopyLoyaltya-

Loyalty +a-

Maxxinga-

Narvara-a-

Open Loyaltya-a-

Plazaha-

Poqa-

Preferred Patron Loyaltya-

Punchha-

Qualtrics CustomerXMa-

SailPlaya-

Salesforce Experience Clouda-

Smilea-

Talon. Onea-

TapMangoa-

Unboxinga-

White Label Loyaltya-a-

Yotpoa-a-

Zinreloa-

CMS: a-

Acquiaa-

Airtablea-

Akeneoa-a-

Ampliencea-a-

BlogLINKa-a-

Bloomreacha-a-

Brand Makera-

Cloudinarya-a-

Contentfula-a-

Contentserva-a-

Contentstacka-a-

Core Mediaa-a-

Creatora-a-

e-Spirita-a-

Falcona-

Imgixa-

Issuua-

Kaljabia-

Kenticoa-a-

Klevua-a-

Live Storya-a-

Magnoliaa-

Market Pagea-a-

Mercauxa-a-

Pacenotesa-a-

Paperflitea-a-

Royal Cybera-a-

RWSa-

Salesforce Marketing Clouda-

Sprinklra-

Threekita-a-

Subscriptions:

ChargeBeea-

Chargifya-

Order Groovea-

Recurlya-a-

Stax Billinga-a-

Stripea-a-

Stripe Billinga-a-

Zohoa-a-

Zuora RegPacka- a-

PIM:

Akeneoa-

BetterCommercea-

Brand quada-

Catalog Buildera-a-

Catsya-

Contentserva-a-

Creative Forcea-

inRivera-a-

Kontainera-

PIMworksa-

Plytixa-

Quablea-a-

Riversanda-

Sales Layera-

Salsifya-a-

Syndigoa-

Talkroota-

Conversational Commerce/Chatbots:

Adaa-

Amazon Lexa-

Automata-

Botsifya-

Chatfuela-

Dialogflowa-

Drifta-a-

Flow XOa-

IBM Watsona-a-

ManyChata-

Microsoft Bota-

Mobile Monkeya-a-

Octanea-

Pandora Botsa-

ERP:a-

Acumaticaa-a-

Brightpearla-a-

Delteka-

Epicora-

Infora-a-

Microsoft Dynamicsa-

Odooa-

Oracle NetSuitea-

Plexa-

QADa-

SAP Business Onea-

Sysproa-

Workdaya-

Email Marketing:

Acoustica-

Adobea-

AWebera-a-

Bluecorea-

Brazea-

Campaign Monitora-

Campaignera-

Constant Contacta-

Dripa-a-

Emarsysa-

Epsilona-

GetResponsea-a-

Hubspota-

Kajabia-

Klavioa-a-

Klaviyoa-a-

Listraka-

Nutshella-a-

Omnisenda-

Salesforce Marketing Clouda-a-

SendGrida-

Sendinbluea-a-

Sendlane a-

ActiveCampaigna-a-

Zetaa-a-

Social Media: a-

Cloud Campaigna-

Conversational Clouda-

eClinchera-a-

Falcona-a-

Hootsuitea-

Marketing 360a-

Monday.coma-

Oktoposta-

Salesforce Marketing Clouda-

SOCia-

Sprout Sociala-

System Integrators:

Accenturea-

BORN Groupa-

Bounteous

Deloitte Digital

DigiCommerce

MyPlanet

Nortal

Sutrix Group

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)a-

CNetric

HCL

TA Digital (Formerly TechAspect)

Publicis Sapient a-

Slalom Consulting

Apply digital

Sirius Computer Solutions

EY Consulting

Reign

New Elevation

AKQA

Ateles

GSPANN

Cognizant

CORRA

ELCA

EPAM

Gorilla

Hycome

Infosys

MMT

Momentum (onX)

