Adobe Announcements: Firefly AI & much much more!

Adobe Announcements: Firefly AI & much much more!

The world has been abuzz recently with news of generative AI. Even though artificial intelligence has existed in some form for decades, marketers and eCommerce pros need to pay attention to the ongoing seismic shifts in this growing segment. This is important, especially if you are an Adobe customer.

Because Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, stole the show at their company’s annual Adobe Summit by announcing they’re entering the AI race, joining Microsoft, Google, and others by introducing a new family of generative AI models called Firefly.

Firefly is a new group of generative AI models focused on creating images, video, and text effects. Firefly uses generative AI with graphics tools like brushes, color gradients, and video tools to speed up production and make it easier for creators to produce high-quality content.

“Our belief is that generative AI will enhance human ingenuity, not replace it,” said Narayen; he also added, “Over time, AI will help us reimagine every aspect of marketing.”

At launch, Adobe refers to Firefly as a Beta and will only be available through a website. But eventually, Adobe plans to tightly integrate generative AI tools within its suite of creative apps, like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, for your team to take advantage of.

This addition to their suite of offerings is a big deal for Adobe. The company sits at the center of the creative app ecosystem, and over much of the past year, it’s stayed on the sidelines while newcomers to the creative space began to offer powerful tools for creating images, videos, and sound for next to nothing.

The Adobe Summit also saw the launch of Sensei GenAI, natively embedded into the Adobe Experience Platform. However, it was not immediately clear how this would enhance the platform’s existing Sensei AI capabilities. Again, the aim seems to allow users to work with generative AI capabilities within Adobe Experience Cloud. In addition, Adobe also announced Adobe Mix Modeler, a new dashboard giving a cross-channel view of campaign performance, allowing real-time optimization of channel spend.

Let’s take a look at the bigger picture of this announcement from Adobe and what it means for you, its customer base, and what other Adobe Commerce features are currently available to help you optimize performance.

AI-optimized Live Search Results

    Almost two years ago, Adobe Commerce launched Live Search to provide lightning-fast search results, intelligent faceting, and search merchandising capabilities without investing in an expensive third-party solution.

    The latest release expands the use of Adobe Sensei in Live Search to deliver personalized results that boost relevance and conversion rates. For example, customers can optimize search results for specific queries by selecting from a set of five AI algorithms that include:

    • Recommended for You
    • Trending
    • Most Purchased

    Your team members can preview the impact of each algorithm in a test window before pushing anything live. Once a rule is set, Adobe Sensei automatically adjusts search results based on textual relevance and the selected algorithm to create a highly personalized product discovery experience. For example, the ‘Recommended for You’ algorithm surfaces products based on the shopper’s current and previous on-site behavior, and ‘Trending’ boosts products based on recent sales momentum. To learn more about Live Search capabilities, check out the release notes and documentation.

    Faster Live Search Setup and Performance

    Thanks to a new storefront widget, customers can now configure and launch a complete search interface and product listing page that will load not one, not two, not three, but five times faster. These increased load times are possible since all queries will be routed to Adobe’s search service for processing. In addition, the widget improves overall performance by removing the search traffic load from the site.

    Learn more about the Live Search widget here.

    Advanced Segmentation and Targeting

    Another new extension, Audience Activation, is changing the game! If you are looking to deliver real-time, one-to-one personalized experiences to your customers, you’ll want to take a mental note. With this update, your team can now use audiences created in Real-Time CDP to target content (dynamic blocks) and promotions (cart price rules) in Adobe Commerce. For example, a merchant can highlight a 20% off promotion on high-margin accessories to customers with a high propensity to purchase discounted add-ons. This deep integration enables more sophisticated personalization strategies that leverage data from the commerce site and other sources — like ERP and CRM systems — and AI-powered segmentation tools unique to Real-Time CDP.

    Learn more about the Audience Activation here.

    High-intent Data Sharing

    The surge in online interactions since the start of the pandemic has raised buyers’ expectations. Most expect businesses to tailor every interaction to their needs and preferences. To meet these demands, Adobe released a new update to the Experience Platform connected for Adobe Commerce, better known as Data Connection. This release will empower businesses to build rich customer profiles, including back-office order status information, and help to deliver personalized commerce journeys. This powerful native integration goes above and beyond the traditional storefront behavior monitoring and gives marketers access to the data they need to fuel more personalized, relevant, and timely messages, as well as power in-context promotions or content to each prospect or customer. For example, an order canceled due to a supply chain issue can trigger a customer notification with a substitution offer and special discount. The same data can also be used to understand the impact of cancellations on customer lifetime value. For B2B customers, Data Connection also shares information when requisition lists are created, and products are added or removed from lists.

