Are you looking to start, grow, manage, or scale your business? Look no further than Perficient for leveraging Shopify’s robust e-commerce platform to help achieve your goals.

Welcome to the digital era of commerce, where businesses grow online, and seamless checkouts are the norm. At Perficient, we understand the evolving landscape of commerce, and we’re here to elevate your online presence through the power of Shopify platform.

From Headless storefronts to composable tech stacks, we continue to evolve, setting new standards of excellence in the ever-evolving landscape of commerce.

How Does Shopify Work?

Shopify aggregates commerce activities under a single platform. Business owners can create and personalize an online store across channels such as online web and mobile devices, and in person through physical store locations. Orders and customer information can be synced across multiple channels, through powerful integrations—and managed all in one place.

Shopify plans range from the Starter plan, perfect for creators selling on social media channels, to Shopify Advanced plans for brick-and-mortar to Shopify Plus for high-volume global brands and Shopify Enterprise for enterprise retailers.

Why Shopify Commerce?

1. Time to Market: Shopify is one of the few commerce platforms that can assist in launching your webstore in a few weeks’ time. Unlike other commerce platforms, you don’t need to wait for months before you can launch an online store. Shopify has in-built features that can be easily plugged into the webstore that enables you to launch the online store in a matter of few weeks.
2. Shopify Supports End to End Commerce Ecosystem: Shopify is a buildable product that includes a core offering across several plans. Upon that base setup, store owners can integrate additional products, customize certain components, and add app integrations to create a unique experience that meets each business’s needs.
3. Go Global: Shopify enables businesses to sell to customers around the world, supporting multiple currencies and languages, as well as providing international shipping and tax calculation capabilities.
4. Comprehensive Features: Shopify offers a wide range of features essential for running an e-commerce business, including website customization, one step checkout, product management, secure payment processing, shipping and fulfillment, marketing tools, analytics, and more.
5. Competitive Cost: Shopify’s costing is very competitive and affordable for any type of business. They offer different plans that are suitable for small, medium, and fairly large enterprise businesses. Apart from the licensing cost, their apps are also cost effective to be utilized in online stores.
6. App Ecosystem: The Shopify App Store hosts thousands of third-party apps and integrations that extend the platform’s capabilities, allowing business owners to customize and power their stores with additional features suited for their needs.
7. Cloud Based and Secure: Shopify is completely secure, and cloud-based and -hosted, which means you can safely access it from any compatible device with an internet connection. This gives you the flexibility to run your business from anywhere. Has its own dedicated team to monitor the traffic and upsize as needed.
8. Payment Solutions: Shopify Payments simplifies the payment process for merchants by providing integrated payment processing solutions, reducing friction for customers and streamlining the checkout experience. It eliminates the hassle of setting up a third-party payment provider or merchant account and having to enter the credentials into Shopify.
9. Sell Anywhere: Sell to customers browsing on desktop or mobile through a dedicated online store. Grow your audience across social media and popular marketplaces including Facebook, Instagram etc. Sell in person with Shopify’s all-in-one POS system.

Why Choose Perficient?

Our team of top-tier Shopify commerce professionals specialize in tailoring solutions to meet your unique objectives, whether you operate in the B2B, B2C, or enterprise space. With our expertise, you can leverage cutting-edge architectures such as Headless, Composable, or Microservices to build robust platforms that meet the demands of today’s digital landscape. From initial consultation to post-launch support, our experts are committed to ensuring smooth and successful implementation every step of the way.

Meet an Expert

Justin Racine is Principal, Unified Commerce Strategy at Perficient, a global digital consulting firm serving enterprise clients throughout North America and the world. At Perficient, Justin drives digital commerce strategies that assist Fortune 500 brands to achieve and exceed business goals through commerce-enabled technologies. Justin has more than 14 years of experience in ecommerce, customer-focused experiences and branding strategy. In addition, Justin has been published in Forbes, Digital Commerce360 and Henry Stewart’s Journal of Brand Strategy.

Mouli Ganapathy is a Director in Commerce and AI practice at Perficient. With over 14 years of experience in Commerce platforms, Digital Experience Platforms, ML/AI-based Personalization, and Content Management Systems, Mouli is a dedicated leader committed to helping enterprise brands achieve enhanced engagement, increase online sales conversions and improve loyalty.

Ready to Transform Your Commerce Experience?

Ready to revolutionize your commerce strategy? Partner with Perficient and leverage the full potential of Shopify Commerce. Contact us today for a personalized consultation and take the first step towards transforming your digital commerce experience. Don’t let outdated commerce solutions hold your business back. Partner with Perficient today and unlock the full potential of Shopify for your online sales channels. Contact us now to schedule a consultation and take the first step towards commerce excellence. Let’s turn your vision into reality together.

Explore our commerce expertise.

A strong and successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is essential in the extremely competitive world of e-commerce today. You can increase the visibility, draw in more visitors, and raise conversion rates with the correct tools and strategies. Product information management (PIM) is a crucial tool for accomplishing these objectives.

What is PIM?

PIM provides a central repository for product information, ensuring that information is accurate, consistent, and up-to-date. This allows businesses to streamline the management of product data, such as descriptions, images, specifications, and other key information related to their products. Having this organized and easily accessible information can be extremely beneficial to businesses looking to improve their customer service, increase sales, and ultimately enhance their SEO performance.

By using PIM, businesses can save time and resources by reducing manual work, increasing accuracy, and eliminating redundant data entry. A PIM system can also help with managing different versions of product descriptions, images, and other data fields in different languages and currencies. This allows businesses to quickly launch products into new markets and keep them updated across multiple channels.

How can PIM help improve your SEO?

Product Information Management (PIM) systems are designed to help businesses store, manage, and distribute product information in an efficient and organized manner. It has become a popular tool for businesses looking to improve their SEO rankings.