Object Edge

Pictime

Perficient

Pivotree

Prokarma

PwC

Rackspace

Reply

Wunderman

Softek

Tech Mahindra

ThoughtWorks

XumaK

Les Fabricans

Envoy

McKenna Consultants

Great

Spinup

TMX

Pyxis

ATNA Technologies

Bluink

DB Consulting

IAP Japan

MicroMind

Pjili

Wattpad

OMS:a-

ACommercea-

Aptosa-

Aspirea-a-

Blackcarta-a-

Brightpearla-

CEDCommercea-

CloudSensea-

Deck Commercea-a-

EnVistaa-a-

FastOMSa-

Feedonomicsa-a-

FluentCommercea-a-

Fujitsua-a-

Fusion Factorya-

Highstreet.ioa-a-

Idyaflowa-a-

Jmangoa-a-

Litmus7a-

Logic Brokera-a-

Marketplacera-a-

Mirakla-a-

One Stocka-

Ordergrovea-a-

Orderhivea-a-

Publicis Sapienta-

Quickbooks Commercea-

Salesordera-

Ship Stationa-a-

Skubanaa-a-

Sticky.ioa-

Storda-a-

Subscribe Proa-

Tecsysa-a-

Veeqoa-a-

Visioneta-

Yuansfera-a-

Zohoa-a-

Analytics:a-a-

Botifya-

Clickya-

Data Domea-a-

Dynamic Actiona-a-

Fathom Analyticsa-

Fenix Commercea-a-

Gaugesa-

Get Feedbacka-

Google

GoSquareda-

Heapa-

Hitstepsa-

Idea Tarmaca-

Kissmetricsa-

Matomoa-

Minuboa-a-

Namogooa-

Netaceaa-a-

Perimetera-a-

Piwik PROa-a-

Plausiblea-a-

Precognitivea-

Queue-ita-a-

Radwarea-

Refersiona-

Simple Analyticsa-

StatCountera-

Treasure Dataa-a-

Woopraa-

Tax:a-a-

Avalaraa- a-

CCH Sure Taxa-a- a-

Digital Rivera-a- a-

Global-ea-a- a-

TaxJara- a-

Vertexa-

Thomson Reuters Onesourcea-a-

Taxifya-a-

Sovosa-

Post-pandemic, brands have a surmounting pressure to re-evaluate their channel and sales strategies as direct-to-consumer (D2C) channel adoption increases, and the need for a nurturing customer experience is in demand. In tandem, brands are offered conflicting advice from channel partners, recommending staying away from D2C adoption. To guide brands, Gartner has created a strategic roadmap to support companies in making the right strategic decisions and technology investments to increase brand adoption, revenue, and future-proof their digital commerce vision. In this blog we break it down into three steps:

Step One: Your Current State

The pandemic forced brands to re-think their go-to-market strategy. Due to the shift in shopping behaviors over the past few years, the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) and branded manufacturer industries were the early adopters. However, D2C can be implemented across industries, from healthcare and medical devices to automotive and more. Reasons for holding off on adopting a D2C channel include the following:

• Mounting pressure from channel partners to stay away from D2C due to the presumed fear of cannibalizing the partnership
• Lack of company structure to support individual transactions and everything that comes with it (i.e., packaging, managing shipping and returns, customer support)
• Lack of an eCommerce presence - brands may only have content-based sites with the inability to support a transaction

Whatever the reason, brands that fail to embrace D2C may fail to see future growth in monetary terms, brand awareness, customer adoption, and brand loyalty, to name a few.

Step Two: Plan for Your Future State

Gartner believes that the future of digital commerce will include a mix of strategies and technologies that many companies may already have today. Gartner also believes that having an eCommerce strategy and indirect channels like a marketplace are not mutually exclusive. Building a multi-channel strategy can increase customer adoption by going where your customers are across channels. Doing this will drive customer loyalty and in turn increase geo-expansion and revenue.

In the not-too-distant future, weall see an increase in D2C sites where customers will have a variety of products available to them, often with the ability to create a subscription. The subscription offering will be unique to a brand's site, as this feature is not typically available through indirect channels. The benefit of incorporating subscriptions include recurring revenue and indirect customer loyalty.

When adopting a multi-channel strategy, Gartner recommends diversifying your SKUs across channels to create curated experiences versus offering all products in one channel. For example, you may feature an entire product line of pillow covers on your site but offer a limited-edition line of pillow covers on a 3rd party marketplace to create a sense of exclusivity and customization for that audience.

Interested in Learning More About Managing SKUs?

Managing a large amount of SKU variations can become complex, learn how you can manage unlimited catalogs across channels 5x faster, with Catalog Composer.