    Learn more about Adobe Commerce data sharing capabilities here.

    Payment Services for UK and France

    Payment services for Adobe Commerce give merchants the simplicity of a unified platform, making it easier to securely manage transactions and order data from every storefront in one place – your eCommerce dashboard.

    Now available in the UK and France, Payment Services provides payment options, easy onboarding, and comprehensive customer reporting in multiple markets. Offering this level of payment options is another important way to make your customer’s shopping experience more seamless for better results.

    Learn more about payment services here.

    New Catalog Service Capabilities

    Enhancements to Catalog Service for Adobe Commerce now allow customers to retrieve category data and individual product details, which speeds up the time required to render category menus and trees on any page. Merchants can also request specific layers of the category tree to show only relevant data to the shopper.

    Bringing it All Together

    If this announcement proves anything, it’s that the Adobe Commerce platform is not only continuously growing in its offering and abilities, but it’s also increasing in complexity, which can feel overwhelming for eCommerce managers and teams. That’s where we come in. If you want to learn more about these new features or simply want to make the most of your current site, schedule a call with one of our Dev team members today.

    Stay tuned for more information on Firefly release notes and how Adobe Commerce can continue helping you and your brand succeed.

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      UPDATED for 2023 Shipping Rate Changes: how to prep & what to expect

      UPDATED for 2023 Shipping Rate Changes: how to prep & what to expect

      When it comes to shipping, staying informed about current rates is crucial for ensuring that your customers are always aware of the latest costs and delivery times, and this year is certainly no exception. With inflation rates higher than ever, carriers such as UPS, UPS, DHL, and FedEx are definitely looking at an increase in costs which they will no doubt be passing along to you, the shipper.

      In this blog is everything you need to know about these price changes and what’s to come, but more importantly, what you can do to stay ahead.

      Read on for a full breakdown of the 2023 shipping price rates.

      USPS

      The following fee changes took effect on January 22, 2023:

      • Priority Mail commercial rates increased by 3.6%
      • Priority Mail Express service prices increased by 6.6%
      • Priority Mail Flat rates increased by 3$
      • First-Class Package Service prices increased by 7.8% 
      • Parcel Select service prices increased by approximately 5.5%
      • There is no price increase for Parcel Select Ground

      It is important to note that these rate changes will vary between service levels and depend on where you print USPS labels. For a complete guide to USPS’s shipping rate changes, click here. 

      UPS

      The 2023 UPS shipping rates that went into effect on December 22, 2022, have seen an average increase of about 6.9% across the board, matching FedEx.

      DHL Express

      DHL Express wasted no time enacting their 2023 shipping rate increases by an average of 7.9% on January 1, 2023. 

      FedEx

      The 2023 FedEx shipping rates that went into effect on January 2, 2023, have seen an average increase of about 6.9% across the board. The exact increase percentage from last year to this year varies depending on the package’s size, weight, shipping destination, and shipping origin. 

      It’s also worth noting that a delivery area surcharge of $13.25 will be applied per package for shipments traveling to specific ZIP codes within the contiguous 48 states. The exact amount of fuel surcharge will depend on market conditions and will be updated once more later this year on April 4, 2023.

      A complete list of FedEx’s shipping rate changes can be found on their website.

      Canada Post

      The 2023 Canada Post shipping rates increased by an average of 4.0% domestically and 1.4% US and internationally on January 9, 2023. For a full guide on Canada Post’s shipping rate changes, visit their guide.

      How You Can Save on Shipping in 2023

      This year, shipping rate increases didn’t entirely roll back from the higher prices during the peak holiday season. However, shipment services will continue growing in price year after year. If you don’t want to fall behind, use these tips to stay ahead:

      Free Shipping

      If you offer Free Shipping here are some options available to you:

      An Increase in product prices – If you’re still dead-set on maintaining your ‘free shipping’ options then an increase in product prices may be where you make up the loss incurred from the increased shipping costs. If you increase your products’ prices by the same percentage as these shipping increases you will maintain your magins. Although, your repeat and loyal customers may notice an increase in price, which could lead to an impact in their purchase frequency and shopping habits. This may be something worth A/B testing. 

      You could just do nothing – If you choose this route then you’ll need to absorb the increased cost of shipping yourself. Confirm your margins and your profitability before taking this route. 

      Consider a switch to ‘Free Shipping Minimums” – There is a compromise to be found between increasing your product prices and doing nothing. And that compromise is to add a free shipping minimum. This tactic has been shown to increase the average order value, which will help to offset the increased cost in shipping. This strategy will also pass along the cost of shipping directly to your customers if their order fails to reach the minimum threshold.