PIM can help improve your SEO rankings in several ways:

1. High-quality Content: PIM can help ensure that product information is accurate, complete, and consistent, which can lead to better on-page optimization and search engine visibility.
2. Enhanced Product Descriptions: PIM enables the creation of detailed and optimized product descriptions, which can help improve the relevance and quality of content for search engines.
3. Better Keyword Targeting: PIM can provide insights into which keywords are most relevant for each product, enabling e-commerce websites to better target those keywords in their product pages and other content.
4. Improved Taxonomy: Taxonomy helps to improve the customer experience by making it easier for customers to find what they are looking for, and to compare products based on relevant attributes. In addition, a well-structured taxonomy can also help to improve search engine optimization (SEO) by increasing the relevance of search results, which can drive more traffic to a company’s website.
5. Cross-Channel Distribution – PIM systems also make it easy to distribute your product information across multiple channels. This helps increase the visibility of your product pages and will help improve your SEO rankings.
6. Faster and More Efficient SEO Updates – PIM can also help make SEO updates faster and more efficient. With PIM, you can quickly and easily make changes to your product information, which can then be automatically updated across all of your sales channels. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors, making it easier to optimize your product pages for search engines. With PIM, you can keep your website up-to-date with the latest product information and take advantage of new SEO opportunities as they arise.
7. Asset Management – Asset management in a Product Information Management (PIM) system refers to the process of organizing and managing digital assets, such as images, videos, and other multimedia files, associated with a product. This includes storing, categorizing, and versioning these assets to ensure that they are easily accessible and up-to-date. We can also attach metadata to digital assets to help improve the search.

This can lead to improved organic search traffic and more conversions for your business but business always questions how do I know the optimization we were doing in PIM is helping us, One way to identify is utilizing Digital Self analytics.

inriver’s digital self-analytics tool, Evaluate, significantly enhances SEO optimization in several ways:

1. Content Compliance: Evaluate ensures that your product information is accurate and consistent across all channels, which is crucial for SEO. Accurate data helps search engines understand your products better, improving visibility.
2. Keyword Optimization: The tool tracks keyword performance and helps you optimize product listings for better search rankings. This includes monitoring keyword search and share-of-shelf.
3. Real-Time Insights: Evaluate provides real-time insights into how your products are performing on the digital shelf. This includes monitoring product search rankings, competitor pricing, and stock levels, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve SEO.
4. Engagement Intelligence: By analyzing customer interactions and engagement with your product listings, Evaluate helps you understand what works and what doesn’t. This information is vital for refining your SEO strategy to attract more traffic and improve conversions.
5. Automated Monitoring: The tool uses smart automation to constantly monitor your products, providing actionable insights that help you stay ahead of the competition and ensure your product information is always optimized for search engines.

Using inriver Evaluate, you can take control of your digital shelf, drive revenue growth, and enhance your SEO efforts with precise, actionable data.

By following these recommendations, you can make sure that you get the most out of your PIM system and improve your SEO performance. PIM can help you stay ahead of the competition in the e-commerce space. So if you’re looking to improve your SEO performance and reach more customers, it’s time to invest in PIM. For more information on this, contact our experts today.

Deploying HCL Commerce involves setting up a network of Docker containers to run your e-commerce site. This guide will help you understand the deployment components, environments, and steps to effectively manage your HCL Commerce application.

HCL Commerce provides a robust and scalable solution for e-commerce businesses. It supports multiple stores and environments, allowing for efficient management and deployment. This guide adds value by simplifying the deployment process and ensuring a seamless setup.

HCL Commerce deployment involves various components that differ based on the chosen search solution—Elasticsearch or Solr. Each deployment includes commerce and data applications, which work together to provide a fully functional e-commerce site.

Elasticsearch-Based Search Deployment

Commerce Applications 

•  ts-app
•  ts-web
•  tooling-web
•  query-app
•  Optional: store-web, store, graphql, utils, xc
•  Third-party: PostgreSQL
•  HCL Version 9.1.13.0: nextjs-store

Data Applications

•  Elasticsearch-based search: ingest, registry, nifi, data-query
•  Third-party: elasticsearch, zookeeper, redis

Solr-Based Search Deployment

Commerce Applications (Authoring Environment) 

•  ts-app
•  ts-web
•  tooling-web
•  search_master
•  redis (third-party)
•  Optional: store-web, store, graphql, utils, xc, cache-app
•  Third-party: PostgreSQL

Commerce Applications (Live Environment) 

• ts-app
• ts-web
• tooling-web
• search_repeater
• search_slave
• redis (third-party)
• Optional: store-web, store, graphql, utils, xc, cache-app
• Third-party: PostgreSQL

Deployment Environments 

You can deploy HCL Commerce in two primary environments: Authoring and Live.

Live Environment 

This environment is designed to manage real-time traffic and serve end-users. It includes all the necessary capabilities for a fully functional production site.

Authoring Environment 

Also known as the “auth” environment, this setup includes additional features that allow site administrators and business users to make, test, and preview changes before they go live. It supports workspaces, enabling fine-grained control over site modifications.

Multiple Deployments 

You can deploy multiple instances of the HCL Commerce application, each with its own configuration. For example, you might have separate authoring and live environments in production and non-production systems. This setup allows you to test changes in a non-production environment before promoting them to the live production environment.

Non-Production System 

Used for testing and quality assurance. Modifications are implemented in the authoring environment and tested in the live environment, and once confirmed, they are replicated in the production system.

Production System 

The live environment here serves real traffic. Changes from the non-production system are promoted to ensure a seamless and error-free user experience.

Conclusion 

By understanding these components and environments, you can effectively deploy and manage your HCL Commerce application to meet your business needs. Deploying HCL Commerce requires setting up Docker containers tailored to Elasticsearch or Solr search solutions. By understanding the various components and environments—Authoring for development and testing and Live for production—you can efficiently manage and deploy your e-commerce site. This guide demystifies the deployment process, ensuring a smooth setup and robust management of your HCL Commerce application, ultimately fostering a scalable and efficient e-commerce business.

We’re pleased to announce that Perficient has been named a Major Player in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Adobe Experience Cloud Professional Services 2024-2025 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US51741024, December 2024). We believe this recognition is a testament to our commitment to excellence and our dedication to delivering top-notch Adobe services to our clients.

Continue reading to learn more about what the IDC MarketScape is, why Perficient is named a Major Player, and what this designation means to our clients.

Understanding This IDC MarketScape

This IDC MarketScape evaluated Adobe Experience Cloud professional service providers, creating a framework to compare vendors’ capabilities and strategies. Many organizations need help planning and deploying technology, and finding the right vendor is critical.

According to Douglas Hayward, senior research director for CX services and strategies at IDC, “Organizations choosing an Adobe Experience Cloud professional service should look for proof that their vendor has high-quality professionals who have a track record in empowering their clients and delivering the best value for the fairest price.”

