General manager Rob Blake has a list of to-dos this offseason to make the Kings serious contenders this upcoming season.

The Kings have acquired left wing Kevin Fiala from the Minnesota Wild for the rights to Brock Faber and their first-round pick in this year's NHL draft.

Tampa Bay's reign as Stanley Cup champions ended against a most-deserving Colorado team. The Avalanche can serve as a lesson for the Kings and Ducks.

After receiving veteran advice from Andrew Cogliano, the Colorado Avalanche meet their expectations and defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning for the Stanley Cup.

Ondrej Palat is the latest player to morph into a driving force for the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup Final, as witnessed by his Game 5 heroics.

The Tampa Bay Lightning showed grit and heart Friday night in winning 3-2 in Game 5 to prevent the Colorado Avalanche from clinching the Stanley Cup.

The Colorado Avalanche are coming off a 7-0 rout of the Tampa Bay Lightning, whose skill has been negated by speed and checking as they seek Game 3 win.

Corey Perry and Jack Johnson aren't the players they once were, but they're playing critical roles for the Lightning and Avalanche in the Stanley Cup Final.

It took plenty of adjusting for former Ducks defenseman Josh Manson to play with Colorado, but a trip to Stanley Cup Final has made it worthwhile.

As the Kings build their roster to become a Stanley Cup contender again, they must be encouraged by similarities with finalists Avalanche and Lightning.

Here's how to watch on TV and stream the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. the Colorado Avalanche in the 2022 Stanley Cup Final, which starts Wednesday.

The Avalanche have been the best team in the NL for most of the season, but if they still have to get past two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning.

If the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Avalanche for their third straight Stanley Cup title, they'll establish one of the greatest dynasties in NHL history.

Connor McDavid is poised to break Wayne Gretzky's playoff points record. Gretzky welcomes the challenge to his greatest one title.

The Kings' loss to the Oilers was a learning experience for their younger players, and Todd McLellan plans to test in 2022-23 whether they have improved.

The Kings' aspirations to play postseason spoiler came to an end in a 2-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals.

The Kings must travel to Edmonton for a Game 7 on Saturday. But, they have won two of three games on the road in this first-round playoff series.

Resilient Kings were unable to finish off the Edmonton Oilers after rallying in the 4-2 Game 6 loss in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Oilers will be without Darnell Nurse after he headbutted Phillip Danault in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup playoff series led by the Kings, 3-2.

Adrian Kempe put the Kings close to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, scoring the winner in a 5-4 victory in Game 5 over the Edmonton Oilers.

Kings coach Todd McLellan knows that the Kings' 4-0 win in Game 4 against the Edmonton Oilers will mean nothing once the teams meet again in Game 5.

The Kings bounced back in spectacular fashion in Game 4 of their first-round NHL playoff series, shutting out the Edmonton Oilers in a 4-0 victory.

The Kings are only down 2-1 to Edmonton in their playoff series despite giving up 14 goals in the losses. Now they focus on an attempt to tie the series.

Kings coach Todd McLellan was angry and short on words after the team's 8-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of their first-round NHL playoff series.

Kings fans revel in the chance to watch their team in the NHL playoffs, but the Oilers abruptly ended their celebratory mood with an 8-2 win in Game 3.

Since winning the Stanley Cup in 2014, the Kings have lost five straight home playoff games. They get a shot to end that streak Friday against the Oilers.

The young Kings team gets away from its identity, suffering a 6-0 rout to the Oilers that evens their Stanley Cup first-round series at 1-1, writes columnist Helene Elliott.

Kings left wing Alex Iafallo deserves credit for not giving up on himself because he continued to push himself, writes columnist Helene Elliott.

The Kings took Game 1 against the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3, on Monday but will need more counterpunches to win the series, writes columnist Helene Elliott.

Author's Note: This is an update to a post originally published in May 2011 and has been edited for relevancy

There are many reasons why your customers donat complete a purchase; from sticker shock to getting distracted, itas often something unrelated to the design or usability of the item in question. When it comes to eCommerce shopping carts, there are several things you should look out for that can affect your customeras experience in meaningful ways, including:

1. Cart is visible throughout the experience

Research shows when a cart is constantly within range of the shopping experience abandonment rates diminish. Amazon does this effortlessly on their dedicated app.

2. Seamless Multi-brand or Multi-geo

When multiple brands co-exist the cart and checkout experience should be seamless for the customer. With Elastic Path Payments, brands can facilitate complex checkout processes across customer touchpoints or geographical markets and drive revenue growth with ease.

Deliver unique customer experiences

Get a custom demo to see how Elastic Path will help you deliver the unique customer experience you've always imagined.

3. Easy to view thumbnails

The product is the hero of the page and stands out within the cart.

4. Product availability is prominent

Should the item be out of stock, itas clearly set off in a different font size, color, or housed within a separate design element.  

5. Offer clean, non-competing Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

CTAs should never compete font-wise, nor be similar in size, shape, or color. Be clear in what youare asking the customer to do.

6. Shipping and Tax Calculation

All costs are clearly visible, so the customer knows exactly what they are paying in total for the item(s) including tax and shipping.

7. Chatbot

Should there be questions or issues within the checkout process or throughout the shopping journey, offer a chatbot feature to assist in real time. No need for emails or calls that may adversely affect the customer experience.  