      Flat Rate

      If you offer Flat Rate Shipping here are some options available to you:

      You could just do nothing – Same as with Free Shipping, if you choose to do nothing then you’ll have to eat the cost yourself. Confirm this plan’s sustainability and long term functionality. 

      Adjust or introduce Order Value Ranges – There’s no rule that says your flat rates need to be the same for every order. Consider offering a higher flat rate on smaller orders and lower flat rates as orders and cart sizes increase. This will help off-set the increase in shipping costs. 

      Increase product prices – If you increase your products’ prices by the same percentage as these shipping increases you will maintain your magins. Although, your repeat and loyal customers may notice an increase in price, which could lead to an impact in their purchase frequency. 

      Increase Flat Rate Shipping – This increase may lead to similar results as an increase in product prices and it may impact your abandoned cart rates as customers will see this charge later on in the sales process. Consider altering the messaging and frequency of your Cart Abandonment emails if this is the path you choose.

      Calculated Shipping Rate

      If you offer Calculated Shipping here are some options available to you:

      You could just do nothing – If you use a calculated rates provider or app and you choose to do nothing then these new charges will be automatically updated as soon as they are implemented. 

      Decrease Product Price – Since your shipping rates are going to be automatically updated via your carrier extensions and applications a decrease in product price is an option. Once again, ensure that your margins are sustainable and pricing remains consistent and strategically in-line with the rest of your product line and your competitors.

      Adjust for 2023 and beyond

      While your current 2023 budget may need to be adjusted to account for some of these new charges, this might be a blessing in disguise. You could use this opportunity to rethink your entire shipping strategy from the ground up. If none of your calculations hit on your target margin, pricing strategy or shipping rate then it is time to go back to the drawing board. The team here at InteractOne is experienced and knowledgeable and ready to help craft a shipping strategy that works for you and your plans.

        Get expert help today!

        An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

        Drop Us a Line At:

        Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
        Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

        4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
        Cincinnati, OH 45241

        Adobe Commerce B2B Tech Innovations You Must Have

        Adobe Commerce B2B Tech Innovations You Must Have

        How much of your marketing experience is one-size-fits-all?

        We live in a world where increasingly, the customer holds the buying power. This means that for many business-to-business (B2B) brands to be successful, they need to turn individual users into product champions to help simplify complex buying journeys.

        But you already know that trying to speak to everyone in B2B means diluting the power of your message to your actual target audiences. On the other hand, a personalized marketing approach creates a better experience that leads to faster conversions and stronger prospect relationships.

        Personalized marketing can take up your team’s time and resources. But, if you’re a fast-growing company dealing with volumes of data and different types of users, personalization reaps the biggest results at scale. The more you can cut through the noise to personalize the ideal customer experience, the more successful your marketing will be.

        So where do you start — and what makes personalized marketing worth the effort?

        In this blog, we’ll discuss some new innovations that can help your business use personalization to achieve better conversion results.

        A Dynamic Duo for Revenue Growth

        How much of your marketing experience is one-size-fits-all?

        We live in a world where increasingly, the customer holds the buying power. This means that for many business-to-business (B2B) brands to be successful, they need to turn individual users into product champions to help simplify complex buying journeys.

        But you already know that trying to speak to everyone in B2B means diluting the power of your message to your actual target audiences. On the other hand, a personalized marketing approach creates a better experience that leads to faster conversions and stronger prospect relationships.

        Personalized marketing can take up your team’s time and resources. But, if you’re a fast-growing company dealing with volumes of data and different types of users, personalization reaps the biggest results at scale. The more you can cut through the noise to personalize the ideal customer experience, the more successful your marketing will be.

        So where do you start — and what makes personalized marketing worth the effort?

        In this blog, we’ll discuss some new innovations that can help your business use personalization to achieve better conversion results.

        Deploying the Appropriate Level of Personalization

        To give customers the tailored experiences they value, brands need to create a large amount of content across multiple channels – social, email, blogs, and more – because a personalized experience is just as much about the conversation as it is about the content. 

        Adobe announced Dynamic Chat for Marketo Engage to give website visitors the tailored and interactive experience they expect. Dynamic Chat enables brands to build vital connections when customers are ready. For example, site visitors can book a meeting with your sales team via chat technology, simplifying and accelerating their buyer journey. In addition, your team can quickly deploy the right chat based on detailed lead and account attributes to fully integrate chat into their cross-channel lead or account-based strategies. Your team will also be able to quickly analyze how many conversations have occurred, interaction rates, conversation completion, or abandonment rates, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. 

        To streamline cross-channel engagement beyond Marketo Engage, your team will now be able to create custom API-based campaigns and workflow actions that can be accessed in the UI and used in bringing campaigns to life.