This IDC MarketScape study provides a comprehensive vendor assessment of the Adobe Experience Cloud professional services ecosystem. It evaluates both quantitative and qualitative characteristics that contribute to success in this market. The study covers various vendors, assessing them against a rigorous framework that highlights the most influential factors for success in both the short and long term.

Perficient is a Major Player

We believe being named a Major Player in the IDC MarketScape is a significant achievement for Perficient and underscores our Adobe Experience Cloud capabilities, industry and technical acumen, global delivery center network, and commitment to quality customer service. We further believe the study is evidence of our expertise and continued focus on solving our clients’ business challenges.

Hayward said, “In our evaluation of Perficient for the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Adobe Experience Cloud Professional Services 2024-2025 Vendor Assessment, it was evident that Perficient has global delivery expertise that combines an experience design heritage with strong capabilities in digital experience transformation.”

The IDC MarketScape also says, “Based on conversations with Perficient’s clients, the vendor’s three main strengths are value creation, people quality, and client empowerment.”

Our Commitment to Excellence

At Perficient, we are committed to maintaining and improving our services and solutions. We continuously strive to innovate and enhance our capabilities and offerings to meet the evolving needs of our clients, further empower them, and drive value.

Learn More

You can also read our News Release for more details on this recognition and make sure to follow our Adobe blog for more Adobe platform insights!

For organizations to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced digital environment, product information management (PIM) needs to be precise and effective. inriver latest innovation, the Expression Engine, aims to transform how consumers manage and manipulate product data. It allows users to configure rules that automatically apply to product data, similar to using formulas in a spreadsheet. If you’re an inriver PIM user and haven’t yet enabled this powerful feature, here’s what you’re missing out on:

1. Enhanced Data Transformation Capabilities

The Expression Engine allows users to configure enrichment rules, enabling the automation of complex calculations, data string generation, and logical rule application. This significantly reduces manual effort and boosts efficiency. For example, you can create SEO friendly description by concatenating key attributes. This automation significantly reduces the time and effort required to prepare data for various channels.

2. Improved Speed to Market

By automating data transformations, the Expression Engine helps businesses accelerate their time to market. As product information is processed and updated automatically, you can quickly adapt to new market demands and ensure that your product data is always current and accurate. This is particularly beneficial for companies managing large product catalogs across multiple channels.

3. Increased Data Quality and Visibility

The dynamic functionality of the Expression Engine guarantees that any updates to your PIM data are instantly mirrored across all connected fields. This minimizes the likelihood of human error and helps maintain consistent and dependable data. Furthermore, users can view the formulas used in each field, enhancing transparency and simplifying the process of troubleshooting any issues.

4. Cost and Resource Efficiency

Traditionally, businesses often turned to custom code or manual processes to manage complex data transformations. However, the Expression Engine streamlines this process by eliminating the need for these costly and time-consuming methods. With its intuitive interface for configuring expressions, businesses can reduce their reliance on IT support, resulting in lower costs and a more efficient way to maintain their PIM systems.

5. Seamless Integration and Extensibility

The Expression Engine utilizes familiar tools and interfaces, like Microsoft IntelliSense for code completion and color coding, making it simple for users to create and manage expressions. This smooth integration allows you to fully leverage the PIM’s features without requiring advanced technical expertise.

6. Future-Proofing Your PIM Strategy

The Expression Engine’s adaptable and scalable architecture ensures that your PIM system can evolve alongside your business needs. By enabling this feature, you’re investing in a future-proof solution that will keep providing value as your product information requirements evolve.

Achieving PIM Efficiency with Expression Engine

A few example use cases of Expression Engine in PIM –

• Retail: In the retail industry, the Expression Engine can automatically calculate and populate fields like product attributes (e.g., size, color, and material) based on predefined rules. For example, if a retailer defines a rule that certain product types should always include specific care instructions or packaging details, the Expression Engine can automate the inclusion of these values, ensuring consistency across all product listings.
• Manufacturing: For manufacturers using PIM, the Expression Engine can generate and manage product codes and specifications dynamically, based on product attributes such as part numbers, materials, or dimensions. This ensures that each product is accurately categorized and described without needing to manually update multiple fields for every new product variation, reducing errors and enhancing efficiency.
• E-commerce: In the e-commerce sector, the Expression Engine can help create SEO-optimized product descriptions by automatically combining product attributes such as category, key features, size, and material. This automated approach ensures that every product page is consistent, relevant, and keyword-rich without requiring manual entry, thereby saving time and improving search engine visibility.

Conclusion

Activating the Expression Engine in your inriver PIM system offers numerous benefits that can greatly improve your product information management. You’ll see enhancements in data quality, quicker time to market, cost savings, and increased efficiency. Don’t miss the chance to optimize your PIM strategy—enable the Expression Engine today and witness the positive impact on your business.

If you’re ready to get started, contact us to discover how we can assist you on your PIM implementation journey and learn more about how enabling the Expression Engine can streamline your enrichment process.

In today’s digital landscape, efficiently managing product information is vital for businesses to enhance customer satisfaction and drive sales growth. A robust Product Information Management (PIM) system with excellent integration features, like inriver, will streamline your PIM strategy. By utilizing the integration frameworks and APIs provided by inriver, businesses can ensure relevant, accurate, and consistent product information across all channels. This article explores key inriver integration techniques that have the potential to transform your PIM approach.

The importance of PIM Integration –

Automating PIM processes leads to significant improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. By eliminating manual data entry, automated integration reduces errors and ensures that information remains consistent and current across all systems. This not only saves time and cuts labor costs but also enhances business agility and customer satisfaction. With automated integration, companies can swiftly adapt to market changes, make informed decisions, and provide timely, personalized information to their customers.

Exploring inriver Integration Options –

There are several ways to automate the integration between systems that are used to send or receive data –

Leveraging APIs (application programming interface)-

• inriver REST APIs – These can be utilized to build integrations in any programming language and customize interfaces within inriver, including creating enriched PDF/Preview templates.
• inriver Remoting APIs – These require C# programming knowledge and are used with hosted solutions. The Remoting API services consist of six major components:
  • Channel Service – Methods related to channels. e.g. Channel Structure, Publish/Unpublish a channel, Retrieve entities and links from a channel etc.
  • Data Service – One of the most widely used Service for creating, updating, deleting and finding entities and links in the system.
  • Model Service – Contains methods for building and maintaining PIM data model.
  • Print Service – Used for developing the inriver print plugin.
  • User Service – Provide methods for maintaining uses, role, permissions and restrictions.
  • Utility Service – Contains various method including Connector states, HTML Templates, Languages, and Notifications.