8. Add to Favorites

Add to favorites, move to later, whatever you call it, giving the consumer a chance to save an item for a later time will support a positive customer journey and increase the likelihood of the customer purchasing at a later time.

9. Save the Shopping Cart

Ensure a seamless customer experience by saving the cart for the customer for a defined length of time. This will help to avoid customer frustrations and increase the chances of the customer converting at a later time.

10. Gift Options

Offering a note and gift wrapping is the icing on the cake for a busy shopper!  

Looking for more ways to improve your checkout experience? Check out Elastic Path partner, Stripeas latest research on the global state of checkouts, where they dive into the five common errors plaguing retailer carts: The State of North American Checkouts in 2021 or The State of European Checkouts in 2021.

As demand increases for brands to deliver seemingly effortless digital experiences, business and technology requirements get ever more complex. In an effort to keep up with these requirements, many brands look to leverage a best-of-breed approach where they compose, or integrate, multiple vendors into one cohesive solution.

This is why Elastic Path leverages a Headless Commerce architecture and a Composable Commerce approach to power products that are specifically designed to work in parallel with your internal and external systems. Our technology seamlessly supports eCommerce integrations that dynamically link resources and capabilities in real-time to produce responsive digital experiences that engage customers and drive revenue.

More specifically, brands can leverage our backend integration framework to connect Elastic Path Commerce Cloud with existing applications like enterprise resource planning (ERP), order management (OMS), fulfillment, and other systems, ensuring that buying is quick and easy for your shoppers. Integrations can be delivered through messaging - using Amazon SQS - to ensure that your systems are notified of events in your commerce application in a reliable, timely fashion.

For example, when a customer updates their address in Elastic Path, an event occurs that automatically updates your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system with the change. Similarly, when an order status changes to paid, an Elastic Path event automatically reduces the affected stock in an inventory management system by the number of items in the order.

In this blog post, we will discuss a recent update to Elastic Path Commerce Cloud that makes integrations even more efficient.  

Whatas Changed?

Elastic Path is constantly looking for ways to make embracing a Composable Commerce approach easier and more performant. Previously, events were processed in the order they were created, but we knew there had to be a better way to optimize this.

Now, events are processed concurrently, reducing the time it takes to deliver events. An increase in the number of events is now automatically handled by Elastic Path Commerce Cloud, improving performance and scalability.

• No messages are lost
• You can view integration and event status

What to do Next?

If you are an existing Elastic Path Commerce Cloud customer, we want to ensure you get the value from this enhancement. What you do next depends on your:

• Existing integrations
• New integrations

Existing Integrations

Existing integrations are not affected by this change. Existing integrations continue to process events in order so if you are happy with your current integrations, no changes are required.

You can update your existing integrations to process events concurrently instead of in order. You can do this by updating an existing integration using the v2/integrations/:Id endpoint (where Id is the Id of the existing integration whose events you now want to process concurrently) and configuring is_concurrent to be true.

New Integrations

For all new integrations, you should ensure that you design your receiving code based on events being delivered concurrently. Events that are delivered concurrently may not be delivered in the order they are created. For example, if the status of an order is updated multiple times, the events may not be delivered in the same sequence they were updated.

Related Resources

You can read more about this enhancement in our documentation. Check out the Elastic Path Commerce Cloud integrations documentation.

Imagine youare shopping for new kitchen appliances for a renovation. Youave been browsing for months both online and in-store; youave even checked in with friends for recommendations on features. You find the perfect model front and center online at a big box retailer, and itas even the right color: modern French doors, fresh filtered water and ice, LED controls, and full-width access drawers.

The problem is, when you go to find it and add to cart for purchase, you canat find the specs you wanted, or that perfect fingerprint-resistant shade of slate gray (as shown), that complements your white cupboards and marble countertops.

Back to square one in your search.

Product Merchandising in Traditional Terms

Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more items or products.

Product Merchandising of Today

Product merchandising plays a critical role in the path to purchase. As Julie Mall, Vice President, Solutions Engineering at Elastic Path, recently said in an interview with PYMNTS.com about a more modern approach to product merchandising:

aThe challenge is really how to meet the customer where they are with the products they want in that moment.a

Examples in the Wild

Todayas commerce involves more complexity in how products are shown with the blending of the in-store and online experiences. Consumers demand both based on shopping behaviors and trends; despite public perception, the brick-and-mortar store is not going away but is enhanced to incorporate the digital path to purchase to meet the consumer where they are.

So what does that look like?

Inspired Layouts with a Composable Catalog

Take for instance home retailer Pottery Barn. They are known for creating compelling in-store sets to inspire the consumer and allow them to touch and see qualities like bedding textures, glassware quality, thread count, and measurements. Theyave integrated a similar experience for digital.

Notice in these two interior pages, theyave carefully curated specific room designs entitled aRoom Inspirationa, supporting the notion that many of their core customers may know exactly what they want to flesh out a living room space; but taking the additional step of providing useful content to shoppers who may need extra help design-wise, and then providing the specifics on how to purchase those items they like.

Each room slide features a breakdown of the contents, complete with specs, pricing, and SKU information/add to cart.

Notice the chat feature in the bottom right corner. This feature provides real-time support for shoppers as they browse; ask a myriad of questions and get quick answers to avoid cart abandonment or reduce bounce rate such as: When will a duvet cover be back in stock? Can I get notified? What other pillow style would you recommend in a similar color scheme thatas in stock now?