Creating a multi-channel strategy will also open a world of ever-expanding data sets from products to customers and customer ordering preferences. Merging data from different channels will enable brands to create multidimensional strategies to further optimize their digital commerce vision. Gartner notes that in a future optimized state, companies will leverage from data sources such as:

• Web analytics from direct digital commerce sites
• Point-of-sale (POS) data from owned retail stores
• Digital shelf analytics from online marketplaces, retailers, and social channels
• Rating and review data from direct and indirect channels
• Data and analytics from order management and fulfillment systems

Step Three: Creating a Migration Plan

Migrating from your current state to your future state will depend on your companyas digital maturity. As a starting point evaluate the following:

• The technology you have in-place
• What technology do you need to get to a future state?
• The size of your company and the number of brands and products that will be incorporated into the plan
• Strategize how you will sort your products across channels

To learn more and leverage next-step recommendations from Gartner download the report here.

No argument that eCommerce sales skyrocketed in the last two years, as the world turned to mobile devices to buy everything from a weekas worth of groceries to a new couch for the family room. But even as the world opens up post-pandemically, eCommerce retail sales maintain the top spot on the leaderboard. Projections point to upwards of $7 trillion in sales by 2024.

Whatas happened to merchandising as weave made the shift from brick-and-mortar to a virtual store and cart? Plenty. How do you translate an in-store experience into an engaging digital one that leads a shopper to Buy Now sight unseen? Letas dive into the world of eCommerce merchandising and find out how retailers create a path to purchase from the physical to the digital experience.

What is Digital Merchandising?

Also known as eCommerce or online merchandising, digital merchandising is the practice of marketing goods in the digital space. Just as you map product placement and displays in-store with branding considerations to draw the customer over, the same actions happen in a virtual store to entice the shopper from their chosen device. Product merchandising is about having the right assortment, and showcasing it at the right time to the right customer. You are essentially creating content; and given the 2024 online sales projections retailers canat afford to sit this one out.

Make a Plan & Get Campaigning

You may have a number of goals for your business; youave targeted a specific sales growth percentage or doubling down on the number of promotions per month, or youad like to grow your loyalty program for top spenders. Whatever the case may be, once youave set the goals itas now time for strategizing. Youave stated the what - now you need to flesh out the how.

Personalization: Itas a New Day for Data Collection

When it comes to eCommerce merchandising campaigns itas ok to get personal. In fact, itas mission critical. With the death of third-party cookies, retail marketers are forced to revisit how they collect data and lean in on first or zero-party solutions to power personalized shopper experiences. Research shows todayas shoppers care how you get their data and what you do with it.

aSeventy percent of consumers like personalization, as long as brands are using data theyave shared directly.a

Source: Twilio

A Common Personalization Trap: The Creep Factor

There are many schools of thought on how much personalization is too much. I think we can all agree that ultimately personalization should best serve the customer and fulfill a need. Stepping outside the boundaries and creating an inaccurate assumption defeats the purpose of winning trust.

For example, Iam a pet owner. I often browse and shop online for pet food and supplies and have tried the numerous subscription services based on this category But that also means over the years Iave had to inevitably say goodbye to pets. Here is a snapshot of the types of personalization I could experience based on the data capture:

Zero Party: The cat food you liked in our poll is now BOGO

First Party: The pet carrier you browsed last month is on clearance

Second Party: Congrats on the kitten! Need pet insurance?

Third Party: Itas hard to lose a furry friend. Next time, check out our pet caskets and internment services

Youall notice as we progress through each scenario, the degree of personalization falls a bit further into the off-putting range. What you ideally want to do is solve a problem or create a convenience; not push the limits of knowing too much.

aPersonalization can mean a lot of things, so itas important to understand what a marketer thinks it is and how itas creepy. This can often clear up initial concerns. Then for us, the guiding personalization principle is to figure out if and how it adds value to the end usera|a

Source: Paul Munkholm, Kettle

Interested in Learning More About eCommerce Merchandising?

Discover 10 areas to optimize your eCommerce merchandising strategy for your business and more with our playbook.