Remoting Services

• Content API  – A set of APIs designed to facilitate the onboarding and distribution of large volume of product data.
  • Content Onboarding API – help standardize the data onboarding process by dividing them into five key steps – Landing Area, Field Mapping, Staging area, PIM validations and Import.
  • Content Delivery API – used for distribution of product data to various channels and platforms, ensures that product data is uniform across all channels.

Integration Framework (IIF) – The Integration Framework is a foundation for building adapters and outbound integrations in inriver. It transforms customer’s unique data model into a standard integration model. It supports custom entity types, delta functionality and provide standard functions to deliver product data.

High level integration framework flow

The following table highlights the key aspects when considering integration within inriver –

These integration techniques can significantly enhance your PIM strategy, ensuring your product data remains accurate, consistent, and up to date across all channels. At Perficient, we engage in comprehensive discussions throughout our elaboration process and continue to validate during implementation phase. We help finalize best practices tailored to each customer’s unique needs, recognizing that one approach may work better for one client than another. Get in touch to explore how we can support you on your PIM implementation journey, whether you’re starting fresh or facing challenges with an existing system.

Digital shelf development is supported by Product Information Management (PIM) systems .  And they are evolving to meet the growing demands for efficient and effective online content generation across channels. Integrating Generative AI into your digital shelf is a significant advancement. This innovation transforms how retailers can transform the customer’s online experience, including subsequent reviews, ratings, and shopping behavior, with product descriptions and related content on PDPs. Let’s delve into how generative AI is reshaping PIM and your digital shelf across channels with a closer look at the offerings from leading platforms. One is designed for high customization and another designed for rapid streamlining of your enrichment and review process through configuration. 

The Benefits of Generative AI for Your Digital Shelf 

Faster Updates to the Digital Shelf

Creating digital content manually can be time-consuming. Generative AI saves publishers valuable time by automating the creation process. This allows retailers to focus on other critical tasks and content, improving overall productivity.  Consider a case where you need to quickly fix issues with a customer’s ability to search your products or review them on PDPs; you’ll have high velocity on those product changes.  That’s important because it impact customer reviews and ratings which will influence online shopper behavior for months and years to come.

Creative Springboard for Publishers

Generative AI provides a fresh perspective on digital information, offering descriptions and insights that publishers might not have considered to improve the online experience. This can serve as a creative springboard, enhancing the overall quality and appeal of your digital shelf. 

Enhanced Digital Shelf Accuracy

Generative AI is less likely to have grammar or spelling issues, ensuring high-quality, error-free product descriptions on your digital shelf. This enhances professionalism and reliability. Many website search engines and customer ratings and reviews can be sensitive to issues here. 

Expanded Publisher Pool

With generative AI, the pool of potential publishers expands beyond those with exceptional marketing writing skills. Some excel in product knowledge, data quality, search, customer experience, channels marketing, and efficient enrichment workflows, thus democratizing enrichment. 

 Multilingual Capabilities

Generative AI can translate into multiple languages, reducing the effort required to expand a retailer’s PDPs reach into new online markets. This opens up more channels and customers who search online for products in your digital shelf with minimal additional workload. 

Digital Shelf Stewardship

Generative AI is robust and efficient, but retailers can still have the final reviews, allowing a human touch where appropriate. They can review how a customer would search for that product and create a final revision. 

Generative AI Platform Features for Your Digital Shelf

 Highly Customizable PIM

 We provide strategic implementations on a platform that specializes in extensive customization (customizable PIM). To learn more about this specific platform please reach out to us.  It’s generative AI feature introduces several capabilities to manage your digital shelf and improve the presentation on PDPs and category landing pages: 

Content Generation Tab: This tab is available on any data element (products, categories, etc) page, including custom-created record types, allowing for versatile application across various entities. For example, it could be used for a category description as well as for products. This will enable you to apply generative AI to more facets of your digital shelf. 

Tone Selection: Retailers can tailor the tone for the generative AI to match the brand’s voice to the customer on PDPs. 

AI Engine Selection: It currently offers two generative AI engines and gives them the flexibility to integrate additional generative AI platforms in the future. 

Digital Shelf Relevance: It generates based on existing product content, ensuring relevance and accuracy on your digital shelf. 

Custom Terms: Users can include specific terms for the generative AI engine, enhancing the results in a targeted way. This improves the specificity of your digital shelf improving the relevance to the customer.

Batch Generation: Users can create work areas for products, apply generative AI to those products, and then review them systematically before approval. 

Choices: You can control how many versions of the descriptions you want.  It will create many variations to choose for PDPs. 

Images as Input: You can ask it to look at an image and generate a product description. 

Configurable PIM

 We also provide strategic implementations on a platform that is designed to be a turnkey solution where it’s functionality is driven by adjusting natively available settings (configurable PIM). To learn more about this specific platform please reach out to us. The configurable PIM also brings a robust set of features for managing your digital shelf: 

AI-Generated Attributes: Users can define specific product data attributes to be generated by AI. A new tab for attributes, “Generative AI,” is available to configure this feature. 

Verbosity Levels: The platform allows users to select verbosity levels for descriptions, providing control over detail and length to show on PDPs. 

Mass Digital Shelf Updates: It supports rules that apply en masse to all products, streamlining large-scale generative AI. The impact is compounded by the PIM’s ability to push updates out across channels automatically.

Extensive Product Library: Trained on a library of 50 million products, It can generate content even with minimal initial data, such as a manufacturer number. Of course, a robust digital shelf needs products with much more than minimal information to create engaging PDPs.

Suppliers Can Use It: If you use the supplier portal feature, your suppliers can use the generative AI to enrich their product content and empower them to contribute effectively to your digital shelf. 

Control Over AI Instructions: Since it responds to instructions (prompts), it allows you to select from a list of prompt templates to request a short description that is SEO-friendly or even targeted for Amazon if that’s one of your online marketing channels. You are creating an adaptive digital shelf. 