Ready to Start Your Unique Product Experience Management (PXM)?

Elastic Path PXM combines re-imagined Commerce PIM, Product Merchandising, and Catalog Composer capabilities into one central place for merchandisers to create the complex product experiences that drive conversions and loyalty.

#Social Proof

Social commerce has entered the commerce conversation when it comes to building trust with your brand. Most shoppers rely on reviews or examples of how a product performed, versus how it was marketed.

Social media platforms are the most influential on the buying journey from discovery to purchase. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and newcomer TikTok have mastered the algorithms for curating ashoppablea content down to checkout and fulfillment. When examined with a commerce-forward eye, it does make sense that consumers would be more apt to buy (or pass) once they know how others have experienced the same product.

Retailer giant Target is seen here with their hashtag campaign aTarget Stylea for shoppers to share what theyave purchased and how theyare using it. Beyond building consumer confidence, Target marketing teams use the photos in various places from in-store to web, and app. Notice how the language is easy, neighborly, and downright friendly! Targetas brand identity is based on these qualities and reflects what a shopper sees and experiences in-store.

The 360 Experience

As technology refines in the merchandising space, weare seeing more virtual/augmented reality functions to bridge the gap of the sensory deficit experienced online (sight and touch unseen). Take for instance the a360 viewa function now widely used across online retail:

Source: Yofia.com

This feature offers more of the up close and personal view of an online purchase. Details of the backpack will hopefully answer potential buyersa questions and give them greater confidence in purchasing if they canat try in-store such as: how does the closure and buckling work? Can I see it on an actual person? What is the weave or texture of the sides? How durable is it? Can I see the inside pockets and how easy it is to get to them, and what fits inside? (Ex. Keys, a tablet, laptop, etc.).

A Reimagined, Recalibrated Approach

In the eCommerce world of today, shoppers are more sophisticated, tech-savvy, and have less time to shop than ever before. They demand easy navigation and filtered searches to find exactly what they need in seconds, they want personalized offers based on their buying habits, they demand fast page loads and simplified checkout, they want options for payment that fit their lifestyle and budgeta| the list goes on. The eCommerce landscape of today is that every moment is shoppable, convenient, and customized.

Weare taking product content management to the next level with Elastic Path Product Experience Manager (PXM) that combines commerce PIM, product merchandising, and Catalog Composer capabilities in one single product. This is the first-of-its-kind for merchandising support in the space. Read the full blog post and Q&A.

Give Shoppers Unforgettable, Friction-Free Experiences

Letas think about that perfect refrigerator again. Imagine now an experience where you click on the image of that same refrigerator on the homepage and now you have options: available color swatches (complete with a swatch marked aas showna), a dropdown menu of all the functionalities, measurements, and a function to asee it in your kitchena with virtual showrooming. And lo and behold! There is a 2-day sale going on for online customers only with free delivery. Howas that versus the frustration of starting over?

Talk about a better experience. Which experience would you prefer?

The road to a modern software stack is paved with perceived obstacles. As with many things in life, these obstacles arenat as hard to overcome as inertia itself. If youave ever hesitated and stared at your running shoes before just getting out the door for a workout, you know what Iam talking about.

The story of inertia plays out again and again in tech, and especially in commerce. While the benefits of going all-in on API-first are clear, the perception is that itas difficult to foundationally overhaul the commerce platform. In reality, this perception couldnat be further from the truth.

So, what tips the scale for making changes we perceive as difficult? What forcing functions get us to move on to fundamentally better technology? Letas look at how these dynamics have played out in the restaurant industry over the past few years, and how theyare currently playing out in commerce.

Toast: Reinventing the restaurant POS

The success of restaurant tech company Toast is a perfect example of unseating a deeply entrenched technology that nobody likes a the point of sale (POS) system. In a previous life, I worked in restaurants for more than a decade. I was one of the many service people scurrying back and forth between my patrons and a waitstation desktop computer, swiping a key card attached to my belt to enter orders and process credit cards. While the foundational ordering and payment experience wasnat necessarily broken, it was cumbersome, slow, error-prone, and, most notably, insecure.

Think about it: the same credit card rails have been operating on mainframes for decades. For years, the U.S. lagged behind other countries in mobile payment adoption. Many viewed this technology as solving a problem that didnat exist yet.

As with many things digital, the pandemic was a forcing function to overhaul the restaurant POS, which previously relied on processing mostly in-person transactions. Toast was positioned to win as the industry dramatically shifted to takeout, online ordering and curbside pickup.

While these changes were originally based purely on company survival, restaurant patrons today find themselves with a better, digitized POS experience at the table. Itas a seamless, pay-with-your phone experience that doesnat require the painful steps of waiting for the check to come back (where did my server go?) or doing napkin math for the tip.

As a customer, I canat imagine going back. A seamless moment at the table can make a big difference. And on the business side, restaurants can feel more prepared for the future. A similar dynamic is happening in commerce, as companies realize they canat risk their merchandisable moments with customers to ineffective legacy technology.

Commerce: Capitalizing on Merchandisable Moments

Like restaurants, many retailers faced a reckoning with their technology during the pandemic. A dramatic shift to online shopping forced some retailers to overhaul their commerce systems to prepare for the new way customers were buying.