Ecommerce Merchandising Trends and Tips to Consider

Many of todayas digital merchandising tips and trends are based in AR/VR technology, embraced in greater numbers by Gen X and Millennial groups. A few examples of these tactics include:

• Virtual dressing or try-on rooms allowing shoppers to try clothing or makeup swatches from any device, wherever they are, before purchase
• aSee it in your rooma capabilities for furniture or dA(c)cor accessories to replicate digitally what the item will look like in a shopperas home or space (a useful deterrent from returns)
• Social networks like Pinterest and Instagram have leveraged this technology in their algorithms. Studying how they strategize and leverage it in the path to purchase in-app can be useful if youare looking to see more AR/VR in play
• Implement 360 plug ins and enable virtual product tours across devices

It really depends on your product assortment and what youare able to invest in as far as technology a you need to assess what works best for your business. Bear in mind how critical it is for shoppers to get the same level of comfort and confidence they do from an in-store experience and a face-to-face conversation with a retailer - having a unique experience is key to engaging (and keeping) todayas shopper.

Product Merchandising

Product merchandising is key to all types of channels. And what eCommerce has shown us is the complexity around merchandising. In todayas eCommerce landscape retailers have multiple digital storefronts, complex pricing needs to reflect flash or scheduled sales, loyalty pricing, or bundling models.

A Rapidly Changing Landscape

Ecommerce changes rapidly so itas important to be on top of whatas trending in digital merchandising technology and how that affects your customer. The in-store experience is not going away; instead the merging of the physical and virtual is now the combined commerce narrative. Operating and streamlining the experience in both worlds is becoming the norm.

Above all a make it easy, friction-less, predictive, and personalized (appropriately), from discovery to purchase. Answer questions for your customers before they even know they had them. Build trust and confidence from the first time they click on your site or app. Make shopping with you an unforgettable experience they simply canat do without.

This post was originally published on June 30, 2019 and has been updated for relevancy.

When itas time to choose an eCommerce platform, everyone wants to know which solution will be the best one for their business. But more often than not, the next question is aHow much does it cost?a Ideally, we all want the best bang for our buck, but itas easy to get distracted by the displayed pricing on a website, or the lack thereof. Sometimes we end up jumping for a cheaper priced solution and shying away from those vendors that donat display their pricing on the website, because we think itall be too costly. Only to find out, your acheapera solution is more expensive, because you were unaware of all of the additional cost you would incur.

At Elastic Path, we happen to be one of the vendors without upfront pricing because our pricing is truly customized to a businessa needs. However, to help you understand how your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) would compare to other vendors on the market, we will outline all the factors that you should be taking into consideration when evaluating your eCommerce solution. Weall also make reference to some of the top eCommerce vendors on the market such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento), and Commercetools to give you a better idea of where Elastic Path is positioned in comparison.

To get a true understanding of your total cost of ownership, and you will need to take into account both your first-year costs as well as your future costs. These costs include but arenat limited to:

• Base software fee / Licensing fee
• Implementation cost
• Third party integrations cost
• Cost of changes

In this article, we will first dissect each category of cost you should be considering followed by a breakdown of the total cost you can expect over a typical contract period for the aforementioned vendors.

Base Software Fee/ Licensing Fee

The base software fee or licensing fee is what we like to refer to as the aupfronta pricing. These fees tend to reflect either monthly or yearly licensing fees, which can be: Tier based, continuous revenue based or percent of sales based.

Tier-based means that there is a predefined price that your company will get locked into based on your current and expected revenue. Elastic Path and Commercetools are examples of microservices-based vendors that do tier pricing by revenue. The Elastic Path model is based on your transaction volume, which can be structured by Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) or by the number of orders processed (used more regularly for B2B companies).

For example, our pricing starts at $50,000 for companies who are just getting started and have revenue under $10 Million. Our pricing strategy allows you to plan your estimated growth over the next three years, lock in pricing, and allow you to plan for your spend in the future. This promises guaranteed pricing and clarity year over year so you can make plans for the future, not to mention the economies of scale driving the unit costs down as your revenues grow.

By continuous revenue, we mean the strategy by which vendors price their customers based on the revenue tier that theyare in, but automatically bump them up to the next pricing tier as soon as they go over. Weave seen vendors such as Shopify, BigCommerce, and Adobe Commerce (Magento) use this type of strategy.

By percent of sales-based pricing, we mean the strategy by which vendors take a small percentage of your Gross Merchandise Volume. Salesforce Commerce is an example of a vendor that uses this type of model. For example, Salesforce Commerce Cloud takes 1-2% of your GMV annually. So, at $10 Million in revenue, you can expect to pay around $100K to $200K. This type of model can be quite attractive because thereas no immediate upfront cost and it scales based on how your business performs.