        Web Developer

        Coordination between your marketing and sales teams is critical when engaging with the same accounts. To help streamline the process, Adobe is announcing a solution, Predictive Lead and Account Scoring, to help these two teams focus on the right prospects and act as one. This new solution will utilize article intelligence powered by Adobe Sensei to predict how likely a potential lead is to purchase a product or service based on certain attributes, such as site interactions, forms filled out, and more. 

        Sales representatives will also be able to prioritize leads and accounts that might otherwise close with Sales Insight from Marketo Engage. Sales Insight provides your sales team with multi-step engagement tools and content right inside your customer relationship management (CRM) for a complete workflow without the need to toggle between multiple applications. 

        With a single system for customer activity across teams, your team will have the capability to automatically start and stop campaigns based on sales engagement, and see all the activity marketing efforts for their accounts together in a single view. The result is more consistent and personalized experiences for customers, more effective sales teams, and higher marketing ROI.

        Bringing it all together

        Even though Adobe offers an excellent array of B2B innovations, these out-of-the-box solutions will still require personalization to be fully functional with any large eCommerce store.

        That’s where we come in. If you want to learn more about these new features or you simply want to make the most of your current store, schedule a call with a member of our Dev team today.

          Get expert help today!

          An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

          Drop Us a Line At:

          Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
          Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

          4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
          Cincinnati, OH 45241

          Most Costly Adobe Commerce Problems – And How to Fix Them

          Most Costly Adobe Commerce Problems – And How to Fix Them

          A lot of different factors are involved in the development of an eCommerce website and it is ultimately those same factors that will decide the fate of your business. They will also play a large role in  how users are going to interact with or find your website. 

          In this blog, we are going to share the most common issues encountered with the Adobe Commerce platform that your team might be experiencing and how to solve them. If you want to learn a little more about the powerful and exclusive money-making features of Abobe Commerce check out our blogs The 5 Most Valuable, Exclusive, Money-Making Features on Adobe Commerce and Future Proof your Webstore with Adobe Commerce 2.4.5

          Slow Performance

          Having a fast-loading, high-performance website is crucial to your eCommerce business. Why? Because the speed of your web pages play a vital role in your user experience, conversions, and Search Ranking. Unfortunately, too many eCommerce merchants place a priority on having a site with too many bells and whistles and an overly sophisticated website design, all of which slow the site rendering speed. 

          A slow-loading site can cause major conversion rate issues that dramatically affect your sales.  Some extensions (and extension providers) are notorious for breaking Adobe Commerce’s cache and not working properly with JS bundling and CSS/HTML minification.  These extensions can create very slow page loads and poor performance across the site.

          Your site speed is important for the overall user experience you are trying to create and if your site takes a long time to load (especially on mobile) causing impatient customers to leave your site, increasing l your overall bounce rate and reducing the average time spent on your site. Slow loading sites also get lower SEO scores from Google and affect your business’s conversion rates; which further exacerbates the problem. In fact, the highest eCommerce conversion rates occur on pages with load times between 0-2 seconds, with nearly 70% of consumers admitting that a page speed beyond this impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer, according to a study by Portent

          Every extension should be reviewed by a senior developer before being installed and a full regression test and possibly a load test of the site should be performed before releasing the extension to production. For more information on factors that might be affecting your site speed, check out our blog, Perfect Page, Poor Traffic? Why Site Speed Matters. 

          Conflicts

          For the eCommerce teams that do not plan their websites correctly, it is easy to go overboard and install extensions that affect your website’s functionality. That can be easy to do with the 3,800 extensions that the official Adobe Commerce Marketplace offers. This is because sometimes it’s not possible for all 3rd party extensions to be tested against one another. They also might not be of top quality which may hinder your customer’s experience. Another conflict your team might be experiencing is incorrect database configurations. If you are using Magento 2.4 or above, it is essential that your team upgrade your database to MySQL 8; which can take your performance to the next level. According to a report, this database upgrade can improve the performance of a website twice as much as its previous versions.

          To help stay on point with your sales strategy while improving your performance and experience on your website, the solution to this issue is to ensure that full regression testing and load testing are routinely performed before releasing any extension into production. In addition, you can set indexers to ‘update on schedule’ rather than ‘update on save’ to help eliminate Adobe Commerce performance issues in case of large volumes of traffic, especially around the holidays or other particularly busy times. 

          Support

          Sometimes extension providers are slow to respond to support requests or they simply stop supporting their extension.  Although not common, we have seen this happen several times in the past.  The most significant impact can be when an extension provider decides to stop supporting their extension altogether.  This means the merchant is forced to either pay a developer to keep upgrading the extension to match overall site upgrades or replace that extension with something else.  