Comparative Analysis 

Both platforms have powerful support for marketing rich content across channels. When comparing the customizable PIM and configurable PIM for your digital shelf, several key differences and similarities emerge: 

Data Utilization: Both platforms build on your existing product data, but the configurable PIM also uses extensive product training data to enrich product content. 

Entity Support: The customizable PIM supports AI generation for any entity type, whereas configurable PIM is limited to product information. Some retailers have a high volume of categories on their digital shelf, which could be crucial. 

Shelf Optimization: Both support applying rules to products en masse, which can be more efficient for a digital shelf with many products. 

Feature Scope: The configurable allows your suppliers to leverage its generative AI using the supplier portal. 

Image Input: The configurable PIM can leverage your existing assets to help create descriptions. 

Client Use Case: Real-World Application 

Consider a client that pulls product content from multiple sources to create comprehensive product descriptions. Their customers search shortened descriptions from the ERP, leading to search issues (e.g., “BLK” for “Black”). This client faces challenges balancing the ERP with other sources to create robust descriptions. Generative AI content could be part of the solution here. It can merge ERP descriptions with other product data to be complete and accurate, seamlessly incorporating terms like “BLK” and “Black.” 

In cases like this, AI content generation could reduce the infrastructure and development costs of pulling and merging from multiple sources. It can also significantly reduce the time to market for your product content in all of your channels. 

Conclusion 

Integrating generative AI into PIM systems represents a significant leap forward in product enrichment. By leveraging AI, businesses can save time, enhance creativity, ensure accuracy, improve customer search, and expand their reach into new markets. Platforms like these lead the way, offering unique features to meet diverse business needs. As AI technology continues to evolve, the potential for innovative applications in PIM will only grow, driving efficiency and effectiveness in product information management.   

It is vital to ensure that humans review the content created since they apply experience from search. It’s also essential to include as much product information as possible as part of the source for AI. AI generation will create compelling product descriptions but cannot add attributes, specifications, or images.  

If you don’t have a PIM yet, I don’t recommend using generative AI as a specific selection criterion. Instead, the foundations of a PIM and how it meets your needs regarding data governance, source of truth, quality of product content, syndicating across channels, measuring success, and integrability are paramount. There are commonly understood best practices you probably need to adopt before diving deeper into these features. 

You may need professional consulting to ensure your move solves the right problem. We have subject matter expertise in PIM strategy, solution architecture, best practices, and feature guidance, as well as the deep technical experience to make your vision a reality.  Contact our experts today for other inquiries and information.

Shoptalk held its first ever Fall conference in Chicago this past week and our very own Justin Racine, Principal of Unified Commerce, was present to take it all in. This year’s theme was 007, so Justin was on a reconnaissance mission to gain as much information on retail and commerce trends as possible. Here’s a debrief on his sources and the intel he was able to gather from them during his time at the show.

Infiltrate the Indie Brand Mindset

Before the explosion of social media, consumers gained knowledge of new brands by window shopping and traditional ads, but the reach only went so far. With the prevalence of social media, retail products that are niche and unique now have access to the whole world with platforms like TikTok and Instagram.  Rent the Runway is a clothing rental brand that’s currently reveling in the fact that indie brands are controlling the fashion space. Jennifer Hyman, the Founder and CEO of Rent the Runway, claimed that today a brand can skyrocket in value just by a teenager talking about its products on TikTok. Social media has been changing the way consumers shop, and brands need to be able to keep up and provide new and fresh ways to connect and interact. Rent the Runway did that by providing fashion clothing for rent, rather than purchase, thus allowing for an ever-changing wardrobe with plenty of variety. Retail – just like fashion – should take greater risks and be bolder.

Capture Customers with Community and Connection

Glossier CEO, Kyle Leahy, provided a thoughtful look at three C’s that should be focused on to provoke thoughtful, engaging, and relatable conversations between brands and their consumers. Community, connection, and customers are the three C’s in question here. Glossier prides itself on being a community-based brand, focusing on how their products make people feel. On stage, Kyle spoke about how their consumers come to them because of the community they’ve created, and by actively listening to their consumers.

However, it’s one thing just to listen – it’s another thing entirely to respond. Kyle stated that Glossier responds to every single comment or post on their socials. That’s how they’re building a strong community, like by like, comment by comment. Glossier doesn’t stop there; they continually strive for personalized customer experience. Their storefronts are full of local apparel and products, and a new fragrance they’ve recently launched is an aggressively impressive campaign.

It’s called Glossier You, and the bottle is specifically designed to be activated by using the consumer’s thumb. In this way, it gives the feeling of the product being “encoded” to their thumbprint, giving them a personalized experience. To go one step further, they claim the smell is a little different on each person. With this product, they’ve built a conversation piece for their consumers around how it’s unique to them allowing connection across users for comparison, thus creating a shared experience and further solidifying their community.

Hacking Data to Delight Customers

Surprise and delight! That’s the name of the game when it comes to creating buzz with consumers. Many companies feel like they have a finger on the pulse, but according to the Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester, Brendan Witcher, that’s not the case. He challenged attendees’ perspectives saying that many customers don’t feel that companies are delighting or surprising them. These brands are operating off opinions rather than data, and these companies should gather real, credible data if they want to get to the heart of their consumers emotional responses.

Creative decisions should be based on true data and gained by letting the customer express themselves through their behaviors, actions, and even more importantly, their inactions. A great example of inactivity is those would be consumers who are visiting your site but not purchasing. Their lack of purchase, or inaction, is a clear look into a way to create growth simply by focusing on making those conversions. These customers are there, now all that’s needed is a push in the right direction.  Doubling up from Glossier’s 3C’s, Brendan revealed that there are 6 elements of customer data to focus on: characteristics, considerations, curiosities, conditions, context, and conceptions.

Closing the Dossier on Shoptalk Fall

For it being their first Shoptalk Fall, the show undoubtedly inspired and renewed the energy and enthusiasm of those in attendance. Individuals present expressed an urge to build deeper connections with their customers through a wide variety of strategies. The speakers encouraged the audience to listen to their customers, stay true to relevant retail trends, and dive deep into the data to curate connections and build communities. Now is the time to be unconventional, unique, and exciting.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to explore Perficient’s industry expertise in retail and commerce.

Read Justin’s full article on CMSWire.