However, there is also an additional annual fee of $150K that is mandatory to begin. This is a great example of hidden costs that you may not be aware of upfront. Generally, you can expect to pay a lower premium with modern Composable Commerce solutions than with an all-in-one solution like Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Check out our TCO guide to learn more.

The last component of the base cost is the hosting costs. With most modern cloud-based solutions, the hosting cost will also be tier-based on volume. Hosting costs are evenly comparable across most modern cloud-based eCommerce solutions.

Implementation Cost

Implementation costs are usually the most feared by businesses as it is perceived as the highest costs they will incur. These will usually be dependent on the cost of your developer and the time it takes to build the frontend and backend of your system. However, if youare in the market for an out-of-the-box solution, the majority of your cost will be dependent on the changes and customizations you will need to alter your pre-built solution. For brands with a unique brand vision and requirements, there will most likely always be customizations needed, and therefore, we recommend working with an agency or systems integrator. Here are a few of the tasks you can expect an agency to complete, that will determine your implementation costs:

• Frontend development
• Backend development
• UI/UX design
• Software systems integrations
• Omnichannel design

Increasingly, we see customers looking to adopt a modern Composable Commerce approach use a progressive replatforming approach. This essentially means replacing your existing commerce solution (usually an all-in-one legacy solution) piece by piece. The benefits are two-fold: first, you can replace the component that is causing significant pain in your current solution quicker than a full-scale replatform. Catalog management, or easily customizable cart/ checkout capabilities are common first steps. The second benefit is on the cost front, where the development and customization costs are lower than a complete replatform can be evenly spread across the progressive replatforming process.

For a more detailed break-down of implementation costs, check out our blog post.

Third Party Cost

Third party costs are a little bit more intricate. When we think about this cost, we think about either plugins that are supplied by your platform as an application, or API integrations from third party vendors. The purpose of these integrations are to essentially extend your existing platform with other functionality. Some of the core third-party integrations include: content infrastructure, search engines, sales tax management, product information management (PIM), and shipping solutions. These costs will differ from vendor to vendor depending on if you leverage the third party as a plugin to your out-of-the-box solution, or buy a specific vendor solution for your Composable Commerce solution.

This can be a significant factor for brands that are looking to tailor their commerce solution to their needs with a Composable Commerce approach. They will not need to pay for components they do not use or need compared to an all-in-one solution. In some cases, brands that are already on an all-in-one solution like Salesforce will also add on higher performing third-party solutions to replace the out-of-the-box offering. Search is a good example of this, where brands will choose to implement a leading AI-driven search solution but ending up having to pay for both the third-party solution and the unused native solution from their monolithic provider.

Cost of Changes

One of the most important costs that are often neglected or forgotten are the costs associated with making changes to your solution. Most times we tend to plan and make decisions for anow,a but when the time comes and you are faced with costly changes that you werenat prepared for, it can be very detrimental to your fiscal budget planning. In addition, if youare the type of brand that wants to keep up with the ever-changing times, updates and changes are inevitable and therefore it is imperative you understand what those costs will look like in the future. Typical changes you will need to prepare for include:

• Upgrades to your commerce software
• Maintenance of your system
• Upgrades or changes to your third-party technology partners
• Changes in the backend functionality to fit your business requirements
• Addition of new user experiences to keep up with customer expectations

These changes can become costly very quickly with traditional legacy platforms, as their rigid structure makes changes more difficult, thus driving up developer costs. Composable Commerce solutions on the other hand are more flexible by nature and therefore will end up lowering your overall total cost of changes in the future. As each businessa requirements will be different, we will not be able to provide an estimate of these costs across each vendor.

However, from feedback from past customers, on average, Composable Commerce solutions like Elastic Path and Commercetools, lower cost of changes by 40% when compared to rigid legacy platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Learn more about the expected cost of changes in our TCO guide.

Now that we've dissected the various cost categories, we have provided an overview of the total costs you can expect either on a monthly or annual basis for a few of the top legacy and Composable Commerce solutions on the market.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce positions itself as an eCommerce platform for high volume brands, with two main payment plans: Essentials Plan and Enterprise Plan.