          One of the most popular extensions to lose support recently has been the Ultimo theme.  This extension was used by many merchants, all of whom were left with no support when the Ultimo theme developer decided to no longer support or upgrade their theme.

          The recommended solution to this issue is to only purchase extensions from the bigger and more well regarded providers like Aheadworks or Magefan who have more resources for support and are not likely to fold up shop anytime soon.

          Solutions

          Slow loading pages, especially for mobile users, are by far the most important and costly of the issues outlined above when it comes to improving conversion because these issues involves not only a lot of quality assurance testing, but the following interdependent processes:

          • Analyzing all 3rd party extensions and custom code to find which modules are causing performance issues.
          • Any necessary work to resolve those issues (replacing modules, refactoring code, etc.).
          • Full regression testing of the site to ensure the resolutions work properly.
          • Identifying any unused or bloated Javascript code causing performance issues.
          • Any unforeseen work that might be required to remove/replace or refactor Javascript code.
          • Full regression testing of the site to ensure the proper functionality is in place based on the above task. 
          • Minimize CSS/HTML and Javascript
          • Full regression testing of the site again.
          • Work with full page caching and CDNs to further optimize page loads and image sizes etc.
          • Full regression testing of the site again.

          After these steps are followed to correct and improve your site speed, your team can determine which approaches to take for further conversion improvement, such as A/B testing or hiring a third-party expert.

          Side Note: ​​If this all seems like a lot that’s because it is. If you’d like to speak with an expert click here.

          Bringing it all Together

          Before proceeding to make any changes to these third-party codes or any performance issues, it is important to make sure you understand where the bugs and issues reside and how to fix them; which can quickly turn into a larger task than originally anticipated. That’s where we come in. It’s vital to have a team of experts that understand your needs and who provide the right solutions to help you stay at the top of search results and ensure a better return on your investment. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to talk.

            Get expert help today!

            An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

            Drop Us a Line At:

            Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
            Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

            4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
            Cincinnati, OH 45241

            Now Available – Future Proof your Webstore with Adobe Commerce 2.4.5

            Now Available – Future Proof your Webstore with Adobe Commerce 2.4.5

            Adobe’s (Magento) latest and greatest update is arriving tomorrow, August 10th – Adobe Commerce 2.4.5.

            Adobe Commerce 2.4.5, marks a new step forward in commerce capabilities, security, and performance. The advancements in this release set the foundation for the next several years of Adobe innovations to ensure your commerce business continues to be resilient. This release strategy also ensures that customers maintain the ability to adapt to changing market trends with continued flexibility to customize.

            In addition to platform quality improvements and enhanced security, Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 includes improvements to payment methods, accessibility, Adobe Commerce branding, integrated Google Modules, and Adobe Commerce IMS integration (single Adobe account login). 

            Other updates include PWA 12.5, Live Search B2B support, B2B Shared Catalog scalability and performance improvements, GraphQL Caching Performance improvements, Page Builder 1.7.2, and updates to Channel Manager and Upgrade Compatibility Tool.

            Adobe Commerce is not only growing in its offering and abilities but it is also continuing to increase in its complexity; which can feel overwhelming for eCommerce managers and teams. That’s where we come in. We’ve been a Certified Adobe partner for 14 years now, all the way back to the launch of the original  ‘Magento! version’. Book your consultation with a senior member of our development team to implement these changes and updates once the launch is live.

            Stay tuned for more information on release notes and how Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 will directly affect you and your brand.

              Get expert help today!

              An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

              Drop Us a Line At:

              Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
              Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

              4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
              Cincinnati, OH 45241

              The 5 Most Valuable, Exclusive, Money-Making Features on Adobe Commerce

              The 5 Most Valuable, Exclusive, Money-Making Features on Adobe Commerce

              As the world continues to evolve as a digital-first paradigm, customers’ expectations are higher than ever. They expect great performance, top-notch security, and engaging interactions that meet them where they are. As an eCommerce manager, it’s important to know you’re on solid ground with every aspect of your storefront, from infrastructure to innovative tools to on-point back- and front-end performance to achieve this level of personalization

              Whether you want to offer additional shopping experiences, payment methods, personalization services, or shopping assistance tools, Adobe Commerce (AC) is here to help. The robust set of features this platform provides are powerful and unique, but they might not meet all of your unique needs straight out of the box. Customization to create unique and compelling user experiences is required to make the most out of AC. Our team of experts can help you leverage the powerful features of AC and customize the platform to create shopping experiences that delight your customers and fuel your growth.

              In this blog, we will unveil the top features of AC that will empower you to deliver a personalized shopping experience both in-store and online for your customers.