Now that restrictions are loosening, The Wall Street Journal recently covered consumersa shift back toward in-store buying habits. As with any Black Swan event, the industry is riding a pretty dramatic wave. Experts like Accel Partners expect these big swings to normalize over the next few years, as the U.S. market marches toward 50% ecommerce penetration (Itas important to note that tech-leading markets like China are already at 25% penetration).

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.

An important takeaway from these big swings is the need for retailers to adapt quickly to changes in consumer behavior. During the pandemic, that might have meant embracing curbside pickup, but in the future it might mean NFTs, metaverse commerce, livestream shopping with influencers, or whatever else is on the horizon. These changes require a shift in commerce architecture toward an API-first model.

Thatas because differentiation today a and in the future a hinges on the digital experience. Even though some of us may be hanging out in malls more these days (please count me out of this trend) in search of some level of human interaction, high-intent buyers are still prime for conversion online. For most companies, improving digital merchandising starts with the commerce catalog.

Overcoming Catalog Entrenchment

Much like the restaurant POS example above, the commerce catalog is so deeply entrenched that retailers donat believe change could possibly be easy. As a result, youall see many popular sites living with broken ashop the looka experiences. Gorgeous, catalog-like landing pages promise consumers the option to buy the exact item they see in the photo in one click.

Instead, consumers have to sift through endless options to get the actual size and color pictured. The paradox of choice coming alive right before our eyes on a digital screen. These broken experiences leave customers frustrated and block conversions from otherwise high-intent buyers.

Sadly, the market just accepts these internalized limitations of status quo legacy commerce vendors. But it doesnat have to be that way.

With Elastic Path Commerce Cloud, weave solved this legacy inertia by separating Products, Price Books and Catalogs into distinct, independent microservices.

By breaking down the acommerce cataloga into its atomic elements, we have unleashed an entirely new range of combinatorial possibilities for digital catalogs, with no custom development required. Link directly to the child item shown in the $250K ashop the rooma photo? Check. Hot swap catalogs to support promotional events such as high-traffic sales? Check. Create catalogs with complete contract-negotiated pricing for every one of your B2B partners? Check. Create a catalog to take advantage of the next digital experience innovation a the one that has yet to be created? Check.

To see for yourself, check out this YouTube series, where my colleague Scott Johnstone demonstrates how easy it is to move from authentication in Elastic Path Commerce Cloud to a published product catalog in less than 45 minutes. Power users can take it a step further by using advanced options within the Elastic Path Commerce Cloud API, as demonstrated in this video series.

To sum up, inertia for inertiaas sake is no longer acceptable, especially as the retail world continues to generate massive revenue through digital channels. While we hopefully wonat be experiencing a Black Swan event like the pandemic again for some time, expect ecommerce penetration to continue its upward trend. The only way to keep up with constantly changing consumer demands and emerging channels is to embrace the flexibility of API-first commerce. It all starts with the commerce catalog a a foundational shift that can happen much faster than you think.

You may have seen that last week we announced EP Product Experiences Manager (PXM). We are thrilled to bring this new product to market! If you missed the announcement, EP PXM centralizes commerce PIM, product merchandising and Catalog Composer capabilities into one place for merchandisers to unleash their creativity and bring the unique product experiences their business requires to life.

These reimagined capabilities are giving merchandising teams the control to create and launch differentiated products across every route to market (multiple business models, brands geographies, touchpoints) without heavy reliance on IT. I sat down with our Senior Director of Product Management David Stover and Vice President of Global Solution Engineering, Julie Mall to learn more about EP PXM. Check out what they had to say below.

Q: What is EP Product Experience Manager (EP PXM)?

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Q: Why Did We Build This?

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Q: How is the Architecture of EP PXM Different from Other Commerce Tools?

A: To summarize, the architecture of EP PXM is differentiated because it is completely decoupled, meaning that products, prices, categories, and catalogs are totally separate services. This unique architecture gives merchandisers the control to bring their complex requirements to life, without reliance on IT for custom workarounds.

More specifically, there's no tight coupling between categories (known as nodes in EP PXM) and product types, which gives merchandisers the flexibility to market specific products in their own unique categories. For example, creating a aPinka category for Breast Cancer Awareness month which includes all different types of products from t-shirts to sneakers.

Thereas also no tight coupling between prices and products which allows for multiple prices, in the same currency, to be assigned to a single product. This enables use cases like B2B account-specific catalogs, tiered or loyalty pricing, or simply the testing of different pricing based on geography or experiences. Oftentimes in other commerce platforms brands are forced to hack these use cases by using promotions which becomes incredibly complex to manage over time.

Another example of this total control is found in our variation builder, which is part of our Commerce PIM capability. With variation builder you can build up to 10,000 variations per product in seconds. Most commerce platforms in the market today limit you to around 200 variations per product. This saves merchandisers time and gives them the freedom to merchandise a wide range of child and parent products separately. This flexibility supports use cases like shop-the-room experiences or placing only a certain size or color product on sale.

Lastly, this decoupled architecture directly powers the unique value of both catalog composer and product merchandising capabilities. Learn more from David:

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Q: Do I Have to Replatform to Use EP PXM?

A: No, you do not have to replatform to take advantage of EP PXM. Since EP PXM is a headless, API-first product, you can integrate it with your existing commerce platform and frontend to power product data and catalog management.

However, if a replatform is in your plans, you can migrate to Elastic Path Commerce Cloud and still reap the benefits of EP PXM, as it is included in that product.

Ready to Start Your Unique Product Experience Management (PXM)?