BigCommerce Essentials

The pricing represents their upfront license fee. At these rates, you get your average out-of-the-box store with zero customization, providing you with all the features you need to get a basic store up-and-running. Keep in mind the additional costs you may not be considering when choosing BigCommerce, they automatically bump you to the next tier if your actual sales exceed the threshold.

BigCommerce Enterprise

BigCommerce Enterprise offers all the core features, along with the addition of some premium features including unlimited API calls, price lists, and support. Their pricing widely varies based on the average order value and the average number of orders processed per month. Based on conversations from some of their sales representatives, the pricing plan ranges anywhere between $400 and $20,000 monthly.

To learn more, check out our comparison between BigCommerce and Elastic Path. 

Shopify

Shopify is the market leader for SMB customers looking for an out of the box eCommerce website. Shopify customers give up flexibility, meaning that they'll need to be comfortable running their eCommerce website according to Shopify's templates and structures - but for many companies, that is fine because they're just looking for a standard website.

Shopify has 5 primary offerings:

• Lite starts at $9/month
• Basic starts at $29/month
• Standard starts at $79/month
• Advanced starts at $299/month
• Shopify+ starts at $2,000/month

There are also gateway fees, which range from 2.4-3% + $.30 per transaction. Similarly, they charge an extra 2% transaction free for purchases not made through Shopify Payments.

Check out our comparison page to learn more about the major differences between Shopify and Elastic Path.

Magento

Magento Community Edition positions themselves as an Open Source eCommerce platform that provides businesses with a flexible, digital commerce solution to successfully sell online. Weave already written a more detailed post on our blog that digs into Magentoas TCO. To give you a brief overview of their pricing structure, weall focus on Magentoas two main plans: Magento Open Source and Magento Enterprise.

Magento Open Source

Magentoas aFREEa Open Source plan proves to be a more customizable option when compared to BigCommerce. Be careful - the only thing free about this option is their licensing fee/download. There are few costs hidden in the background:

• Implementation a $30,000 - $100,000+
• Hosting a $1000+
• Themes a $29-$499
• Maintenance and Support a $30,000+
• Extensions a $0 - $10,000
• Third Party Integrations a $6,000

I know what youare thinking, those added up pretty quickly! To be upfront, the price for a more customized store than BigCommerce is going to start somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000 upwards.

Need Help Evaluating eCommerce Solutions?

Connect with an Elastic Path expert to answer all of your questions, set up a demo, access a free trial, or discuss pricing options.

Adobe Commerce (Magento Enterprise)

Adobe Commerce (Magento Enterprise) is the premium paid version of Magento, designed for those stores that need more than the community edition offers, based on the size of their company, and the level of customization theyare looking for. However, with this option, you have to empty your pockets for a much higher licensing fee. Based on your revenue, Magento displays their upfront price between $22,000/year and $125,000/year.

Of course, this also includes access to more advanced features such as security, mobile commerce, and free professional customer support. However, in addition to including all the core features that the open source version consists of, the same features tend to come at a higher price for this plan. Some of these higher feature costs include:

• Implementation a $60,000+
• Hosting a $7000+
• Themes a $29-$499
• Magento Certified Gold Partner a  $10,000
• Extensions a $0 - $10,000
• Third Party Integrations a $6,000+

Overall, this comes with more customization, but still lacks complete control over your content. The price for this package starts between $100,000 and $250,000.

Overall, Magento Enterprise comes with more customization, but still lacks complete control over your content. The price for this package starts between $100,000 and $250,000 upwards! These are high costs and to make it even worse, Magentoas performance has not been up to standard either, especially when comparing site speed. You may want to consider the costs associated with their slow performing stores when considering your total cost of ownership as well.

Check out our comparison page for a detailed look at each solutionsa capabilities.

Commercetools

Commercetools is a Headless Commerce Platform. To be completely frank, there are no signs of Commercetoolsa pricing anywhere! They seem to be a bit secretive, but we have done our best to provide you with the most accurate information based on feedback from our customers, who shared what Commercetools has proposed to them. These costs include:

• Implementation a $300,000 - $1 Million
• License Fees a $200,000/year - $500,000/year
• Specialized resources a $150,000/year

Click here for a more detailed look at a side-by-side comparison with Elastic Path.