              Five features exclusive to Adobe Commerce

              The AC platform offers the best of both the Adobe and Magento brands: a world-class, open-source B2B and B2C eCommerce platform, plus a JavaScript-based content management system capable of crafting personalized digital experiences for customers.

              Here are some of its exclusive features that will take your customers from browse to buy:

              1. Content Staging: This feature allows merchants to schedule the release of new banners, pages, promotions, and content updates. This feature is extremely beneficial for managing (scheduling) sale events. For example, with this feature, your team will have the ability to schedule a new sale to start at midnight and all the content and promotion will automatically update without your content administrator being required to update the site at midnight manually. Conversely, the sale can also be scheduled to end at a certain time, requiring no manual intervention from the content admin.

              2. B2B Features: The B2B suite of features is extremely powerful and valuable for merchants in the B2B eCommerce sector.  This suite of features represents millions of dollars worth of custom development that all comes as out-of-the-box functionality that is maintained and upgraded by Adobe Commerce. The B2B module also comes with the following list of additional features:

              • Request for Quote: the customer can request a quote and the admin of your page can either approve or send a revised quote. Once both parties agree, the customer can automatically place the order, with the revised and agreed-upon pricing, directly into their cart.
              • Shared Catalog: If your eCommerce department requires access to multiple catalogs for different customers based on their customer group, this is pretty helpful. This feature also helps set customer-specific pricing alongside the regular pricing rules.
              • Company Accounts: This is the key entity within B2B on which all other features are in some way dependent as it allows joining multiple buyers that belong to the same company into a single company account (or corporate account). The company administrator is able to build the company structure (divisions, subdivisions, and users) in the appropriate hierarchy and provide different user roles and permissions to the company members. This hierarchy allows the company administrator to control user activity for the company account: ordering, quoting, purchasing, access to company credit information or profile, and so on.
              • Requisition List: This is a very helpful tool that allows for frequently ordered items to be created as a list.
              • Quick Order: With most B2B businesses, the end customer will have the list of SKUs and their quantities to place an order directly rather than having to add them one by one from the respective product detail pages.

              3. Customer Segmentation / Rewards & Loyalty: These are often overlooked features, but when they are employed properly they can be great tools for engaging and retaining customers. By segmenting customers and then rewarding them, merchants can greatly increase customer loyalty. A loyalty program for an eCommerce store is a customer retention tool meant to keep customers engaged and loyal to your store. Loyalty rewards may range from freebies, discounts, coupons, or cash back. For example, your analytics department may wish to target all of your female customers who are in the age range of 18 to 40 with specific promotions in real-time. Your team could also take a marketing approach similar to Starbucks who lets individual customers earn stars for every dollar they spend. At 60 stars, they can snag a free drink or get a free slice of cake. For further information on loyalty programs, check out our blog post, What Apparel and Accessories Brands Must Know About Establishing A Loyalty Program.

              4. Dynamic Blocks: This tool provides the ability to display banners and content based on custom segments, promotions, and price rules. For example, using dynamic banners your team can display a banner in the cart letting customers that are getting close to a certain cart size and let them know that if they reach a certain spending threshold they can qualify for wholesale pricing and free shipping. This feature can be extremely useful for any eCommerce business owner that might be using the customer segmentation and loyalty features to create a more personalized shopping experience.

              5. Visual Merchandiser: This advanced tool allows your developers to position products and apply conditions that determine which products appear in the category listing. The result can be a dynamic selection of products that adjusts to changes in the catalog. 

              Side Note: ​​Apart from this list, the Adobe Commerce platform also provides your team with hosting, monitoring, and maintenance that are not available in the Magento Community edition.

              Your team has the option to work in visual mode, which shows each product as a tile on a grid or to work from a list of products in the category. This tool is very useful for any merchant managing a large catalog of products and can be very helpful in making categories well merchandised and easy to shop.

              Bringing it all together

              Ready to take your eCommerce website to new heights? Where your team can access cutting-edge commerce features, functionality, templates, and services — all with the click of a button? Adobe Commerce could be the perfect solution your team is looking for.

              At InteractOne, we have helped hundreds of merchants set up and migrate their eCommerce websites so they can focus on the long-term growth of their business and meeting customers where they are.

                Get expert help today!

                An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

                Drop Us a Line At:

                Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
                Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

                4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
                Cincinnati, OH 45241

                Magento is Now Adobe Commerce – All You Need to Know

                Magento is Now Adobe Commerce – All You Need to Know

                To compete in hyper-competitive, oversaturated markets, companies can’t afford to be complacent. This is true for both mom-and-pop shops and Fortune 500s alike. And while the importance of continuously spurring innovation is universal for all brands, it’s especially critical within the world of Big Tech, an industry where even Goliaths can fall, and fall quickly, should they fail to evolve.