Like many enterprise software platforms, HCL Commerce releases updates in a modular form known as a mod pack. The Modpack Upgrade is designed to enhance and extend the capabilities of your current HCL configurations, optimize workflows, add new features, and improve overall performance. This upgrade incorporates the latest advancements and best practices, ensuring your infrastructure as code (IaC) remains efficient, scalable, and robust.

Why Upgrade to 9.1.xx?

• Access New Features: Staying updated ensures that we can access the latest features and functionalities and keep our business competitive.
• Security Enhancements: Each Upgrade includes security patches and improvements to protect against the latest threats.
• Performance Improvements: Updates often include performance enhancements that make the platform faster and more reliable.
• Support and Compliance: Upgrading ensures continued support from HCL and compliance with industry standards and regulations.

Pre-Installation Steps

• Before upgrading, ensure you have stopped the Java application, disabled all web servers, and ensured that RAD (Rational Application Developer) is not running.
• Download and extract the Update Package that you want to install.
• Backup the customized files, as many are updated, in case you need to reapply any customization.
• Backup the Database.

How to Upgrade HCL Commerce Modpack 9.1.xx

• To upgrade, HCL Commerce Developers first need to download the HCL Commerce Enterprise Developer from the HCL Flexnet portal.
• Next extract the downloaded folder.

URL : https://hclsoftware.flexnetoperations.com/flexnet/operationsportal/startPage.do

Procedure for Adding a Repository and Updating

• Open the Installation Manager

  • Start the Installation Manager application on your computer.

• Add Update Package Repository

1. 1. Go to File > Preferences on the Home page and then select Repositories.
   2. The Repositories section will display any existing repositories, locations, and connection status.
   3. Click on Add Repository.
   4. In the dialog box, select Browse to navigate to your Update Package directory. Choose the repository.config file and click OK.
   5. Confirm that the new repository location appears in the list.
   6. Click Test Connections to verify that the repository URL is accessible.

• Optional Backup

1. 1. If you wish to back up your current setup before installing updates, navigate to File > Preferences > Files for Rollback.
   2. Enable the option to Save files for rollback.

• Initiate the Update Process

1. 1. Return to the main page and click Update.
   2. The Installation Manager will search for available packages in the defined repositories.
   3. Select the relevant package and click Next.
   4. The update wizard will identify applicable fixes, with recommended features automatically selected.
   5. Choose any additional updates you want to apply for and click Next.
   6. The update should be preselected; click Next to proceed.
   7. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
   8. A panel displaying the features to be installed will appear, with the necessary features already selected. Click Next.
   9. Review the summary of updates and click Update to start the installation.

• Optional Review of Installation

1. 1. After completing the update, you can check the installation history by navigating to File > Installation History.
   2. If you encounter any issues, refer to the log file located at WCDE_installdir\UpdateDelta\9.1.x.0\applyUpdate.log, where “x” represents the Update Package level.

Database Update

1.updatedb utility

This utility updates HCL Commerce Database to the latest release level that is installed on our system.

• Open a command-line utility in the WCDE_installdir/bin/ directory and run the below command.

Command: WCDE_installdir/bin/updatedb.bat dbType dbName dbUserName dbUserPassword dbSchemaName  dbHost dbPort

• The updatedbutility log file location: WCDE_installdir\logs\updatedb\updatedb.log

2.setdbtype utility

This utility points your HCL Commerce Database workspace to IBM DB2 or Oracle Database.

• Open a command-line utility in WCDE_installdir/bin/ directory and run the below command.

Command:  setdbtype.bat dbType DRIVER_HOME dbName dbAdminID dbAdminPassword dbUserID dbUserPassword dbHost dbServerPort

• The  setdbtype utility log file location: WCDE_installdir/logs/setdbtype.log

Post-Installation Steps After Upgrade

• Post-update steps

1. 1. Open RAD and refresh all the projects.
   2. Right-click the server in the Servers view and select Publish.
   3. Wait for the application to finish publishing and to restart.

• Functional Testing

1. 1. Core Commerce Functionality: Test fundamental e-commerce functionalities.
   2. User Management: Test user registration, login, and account management functionalities.
   3. Promotions and Pricing: Test promotions, discounts, and pricing rules.

• Integration Testing

1. 1. Third-Party Integrations: Test integrations with external systems.
   2. API Integration Testing:  Test APIs used for integrations and custom development.

• CMC Functionality testing

1. 1. Check the new feature after an upgrade.
   2. Test the functionality like creating e-spots, content pages, etc.

• Backup and Recovery Testing

1. 1. Ensure backup processes are in place and tested to recover the system in case of data loss or system failure.

The Modpack Upgrade represents a significant step in optimizing and extending your HCL configurations. Integrating the latest advancements and best practices ensures that your infrastructure as code remains cutting-edge, secure, and efficient.

Imagine running a business where you offer subscription-based products. As your customer base grows, you begin to notice something slipping—renewal deadlines, contract complexities, and your sales team being bogged down with manual updates. Enter Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), a powerful tool designed to help businesses streamline the often-complex process of managing quotes, pricing, and contracts. But that’s not all—Salesforce CPQ’s renewal and amend functionalities are here to make your contract management process seamless and automatic.

Let’s dive into how CPQ works, how it simplifies renewals and amendments, and why it’s a game-changer for any business using subscription models.

What is Salesforce CPQ?

At its core, Salesforce CPQ helps businesses configure their products, set pricing, and generate quotes quickly and accurately. Whether your product comes in different sizes, packages, or configurations, CPQ automates the process of calculating pricing based on your business rules, ensuring everything stays consistent. It also handles complex contracts, helping your sales team focus on selling rather than getting lost in the weeds of paperwork.

Now, imagine adding automation to this process, especially when it comes to renewing contracts or amending existing ones. This is where CPQ truly shines, offering standard functionality that reduces the workload while improving accuracy and customer satisfaction.

The Challenge of Renewals

Picture this: It’s the start of the week, and your inbox is overflowing with reminders—expiring contracts, upcoming renewals, and customer requests for service changes. Each contract has unique pricing, terms, and configurations. Manually tracking them is time-consuming and prone to human error. Missing a renewal date could lead to a loss of revenue or, worse, a dissatisfied customer.

Managing renewals manually can be overwhelming. But with Salesforce CPQ’s renewal functionality, this process is automated. Contracts are renewed at the right time, with minimal intervention from your team. No more worrying about missed deadlines or scrambling to send out renewal quotes. The system handles it for you, transforming what was once a cumbersome task into a smooth, efficient process.