Elastic Path

Elastic Path offers Composable Commerce-as-a-Service, an API-First headless commerce microservices solution. Composable Commerce is a modern approach to eCommerce that is built on the concept of composability, where core commerce functionality and partner integrations can be selected and assembled in various combinations to satisfy specific business requirements, at the speed digitally driven brands need to succeed. Composable Commerce were built on three main tenets:

• Modular architecture
• Open Ecosystem
• Business Centric Solutions

And itas with these tenets that Elastic Path has been able to reduce businessa overall total cost of ownership by up to 50%.

As mentioned before, Elastic Path provides a tier-based pricing based on Gross Merchandise Revenue. Overall based on a $10 Million revenue, pricing would be around $50K for Elastic Path. Elastic Path also offers Composable Commerce Experience Assurance that de-risks the management of multi-vendor solutions by providing an expert 24x7 global support team for all issues. This cost of the feature will be 25% of your annual contract value and capped at $25,000 USD/ year.

Additional costs will include: implementation costs, hosting costs and third-party costs which will lie in the same range of costs for Magento. Where you will end up seeing the greatest cost savings are in the phases of customizations and changes. To get a better understanding of how cost of changes can be 5x lower compared to traditional legacy platforms and Composable Commerce solutions visit our Total Cost of Ownership Guide.

If you have more specific questions regarding Elastic Path costs, please refer to the pricing page here.

Summary

Understanding your total cost of ownership is not straight forward and often times we prioritize certain categories of costs and lose overall sight on our expected total cost in the future. As each vendor has different offerings, it will never be easy to compare them across the board. However, if you follow the guide of assessing each category of cost, this will give you and your team a good understanding to make an informed decision. If you have any questions, we are always happy to help - Just reach out to us.

Headless Commerce is the buzz word that just wonat go away. So much talk about being headless evokes the image of the headless horseman for me. And so, I finally looked him up, to satisfy my curiosity about what he represents. The headless horseman symbolizes a past that never dies and continues to haunt the living. That sounds a lot like what Headless Commerce has turned into lately.

Over my last several years supporting organizations and brands looking to modernize their customer experience, the first qualifier seems to be aare you headlessa? But what does that really mean? When a brand asks a commerce vendor if they are aheadlessa, the answer will always be YES! Every eCommerce Platform available today makes a claim that they can operate in a headless manner.

Letas pause for a moment. What are brands really looking for when they are asking for headless? A read through of the past several (dozen or so) RFPs that have come across my desk indicate that organizations, whether they realize it or not, want the headless horseman. The aheada separated from the body, but still haunted by the past. What do I mean by that?

Organizations want headless, ostensibly to create a more flexible and extensible commerce architecture that will support long term growth. They want more engaging experiences that drive more conversion. They want blazing fast site speed. They want a commerce architecture that will support the rapidly changing nature of commerce.

But simply removing the aheada (or frontend) will not accomplish any of that. When I read an RFP asking for Headless Commerce typically what follows is a ridiculously long checklist of the features from the monolithic platform the customer is currently on. If this approach sounds familiar, then you are inviting the headless horseman into your organization. You will be haunted by a commerce architecture thatas as inflexible and rigid as it has always been. Being aheadlessa just isnat enough to help brands drive revenue growth.

Ready to Get Started with Composable Commerce?

Discover the steps for getting started to truly capitalize your commerce strategy and more with our full guide.

So, what is the alternative? How does an organization respond to the pace of change in the market? How do you prepare for the expansion of commerce to touchpoints we havenat even imagined yet? To fully realize the promise of aCommerce Everywherea (more on that in an upcoming post), brands should consider each part of their customer experience independently.

For example, how important is search to how your customers experience your brand? If search experience is important to you, consider it independently from your eCommerce platform, against the requirements and KPIas relevant for your organization. Do you have a large content management team that has robust requirements around driving engaging content? You wonat be able to satisfy those requirements with a built-in CMS in a monolithic commerce platform.

Instead, you should consider separating your content management and your commerce platform. This acomposablea approach to commerce allows organizations to fit solutions to their requirements, instead of having to fit their requirements to the technology.

External composability is important however, this acomposablea approach should also be applied to your evaluation of a Commerce vendoras solution. While every Commerce vendor can reasonably claim to be Headless, few are truly composable. And even fewer have designed their own architecture from that same composable viewpoint. At Elastic Path our APIs are built around packaged business capabilities, each of which is easily composable both with each other and external capabilities (like search, content management, etc.).