Elastic Path PXM combines re-imagined Commerce PIM, Product Merchandising, and Catalog Composer capabilities into one central place for merchandisers to create the complex product experiences that drive conversions and loyalty.

Q: What Does This Mean to Merchandising Teams, Specifically What Are the Potential Benefits?

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Q: What Does This Mean for Brands Overall?

A: Overall, this completely unlocks brands to bring unique and complex product experiences to life- at speed. If brands can access decoupled products and pricing, that means they can actually try out and test different pricing strategies, even A/B test different price points for products really seamlessly and again at scale without having to submit a ticket to ITa|So, imagine a scenario where you want to understand if a slightly elevated price works better than a sale price.

Being able to dynamically swap a price book without having to write any code immediately unlocks knowledge for an organization about where products are going to sell, at what price, and into what target customer and so on.In addition to unique pricing strategies, EP PXM also unlocks a brands ability to power unique experiences. Learn more from Julie:

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Q: What Are Some Examples of How Brands Are Using this Technology in the Market? 

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Q: What Are Some Roadmap Features We Plan to Implement with EP PXM?

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You can learn more about EP Product Experience Manager here.

Have your ambitious merchandising plans, including new product launches, flash sales, or powering innovative product experiences like ashop-the-looksa, been hindered by your existing commerce solution? We often hear that brands struggle with heavy customization and high costs, just to build and launch the experiences their customers expect. Typically, the root cause of their woes is the rigid catalog capability in their turn of the century commerce platform.

At Elastic Path, weave re-imagined product and catalog management capabilities so that they support merchandisers, instead of holding them back. EP Product Experience Manager (PXM), is a one-stop-shop for merchandisers who need to rapidly design and launch the product experiences that customers expect. EP PXM leverages a totally decoupled architecture where products, price books, hierarchies, and catalogs are all independent, giving merchandisers ultimate flexibility.

According to Gartner, "for channels that are long-term strategic investments, manual processes will eventually become insufficient. Instead, companies should invest in more robust product experience management (PXM) solutions, which represent an evolution beyond traditional PIM systems." To learn more, read the full report here.

One core capability within EP PXM is Catalog Composer. In this blog post we will focus on Catalog Composer, and specifically acatalog hot swapsa. Catalog hot swaps are a quick and easy way to switch catalogs (product assortments and prices) that allow your merchandising team to test and deliver unique customer experiences across channels, touchpoints, and geographies. Before we dive into the details, letas take a look at hot swaps in action.

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Struggling to Maximize your Sales with A Traditional Catalog

Before we cover how hot swapping a catalog can help achieve your commerce goals, it's essential to realize the drawbacks of a traditional catalog. The issues stemming from the rigidity of conventional catalogs are often overlooked. Merchandisers have grown accustomed to the slow time to market and heavy reliance on their IT teams to implement workarounds so they can manage sales, set promotional pricing, and create bespoke catalogs with a subset of products for a time-bound event.

When these workarounds are achieved, the high cost of implementation eats away at the success of merchandising strategies. In cases like a pop-up microsite or managing multiple brands, the costs are even higher since merchandisers need to work in numerous instances of their commerce solution. This proves to be an arduous manual task for merchandizers with unneeded data replication, duplicate catalogs, and countless hours spent setting up custom promotions to change prices because there is no easy way to assign multiple prices to the same product.

In a nutshell, these turn-of-the-century catalogs capabilities were not developed to support the merchandising needs of today. Without the ability to manage hundreds of variations, change product hierarchies on the fly, or set multiple price points, they are not equipped to achieve the complex merchandising strategies that are now essential for success. You can learn more about the sad state of catalog management in this blog.

Catalog Hot Swaps Offer a Better Solution

First, letas level set on what acataloga refers to for Elastic Path users. A catalog is a collection of products (also known as a hierarchy) composed together with a pricebook to create a product offer for specific use cases (brands, geographies, B2B accounts, etc.).

With catalog hot swaps, merchandisers can quickly change the catalog being served to customers to ensure they deliver a revenue-generating experience in line with today's expectations. Let's look at a few typical cases that would be difficult on old catalog architecture but are easy for your merchandising team to deliver with hot swaps.

1) Flash Sales: For a defined sale period (think back-to-school or holiday sales), merchandisers can swap out the catalog used in a storefront. That includes a full-scale change to what products are listed and their sale prices. With a modern de-coupled catalog architecture, a merchandiser will only need to set up a different price book for products already in your commerce catalog. Unlike the rigid catalogs of old that only allow a single base price associated with an individual product, there is no need to duplicate the products to set a sale price.

Ready to Start Your Unique Product Experience Management (PXM)?

Elastic Path PXM combines re-imagined Commerce PIM, Product Merchandising, and Catalog Composer capabilities into one central place for merchandisers to create the complex product experiences that drive conversions and loyalty.

2) Test New Go-to-Market Strategies: Equipped with a commerce solution that can set individual price points for multiple channels, touchpoints, and geographies from a single instance, your merchandising team can test a new price point in a specific country or region to gauge its effectiveness first.

Similarly, trying a new channel like subscriptions with a curated catalog and separate pricing can open new revenue streams for your brand. Through these controlled tests, you can confirm and optimize new strategies without needing to bet your brand's future on them.