How Renewal Functionality Works

Let’s say you have a loyal customer, Sara, whose subscription is nearing its end. In the past, you might have had to manually track her contract, reconfigure the terms, and send her a quote. But now, thanks to Salesforce CPQ’s renewal feature, the system automatically generates a renewal quote in advance, accounting for any updated pricing or discounts.

Your sales team receives a notification and can review the quote before sending it out. Sara, impressed with the efficiency, signs off on the renewal without delay. The entire process is handled smoothly, saving your team hours of manual work and ensuring customer satisfaction. Renewals become a way to strengthen your customer relationships, all while keeping your operations running efficiently.

Tackling Contract Amendments with Ease

But what happens when a customer wants to make changes mid-contract? Perhaps Sara reaches out midway through the year, wanting to upgrade her service package. In the past, you’d have to manually adjust the contract, update pricing, and notify the billing team. The whole process was time-consuming and left room for mistakes.

That’s where Salesforce CPQ’s amend functionality comes into play. Instead of starting from scratch, the system pulls up the existing contract, applies the requested changes, and automatically updates the quote. Whether Sara wants to add more users to her service or change the scope of her subscription, the amend functionality ensures everything is handled efficiently.

The amend feature also updates billing automatically, preventing errors that could arise from manual adjustments. Your team saves time, reduces the risk of miscommunication, and ensures that your customer is getting exactly what they need—without the hassle.

Automation Transforms Business Operations

Let’s face it—managing contracts manually is inefficient. Every contract expiration requires revisiting the original terms, configuring renewal details, and generating quotes. The more complex the contract, the higher the chances of errors. Handling amendments mid-term also introduces challenges, often leading to confusion or customer dissatisfaction.

But with Salesforce CPQ’s automated renewal and amend functionalities, the pressure is off. These features allow you to focus on what matters most: growing your business and building relationships with your customers. Automation increases accuracy, reduces manual effort, and ensures no details slip through the cracks.

Conclusion: A New Era of Contract Management

If your business is still managing renewals and amendments manually, now is the time to embrace the future with Salesforce CPQ. By automating these critical processes, you not only save time but also improve customer experience and protect your revenue streams.

Think about Sara—her smooth, seamless contract renewal and service upgrade are just one example of how CPQ’s renewal and amend features make a real difference. Your team can now focus on closing new deals, knowing that contract management is handled automatically.

Say goodbye to manual management and welcome the efficiency of Salesforce CPQ. It’s time to streamline your operations and let automation pave the way to a more successful, customer-focused future.

Justin Racine, Principal of Unified Commerce Strategy, recently wrote a blog for CMSWire on the various consumer shifts and impacts AI has had on ecommerce. With his extensive experience in ecommerce platforms, he has strong predictions for the future of ecommerce with AI’s growing influence. Here are the highlights of those insights.

Conversational Ecommerce is the Logical Next Step in Online Shopping

Conversational commerce is set to revolutionize the ecommerce landscape as many brands shift away from traditional methods.  Online shoppers are accustomed to the conventional browsing and checkout processes that have been standard since online shopping began. However, with AI’s help, the shopping experience is evolving to allow shoppers to interact with a brand as if they were speaking with a live salesperson in-store. By using natural language, consumers can describe their needs and preferences, which will result in personalized product recommendations.

Digital Platform Q&A

Logictry is a platform developer that emphasizes replicating the interactive aspects of in-person shopping. They are enabling users to engage in conversations with their favorite brands online. How do they achieve this? Through a dynamic question-and-answer approach or more accurately, a question-and-question approach.

Users input queries about their desired products and based on their initial questions, receive follow-up questions that encourage deeper consideration. This process, guided by an algorithm, helps users navigate their thoughts and ultimately leads them to purchases that align with their needs.

Has Generative AI Replaced the Ecommerce Website?

Much like how video eclipsed radio, generative AI is poised to significantly alter the ecommerce website’s dominance.  While ecommerce websites won’t disappear, their role will change drastically. Product detail pages will still be necessary, but the ways shoppers’ access and discover these pages will evolve. For everyday items, generative AI might be less crucial, but for products that require more thoughtful considerations, where shoppers might have limited knowledge, AI will most certainly play a crucial role in the decision-making process.

Leveraging AI for Brand Connection and Revenue Growth

Integrating generative AI in ecommerce requires solid product data, robust customer information, and a clear understanding of consumer needs. Brands must monitor key performance indicators to assess AI’s impact on customer behavior and sales. When implemented effectively, generative AI can build stronger, more human-like connections with consumers. Finally the potential and responsibility of adopting AI is critical and marks the beginning of a transformative journey for the industry.

For more ecommerce insights, read Justin Racine’s new CMSWire article.

To learn more about how we can help you with your strategy, discover our GenAI and commerce expertise.

What Makes Salesforce a Leader in B2B E-Commerce: Key Takeaways from the Forrester Wave Q2 2024

Michael Affronti, Executive VP & GM of Commerce Cloud at Salesforce, recently expressed his excitement on LinkedIn about Salesforce being named a Leader in the Forrester Wave: Commerce Solutions for B2B, Q2 2024 report. This achievement highlights Salesforce’s reputation as a driving force in the B2B commerce industry, centered around innovative approach, robust platform, and customer-centric vision.

In his LinkedIn post, Michael proudly mentioned that Salesforce earned an impressive 5 out of 5 in all 14 evaluation criteria assessed by Forrester, pushing them to the top of the leaderboard.

Aren’t you eager to explore what made Salesforce achieve this ranking in the B2B commerce landscape?

So, where shall we begin?

Let’s start by getting to know the Forrester wave report!

Understanding The Forrester Wave Report

The Forrester Wave report is a trusted evaluation of leading vendors in various technology sectors.

Salesforce’s position as a leader in this report reflects its current offerings, robust strategy, and strong market influence.

For the B2B commerce space, Forrester ranks platforms based on three primary criteria:

1. Current Offering:

This looks at the capabilities, performance, and flexibility of the platform.

2. Strategy:

Forrester evaluates the vendor’s long-term vision, innovation roadmap, and ability to address future market needs.

3. Market Presence:

This measures the vendor’s customer base, revenue, and influence in the industry.