                One of the most important ways that major players embrace this ethos of ceaselessly optimizing their product offering is through mergers and acquisitions. Facebook expanding its reach and impact with the acquisition of Instagram is a great example. Adobe, the multinational software giant, is no exception to this business practice. Nearly three years after acquiring the Magento platform, Adobe is in its final stages of an integration that has been happening behind the scenes for some time now; a unified Adobe Commerce brand that will not only increase their business but yours, as well.

                In this blog post, we will discuss what this rebrand and the latest round of updates means for you, your business, and your webstore.

                What does the Adobe-Magento integration mean?

                ​​Magento has been a key part of the Adobe family for some time, providing the eCommerce element that was missing from its fantastic digital ecosystem.

                Yet this renaming comes at a crucial time in the company’s growth and signifies the direction it is heading now and into the future.

                What does this all mean for customers and merchants?

                The licensed version formerly known as “Magento Commerce Edition” will now be known as “Adobe Commerce”. The “Magento Open Source”, formerly known as “Magento Community Edition”, will keep the Open Source name. The important thing to remember when you’re skimming this site or you’re in the Adobe Portal and you see “Adobe Commerce”, is that it is still the same Magento Commerce Edition you know and love but with a name that reflects its new owner.

                The Adobe Commerce platform will offer the best of both the Adobe and Magento brands: a world-class, open-source B2B and B2C eCommerce platform, plus a java-based content management system capable of crafting personalized digital experiences for customers.

                How will you benefit from the acquisition?

                Adobe Commerce customers should be excited about what the future holds with this rebrand. With these new integrations, there are both immediate and long-term benefits, including:

                Progressive Web Applications (PWA) Studio: this new development will make PWA development ownership faster, cheaper, and easier to launch multiple international sites that require multi-currency and multi-language support. PWA Studio enables merchants to use the same cloud hosting for their back-end and storefront. Consequently, you can create an integrated eCommerce site with increased engagement, conversion rates, and revenue.

                AI-Powered Site Search: This feature offers search-as-you-type results that become smarter over time using Adobe Sensei AI. Analyzing shopper behavior, this search feature will fine-tune results to increase conversions and provide reporting on ‘no result’ searches so that you can optimize for those as well.

                Product Recommendations for B2B: Originally launched as a B2C feature that used consumer data to create personalized suggestions to enhance the user experience and increase sales, Adobe Commerce turns this feature into a tool that can be utilized by B2B businesses. The feature does all this by automatically analyzing shopper behavior, conversion factors, contextual and item popularity across the storefront. The product recommendations engine will soon accommodate different recommendation rules such that you can include different prices depending on varying buyer catalogs. With less manual input, this feature is a valuable asset to monitor campaign performance and boost your ROI. It can also be integrated into your PWA Studio storefront.

                Adobe Sign Integration: Need a signature to finalize transactions? This e-signing software is being integrated directly into Adobe Commerce so that buyers can complete their purchase directly on your website without having to disrupt the transaction flow to sign contracts on another platform, or via email, when completing purchase orders, contracts, service agreements, waivers, warranties, and subscriptions. This seamless integration will simplify the purchase process, reduce drop-offs, and increase sales.

                New Financing Tool: Looking for capital to scale up your business? The new financing solution that comes from a collaboration between Abobe Commerce and Wayflyer, allows you to use funds to boost inventory and/or vamp up your online marketing efforts. This tool will allow you to add inventory during peak online business seasons and invest in interest and demand-generation activities, such as discounted programs. You will also be able to utilize the Wayflyer Analytics tool to provide insights on your digital marketing campaigns and adjust your marketing funds input to maximize profits.

                Bringing it all together

                By bringing in new functions such as Live Search and Adobe Sign to Adobe Commerce, Adobe is continuing to improve the platform and provide solutions for customers every step of their user journey.

                This may seem like a lot, because it is. Adobe Commerce is becoming more sophisticated by the day. What’s your biggest concern about these updates and the health of your webstore? Tell us all about it.

                  Get expert help today!

                  An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

                  Drop Us a Line At:

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                  Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

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                  Cincinnati, OH 45241

                  Adobe (Magento) Commerce 2.4.4 – More Than Just a Name Change

                  Adobe (Magento) Commerce 2.4.4 – More Than Just a Name Change

                  Magento’s latest and greatest update is arriving this month. Here’s how this release directly affects you and your brand:

                  If this all feels overwhelming, that’s where we come in. Book your consultation with your Magento Certified Partner right now to implement these changes. Spots are filling up.