3) Curate Front-end Experiences: Typically, a front-end experience relies on the hierarchies set up in your product catalog. Even with some more modern API-first commerce platforms, hierarchies are set in stone once established. In the example of a clothing store, if you were to set up hierarchies that start with tops and bottoms, you would be unable to readjust them into athleisure, formal, and casual.

For a customer looking to buy wedding attire, this context is crucial to creating a standout experience. As the context in which a customer shop continues to become an essential characteristic of success in today's digital commerce, having the freedom to hot swap into a new context relevant to your customers is crucial.

4) Bespoke Catalogs for Specific Segments: Customer loyalty is another aspect that is increasingly important in today's eCommerce. Maintaining a premier experience for your loyalty customers with specialized pricing, early access to new products, etc., is crucial in driving a revenue-generating loyalty program.

Hot swapping to a specifically curated catalog and special pricing works for these loyal customers or even for a particular account in a B2B setting, enabling your merchandisers to strengthen the customer relationships that are key to your success.

Not All Catalogs Were Created Equally

To leverage catalog hot swaps effectively, your commerce platform must allow your merchandisers to set up an unlimited number of catalogs and price books from the same instance of your commerce platform. EP PXM offers just that, along with an intuitive and easy-to-manage UI that frees your merchandisers to deploy complex strategies to create standout customer experiences quickly.

Learn more about EP PXM here or chat with us today to see how Elastic Path can help set up your merchandisers for success.

In a composable, multi-vendor eCommerce solution you get your pick of vendors who work best for your business needs. One of the more popular customer-facing capabilities that continues to gain steam is personalization. The curating of data to create experiences that nudge the customer along the buying cycle is mission critical for conversions, and something customers expect on a 1-to-1 level as far as targeted recommendations go.

We are well past the days of web personalization, as more consumers exclusively use mobile devices to browse and shop, with the in-app experience fast becoming the method of choice for most shoppers.

So how do shoppers really feel about personalization? The numbers give us some insight:

According to a Segment survey, 71% of responders become frustrated when their shopping experience becomes impersonal. Diving a bit deeper into the personalized shopping experience, 49% said they bought an item they initially were not interested in AFTER they received a personalized recommendation from a brand. Additionally, 40% of those surveyed said theyave purchased a more expensive item due to a personalized recommendation.

Not only is personalization a sound investment, but your customers also expect it. An Accenture study tells us a whopping 91% of consumers will shop brands who not only recognize and remember who they are but also give them relevant offers and recommendations.

You have many choices out there in the marketplace as far as personalization vendor selection, letas look at a few options for comparison:

Apptus

Headquarters: Lund, Munich, and London

Apptus.com

Apptus has an algorithm for personalized recommendations to complement the cart, provide alternatives, or when applicable complete a set based on shopping intent. The platform is fairly robust with flexible architecture designed to integrate well with any commerce. Promotional content is automatically evaluated for optimization and is adapted to the customer segment.

BloomReach

Headquarters: Mountain View, CA

Bloomreach.com

BloomReach personalization is ideal for small to medium organizations and pulls data from multiple sources such as natural language models, browse behavior, and CRM to provide the best results for the customer. The platform uses a proprietary Web Relevance Engine to integrate organic, paid, and site search with digital marketing and merchandising.

Campaign Monitor

Headquarters: Nashville, TN

Campaignmonitor.com

Campaign Monitor is a relatively straightforward approach to building email campaigns with easy templates and reporting tools. Startup pricing is as little as $9/month. Capterra rated them as an Emerging Favorite for email marketing software two years running.

Constructor.io

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

Constructor.io

Constructor.io is a SAAS company providing search services that learn from your users to improve their experience and boost conversion rates and was founded by engineers with years of experience in high-growth and high-traffic sites. Among the many reviews, Constructor.io fared well among customer service response and problem solving tailored to the client.

Dynamic Yield

Headquarters: New York, NY

Dynamicyield.com

Dynamic Yield helps companies quickly build and test personalized, optimized, and synchronized digital customer experiences. A G2 Leader for multiple years running, Gartner has also positioned Dynamic Yield highest for their ability to execute and furthest for completeness of vision in its 2021 Magic Quadrant report on Personalization Engines, with Forrester recognizing them as a Strong Performer in its Experience Optimization Wave.

Klevu

Headquarters: Helsinki, FI

Klevu.com

Klevu powers the search and navigation experience of thousands of mid-level and enterprise online retailers by leveraging advanced semantic search, natural language processing, merchandising and multi-lingual capabilities, ensuring visitors to your site find exactly what they are looking for regardless of the device or query complexity. High marks for great service and product at a reasonable price, as well as easy to deploy and maintain.

Kibo Personalization

Headquarters: Dallas, TX

Kibocommerce.com

Kibo is a cloud, SaaS, and web-based product with support and training including 24/7 phone support, email, and chat as well as live trainings, webinars, videos, and in-person training. Their ideal customers are high growth B2B and B2C retailers in the $100M+ total revenue bracket. Pros include excellent account management and customer service teams are easily accessible and helpful.

LiveChat

Headquarters: Boston, MA

Ready to Start Your Unique Product Experience Management (PXM)?

Elastic Path PXM combines re-imagined Commerce PIM, Product Merchandising, and Catalog Composer capabilities into one central place for merchandisers to create the complex product experiences that drive conversions and loyalty.