Composable Commerce may have reached buzzword status, but its driving force in todayas eCommerce success stories is unrefuted. Both major and up and coming brands are adopting its approach and architecture to transform the customer experience at speeds faster than ever expected. Todayas customer demands it.

As an agency itas critical to be at the forefront of technology, with every resource at your disposal to deliver on your clientas expectations. Composable Commerce is the right now of eCommerce. Hereas why your agency should join the movement.

Composable Commerce Changes the Game

With the flexibility of modular architecture and the open ecosystem of vendors, brands like never before have more control of user experiences and have the ability to scale at speeds faster than ever before.

One of the Big-Five publishers had outgrown ShopifyPlus, but was worried it would take too long to move to a new eCommerce platform. They migrated in only 54 days using one of our Pre-Composed SolutionsaC/.

Composability supports brands and businesses who need to pivot quickly with growing demand. And if the last two years taught us anything itas that change is constant.

Composable Commerce Supports Complex Business Requirements

In the early days of eCommerce, monolith systems were the gold standard; an out-of-the-box functionality with core features in a one-size-fits-all model. But for businesses (and your potential clients) with more complex needs, this platform canat keep up with demand when itas time to iterate.

Think of businesses with instances of amultisa a multi brands, multi geographies, multi channels, or multi catalogs. This level of complexity requires modularity; the flexibility and speed that a microservices-based, API-first approach offers without the bloat of features not needed and the slow to market speed of a monolith. (If the wheels donat fall off first).

Composable Commerce Opens Up New Partnerships and Revenue

With an open ecosystem of vendors great partners lead to even greater implementations. For functionality ranging from search, tax, chat, payments, CRM, OMS, and more, youare opening the possibilities to develop even better solutions. Through our community of implementation, solutions and tech partners, weave developed unique solutions for brands ready to take the first steps into composability.

Composable Commerce is future-proof. Referencing the modular building block analogy, the components are meant to be swapped for better functionality. There is no locked-in vendor solution, the approach is based on a best for the business need.

For your agency this means growing partner relationships and opportunity to develop unique solutions a great for your reputation as an innovator and great for your revenue to always be building better. You want to stay ahead of the game with your clients, and composability by design is built for change.

Want to See How Elastic Path Commerce Cloud is Future Proof?

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No Other Approach Brings Business and Tech Users Together

Speaking of a growth mindset and the power of partnerships, another key tenet of Composable Commerce is its benefits to both business and tech stakeholders. Weave already touched on complex business requirements and the ability to iterate at speed, but letas take another look at what that means for the stakeholders involved.

In a recent Gartner study, 84% of respondents indicated there can be more than twelve primary leaders of a digital commerce initiative. The remaining respondents cited no primary lead for a digital commerce strategy. Similar questions posed in a 2019 survey produced the same results. A shift has occurred towards a digital commerce approach of total ownership distributed across the organization.

So what does that mean? A siloed environment is death to the customer experience. A friction-free customer journey starts with open communication and a shared roadmap among all teams involved. And that opens the conversation to developers, marketing, customer service, and operations teams; wherever data and customer touchpoints can be identified and streamlined in the solution.

A happy customer is confident and ready to purchase. For you as an agency, happy customers lead to conversions, and conversions lead to happy clients.

The Composable Commerce Approach Can Be Gradual

Letas say you have a client on a monolith commerce platform who is reticent, rightfully so, of making the switch to a more composable solution. It can be daunting for a business new to a multi-vendor solution and microservices-based architecture; especially those without an in-house dev team.

The good news is they can gradually transition over one functionality at a time. Letas say they need more self-checkout options at point-of-sale a those integrations can be made with their existing legacy system and launched quickly without disruption to the business.

You can now set the stage for future implementations with total client confidence because youare meeting the client where they are, not forcing a canned sales pitch of services they donat need.

Incredible Opportunities in Growth, Technology, and Industry Reputation

Itas official a eCommerce has gone composable. It will benefit your agencyas bottom line to advocate for its adoption, but also your reputation as a thought leader and innovator.

Read more about our community of Solutions and Tech partners and find out more about joining the Composable Commerce movement as a partner.