Image Source: Forrester Wave Leader 2024

Now, with the understanding of Forrester wave report components & ranking strategy, let’s dive deeper into Salesforce b2b e-commerce platform’s core capabilities, innovations, strategy & market presence.

Salesforce’s B2B E-Commerce Offerings and latest innovations:

Salesforce Commerce Cloud stands out for its core B2B e-commerce capabilities that include:

• B2B-Specific Features: The platform offers robust B2B features such as account-based pricing, complex order management, and self-service portals. These capabilities allow businesses to cater to the unique needs of their B2B customers, driving higher engagement and loyalty.
• Composable Commerce: Salesforce supports a composable commerce model, allowing businesses to select best-of-breed solutions and integrate them seamlessly with their existing stack. This flexibility is crucial for enterprises needing custom solutions.
• AI-Driven Commerce: Leveraging Salesforce Einstein, the platform provides powerful AI-driven personalization, helping businesses deliver relevant recommendations and experiences at scale.
• Advanced Security and Compliance: Salesforce’s commitment to security and compliance ensures that businesses can operate safely in an increasingly complex digital environment

Apart from its core capabilities, Salesforce continues to push the boundaries of digital commerce particularly with the recent innovations that Michael Affronti mentioned in his LinkedIn post which includes:

Einstein Copilot for Buyers

Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot is an AI-driven assistant designed to guide buyers throughout their purchasing journey. In the B2B e-commerce landscape, where buyers often deal with complex product catalogs, ordering processes, and negotiations, having an AI-powered copilot can streamline decision-making and enhance the overall buying experience. Einstein Copilot helps buyers navigate product options, suggest relevant products, and answer questions in real time, making the process smoother and more efficient.
For B2B companies, this means improved customer satisfaction and faster purchasing cycles, as buyers are supported every step of the way by intelligent recommendations.

AI-Driven Goal Setting and Recommendations

AI-driven goal setting allows businesses to define specific objectives—such as increasing average order value or improving customer retention—and leverage Salesforce’s AI capabilities to receive tailored recommendations on how to achieve these goals. This innovation is particularly relevant for B2B e-commerce, where businesses often have complex, multi-faceted goals that require advanced analytics and strategic insights.
By automating the goal-setting process and providing actionable recommendations, Salesforce empowers B2B enterprises to make data-driven decisions that drive growth and optimize their digital commerce operations.

Generative SEO Metadata Optimization

SEO remains a critical component of digital success, even in the B2B e-commerce space. Salesforce’s generative SEO metadata optimization leverages AI to automatically generate SEO-friendly metadata, such as title tags, meta descriptions, and keywords, ensuring that product pages are optimized for search engines. This innovation can significantly enhance the visibility of B2B e-commerce websites, driving organic traffic and improving rankings.

For B2B businesses, this is a game-changer, as it allows them to keep up with SEO best practices without requiring extensive manual input, leading to better search visibility and higher lead generation.

Enterprise Scale Carts and Split Shipments

In B2B e-commerce, large orders and complex shipping requirements are common. Salesforce’s new enterprise-scale cart capabilities enable businesses to handle large, complex orders with ease, including features like bulk ordering and split shipments. This is particularly valuable for B2B companies that manage large transactions and need to ship products to multiple locations or across various timelines.

This innovation provides flexibility and scalability, ensuring that B2B e-commerce platforms can handle the demands of large enterprises without compromising on efficiency or customer experience.

Native Merchant Services

Salesforce’s native merchant services provide seamless payment processing capabilities directly within the platform. By offering an integrated payment solution, Salesforce eliminates the need for third-party payment processors, streamlining the payment experience for both businesses and their customers.

For B2B companies, this means faster, more secure transactions, and reduced friction during the purchasing process. Native merchant services help B2B businesses manage payments more efficiently, improving cash flow and reducing operational complexity.

Salesforce’s Perfect Score in Strategy and Market Presence

Michael proudly mentioned that Salesforce achieved 5 out of 5 scores in all 14 evaluation criteria in the Forrester report. These criteria cover a wide range of critical areas for B2B commerce, including:

• Commerce Capabilities: Salesforce’s ability to deliver personalized experiences, complex order management, and multi-channel support has been key to their high rating.
• Customer Success: Salesforce’s focus on enabling businesses to achieve their goals through robust support, training, and ongoing guidance
• Scalability and Performance: Salesforce has demonstrated its capacity to scale with businesses, ensuring that performance remains high even as customer demands increase.
• Integration and Ecosystem: Salesforce’s seamless integration with its broader ecosystem, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, makes it a powerful choice for businesses seeking a unified digital experience.

These scores validate Salesforce’s excellence in delivering B2B commerce solutions that meet the demands of modern enterprises.

Salesforce’s strategy centers on innovation, flexibility, and customer success. The company continuously invests in enhancing its B2B commerce platform, keeping it at the forefront of technological advancements.

Forrester recognized Salesforce’s strong strategic vision, which focuses on enabling businesses to stay competitive by leveraging AI, omnichannel capabilities, and a unified approach to customer experience.

In terms of market presence, Salesforce’s extensive partner network, large customer base, and global reach contribute to its dominance in the B2B commerce space. Salesforce’s ability to support businesses of all sizes, from small enterprises to large multinational corporations, makes it a versatile and appealing choice for a wide range of B2B companies

The Final Note: Staying Ahead in Strategy, But Room for Growth in Current Offerings

While Salesforce’s strategy and market presence are clear strengths, Forrester’s report suggests that there is room for improvement in the current offerings category.
Forrester noted that

• Salesforce could enhance its platform’s flexibility and configurability, as some businesses might require more tailored solutions out-of-the-box.
• Additionally, certain advanced features may need further development to meet the specific needs of highly complex B2B operations.

Nevertheless, Salesforce’s focus on innovation and its ability to execute its strategic vision ensure that it remains a leader in the B2B commerce space. As the digital commerce landscape continues to evolve, Salesforce is well-positioned to adapt and deliver value to businesses, helping them succeed in the fast-paced world of B2B commerce.

Conclusion

Data Source: Salesforce – Awards & Recognition

If you’re looking to build a user-friendly, scalable B2B commerce site that leverages the latest in AI-driven personalization, enterprise-scale transactions, and seamless integrations, reach out to Perficient.

Our team of experts can help you unlock the full potential of Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud and build a platform that can deliver a connected experience at every interaction thus retaining loyal buyers.