LiveChat.com

If youare looking to invest in a chat bot to bridge gaps in your customeras buying journey, LiveChat will get you started for a little as $16 per month. They offer a personalized touch to a shopper looking for information about products, or who may need additional support if they are on the fence about a purchase. LiveChat can also alleviate some of the lifting done in customer service email or phone queues.

Nice Job

Headquarters: London, ON

get.nicejob.co

Nice Job automates social media marketing to boost referrals and ultimately sales through reviews and photos. Used by primarily service businesses, it harnesses the power of word-of-mouth to build reputation and trust. Itas known for ease-of-use, and a seamless integration with an existing CRM system.

Nosto

Headquarters: Helsinki, FI

Nosto.com

Nosto uses an AI-powered Commerce Experience Platform designed for ease of use for retailers to build, launch and optimize 1:1 omnichannel commerce experiences without the need for dedicated developer resources or a lengthy implementation process. Leading commerce brands in over 100 countries use Nosto.

Optin Monster

Headquarters: West Palm Beach, FL

Optinmonster.com

Optin Monster is for small and medium-sized businesses to attract engagement through customized messaging based on a customeras location, mobile-friendly popups, and exit intent. They offer animation templates and an easy-to-use drag and drop builder to create your desired messaging or form.

Personyze

Offices: Brooklyn, NY Tel Aviv, Israel

Personyze.com

Personyze allows businesses to use workflow automation to trigger email drip campaigns based on last visits, cart abandonment, weather conditions, or form submissions. It comes with a recommendation engine, which provides end users with personalized product recommendations based on individual interests, transaction history and demographics. Personyze includes an API that allows businesses to integrate the platform with several third-party solutions.

Qubit

Headquarters: London, UK

Qubit.com

Qubit offers a complete solution for managing customeras digital experiences and enhances relationships with them. Built on top of Visitor Cloud, it provides customer insight to improve customer interactions. Not only is the software feature-rich, but itas also very easy to use with a drag-and-drop interface.

Sailthru

Headquarters: New York, NY

Sailthru.com

Sailthru uses a Predictions Manager tool to track revenue impacts of your content delivery. While it can forecast trends within the business as a whole, it also has capabilities to track the individual user such as probability of opening an email or opting out.

SAP Customer Data Cloud

Headquarters: Numerous offices located globally

www.sap.com/products

SAP Customer Data Cloud is built for larger companies to enhance marketing, commerce, and sales operations through personalized engagement across any touchpoint. All the intuitive features like behavior tracking, A/B testing, campaign management, and an activity dashboard all built for larger enterprises with a focus on data security.

Twilio Segment

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

Segment.com

Segment is a cloud, SaaS, and web-based product with support for mobile android, iPhone, and iPad devices. Additional support includes help desk, email, chat, documentation, and a knowledge base easily accessible to customers. There is a free version based on usage and a free trial. Pros include an easy integration when working with multiple analytic services and its ability to centralize data.

Sprocket

Headquarters: Eden Prairie, MN

Sprocketcx.com

Founded by a designer and a data scientist, Sprocket uses existing data and advanced machine learning to develop customer segments based on behavior and economics.

Read more from our blog about personalization as a digital merchandising best practice.

Itas no secret that consumer and buyer expectations have hit an all-time high. Every day at Elastic Path we talk to brands who are feeling increased pressure to awowa customers any time they interact with them. And, this pressure isnat unfounded, a recent Salesforce study found that a80% of customers now consider the experience a company provides to be as important as its products and services.a

Brands Feel The Pressure to Keep Up With Consumer & Business Expectations

More than ever, brands are looking for ways to differentiate their experience from the competition. These teams are eager to make browsing, finding, and purchasing products easier and faster for consumers. Often, they are looking to improve or build:

- Product configurators that enable customers to design their ideal products like custom windows, shoes, or couches

- Interactive shop-the-room or shop-the-look experiences that digitize the in-store experience

- Personalized pricing and product offerings for B2B accounts with negotiated rates or loyalty-tiered consumers

- Dynamic bundling with the flexibility to create any bundle with unique pricing

Simultaneously, many brands have expanded their digital routes-to-market to increase revenue and outpace their competition, meaning they are managing multiple complex channels all at once. Some common expansion projects we hear about include:

- New geographies: expanding to Europe

- New brands: acquiring a company

- New business models: going D2C for the first time

- New touchpoints: kiosks, BOPIS, pop-up shops, etc.

And lastly, brands need to be able to change and optimize these experiences and channels as quickly as customer expectations demand a and thatas fast! McKinsey data finds that brands who do this, improve customer experience, increase revenue by 15% and lower cost by 20%. So, you see, commerce teams find themselves in a high-pressure situation where their companies are counting on them to drive revenue by diversifying routes-to-market and WOWing customers wherever they are.

Join Us for a Live Merchandising Panel

Join Elastic Path customers, Pokemon, Maavee & Konica Minolta for a live merchandising panel webinar on Tuesday, June 14th at 11:30am EST.

The Obsolete Commerce Catalog

As if this werenat stressful enough, most of these business & tech teams are using commerce technology that was created in the early 2000s, or before. In essence, they are trying to manage 2022 expectations with rigid, turn-of-the-century commerce platforms. These platforms leverage a dated catalog architecture, where product, content, and price are all coupled together.

This means that if a brand wants to merchandise a product for a different price, letas say for a specific geography or for negotiated B2B pricing, they have to build a complex workaround. That could mean IT has to custom create a new catalog, or a merchandiser could hack a promotion to support that unique pricing, or in some cases, the commerce platform might say you need a whole other instance (at an additional cost) to support that use case.

For a brand trying to drive revenue through innovative product experiences across channels, these workarounds become abundant and make managing day-to-day operations incredibly complex. As our VP of Solution Engineering put it in a recent blog post, the eCommerce catalog is dead.

And, if you canat complete these workarounds or hacks, you end up with poor customer experiences where consumers and buyers canat quickly locate the right product for them in the right context, at the right price. This leads to browse abandonment, decreased conversions, and lost revenue.

Re-Thinking Product Data & Catalog Management Capabilities

The ability to manage complex product experiences across multiple routes-to-market isnat going anywhere. If anything, brands will continue to add complexity to their digital businesses. And, after speaking with hundreds of merchandisers and developers about the challenges of the obsolete commerce catalog, we knew there had to be another way.

To overcome the rigidity of other commerce platforms, we had to rethink the catalog architecture. We knew that to meet the needs of digitally driven brands, we had to help them put product data and catalog management capabilities at the center of their commerce strategy. This tweak in the way we think about commerce would enable brands to create the experiences their customers expect, across routes-to-market, without expensive dev projects or elongated launch timelines.

And, since we learned that the acoupleda nature of these capabilities in other platforms hindered brands from expanding with speed and wow-ing customers, we knew we had to de-couple the catalog architecture. Meaning that catalogs, products, hierarchies, and pricebooks all needed to be separate services. This de-coupling would provide brands with the ultimate flexibility to meet unique use case requirements across every route-to-market without custom workaround from IT.

Re-Invention: EP Product Experience Manager (PXM)

And thatas exactly why we built EP Product Experience Manager (PXM). EP PXM is a new product from Elastic Path that leverages de-coupled catalog architecture where catalogs, products, pricebooks, and hierarchies are all independent. This approach eliminates the restrictions of the obsolete catalog technology found in other platforms and gives merchandisers the freedom to unleash their creativity and launch the unique product experiences their business requires.

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EP PXM centralizes three key capabilities into one place just for merchandisers. It includes:

• Commerce PIM
  • Import, enrich, and manage products
  • Create dynamic bundles, 1000s of variations, and custom product configurators
• Product Merchandising
  • Organize product into unlimited hierarchies
  • Assign multiple price books to products
  • Design and launch promotions
• Catalog Composer
  • Compose hierarchies and price books into catalogs, without limits
  • Assign rules to catalogs so they are dynamically surfaced to the right customers

With these re-imagined capabilities, merchandising teams finally have the control to design and launch the differentiated experiences, across every route-to-market, without heavy reliance on IT for custom hacks and expensive workarounds.

Elastic Path customer Paro, an AI-powered marketplace for finance and accounting solutions, shared the value of these capabilities in a recent case study.

aElastic Path gives our non-technical users the ability to make changes and update the front-end experience and catalog without relying on our development team and this has allowed us to scale a lot faster.a - Amar Bhatia, Senior Product Manager

Checkout that case study to learn more about how Paro is using EP PXM. But, keep in mind, part of the beauty of EP PXM is its ultimate flexibility which means brands continue to show us unique ways that this product is making their lives easier. Some common use cases include:

• Power all routes-to-market without limits, including multiple:
  • Brands
  • Geographies
  • Business models
  • Touchpoints
• Support massive B2B businesses with many accounts, each with their own unique negotiated pricing & product assortments
• Catalog hot swaps: quickly swap catalogs on and off to support
  • Product launches
  • Pop-up shops
  • Flash sales
• Build and merchandise 1000s of child variants separately from parents without custom workarounds
  • Shop-the-look/room experiences
  • Inventory-of-one use cases, like reCommerce
  • Sale pricing for single variants
  • Merchandising by color, size, etc.
• Power unique pricing strategies, without having to ahacka them using a promotion
  • Test out pricing based on geo, instead of running a regional promo
  • Create unique pricing per variation or experience
  • Support businesses where each country has their own tax model (VAT v. Non-VAT)
• Create dynamic or complex bundles
  • Discount only one item in the bundle OR only discount the item when itas bundled

And that is just the beginning. With the complexity of digital commerce continuing to scale, we canat wait to see the innovative ways our customers use EP PXM in the future.

Re-Think Your Product Experiences

If some of the challenges described in this blog post sound familiar to you, itas time to rethink the technology your team is using to create product experiences. Maybe itas working today but will it continue to support you if you expand to a new business model or try to launch a custom configurator? Set your team up for success by learning more about EP PXM today.

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.

Way back in 1998, Volvo introduced a variant of its V70 wagon that has since become nearly as iconic as the Volvo Wagon itself: the Cross Country.A The intervening years saw nomenclature changes eschew the “Cross Country” name, simply calling the vehicle V70 XC, and then XC70.A Seventeen years later, Volvo has revived the Cross Country nameplate […]

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This is the weekly series where you, the Autosavant commentariat, are invited to take the reins of the auto industry, for at least as long as it takes you to write a comment. Itas all the responsibility, with none of the compensation! Being a child of the 1980s, it shouldnat come as any surprise that […]

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This is the weekly series where you, the Autosavant commentariat, are invited to take the reins of the auto industry, for at least as long as it takes you to write a comment. Itas all the responsibility, with none of the compensation! Scarcely a month after being appointed president of Cadillac, Johan de Nysschen (formerly […]

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