                  Magento Name Change

                  You may have already started to notice a little less ‘Magento’ in your life. That’s because Adobe, which purchased Magento back in May of 2018, is changing the name of the licensed version of the platform. Moving forward “Magento Commerce Edition” will now be known as Adobe Commerce. Nothing else about the platform, its services or capabilities, has changed. Just the name. Magento Open Source, also known as Magento Community Edition, will remain the same. But don’t be alarmed or confused when you’re reading this blog or you’re in the Adobe Portal or combing through promotional material when you see “Adobe Commerce”. It’s still the same Magento Enterprise you know and love but with a name that reflects its new owner.

                  Release Date Moved

                  The most recent and relevant bit of news related to the Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 update is related to its release date. Originally slated for March 8th, Adobe has announced that the pre-release period for Adobe Commerce customers is now scheduled for March 29th with the general availability date for both Adobe Commerce and Adobe Open Source now being pushed to April 12. Adobe credits the delay to additional time needed to develop and test security patches.

                  Security Enhancements in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  This new version includes three security improvements, platform security enhancements, and three bug fixes. After the release, several of these security patches have been backported to Adobe Commerce 2.4.3-p2 and Adobe Commerce 2.3.7-p3.

                  Besides, as of now, there have been no confirmed assaults linked to these concerns. On the other hand, some flaws might be used to steal customer information or take over administrator sessions. Other changes include:

                  • The database no longer keeps track of session IDs.
                  • Uploads of non-alpha-numeric file extensions have been improved to ensure safer data upload.
                  • Support for reCAPTCHA has been added to coupon codes.
                  • Swagger is now switched off by default when Adobe Commerce runs in production mode.

                  PayPal Enhancements in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  Merchants will see a number of PayPal improvements with this update including:

                  • Venmo Integration – customers now have a Venmo payment option built into Paypal functionality
                  • Pay Later Updates
                    • The Customer’s country can now be specified when conducting a consumer survey in their native country. The test was previously confined to testing only for the nation in which the merchant is based. This change only applies in sandbox mode.
                    • Customers will now have the option to ‘Pay Later’ based on their geotargeted location. This option is only available to customers, not merchants.
                    • The messaging on the Pay Later section of the checkout page will now deliver accurate information about how much and in how many increments consumers will be charged when utilizing the Pay Later option.

                  Page Builder Update in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  To improve the merchant’s content accessibility, merchants will now be able to add alternative text (alt-text) to Images ( Banner, Slide, Image). GitHub-746

                  Accessibility Updates in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  This latest update will add more conformance to industry-standard accessibility standards. This includes accessible naming and tagging of screen elements, redesigned icons and buttons as well as enhanced tooltips.

                  • The navigational accessibility issues on the Cart and Checkout pages will be resolved. GitHub-34483
                  • All relevant form elements on Product Pages can now be read via Screen Readers. 
                  • Low vision users will see improvements to the contrast for Image Delete as well as new locations for the Icon buttons throughout the storefront. These are to enhance the readability. 
                  • The magnifying glass icon used to perform searches throughout the product interface has a textual alternative and an accessible name.
                  • The Tab key is now used to access the rich text editor toolbar.
                  • On the Catalog > Product details page, the “This Item Has Weight’ input select will now feature visible labels and an accessible name.

                  Cart and Checkout Updates in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  Arguably the most important part of the entire eCommerce experience is seeing some updates as well. Let’s see what’s in store for the Cart and Checkout.

                  • “Advertised Minimum Price” – this link which lives on the Cart page is now clickable and will open as an information popup. Previously this link was broken and had no effect.
                  • Timeout Error – In previous versions after a Session Timeout, Adobe Commerce would display a ‘Payment Error’ message. But now, customers can place orders without errors in deployments with a persistent shopping cart enabled after a session timeout.
                  • Assigning a high order value to a customer address attribute degrades checkout page performance.
                    • Adobe Commerce will revert the shopping cart product quantity to the previous value if the updated quantity is invalid.

                  Product Video Update in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  Currently when adding an incomplete video URL (Admin Catalog > Products > Add Video) the Save button would become disabled and no fields would be filled in. Now, if an incomplete URL is added the Save button will be activated and additional fields will be autocompleted.

                  Import/Export Updates in in Adobe Commerce 2.4.4

                  • Adobe Commerce now converts the timestamp in the export filename to the user’s timezone following a scheduled export. Previously, these values were not converted, and Adobe Commerce displayed the UTC timestamp.
                  • When the same CSV file is imported multiple times, Adobe Commerce no longer creates duplicate images in remote storage.

                  Recommended Upgrade Paths for 2022 and Beyond

                  eCommerce is never truly complete, it’s an evolution, a winding road always laid before you. Your business must remain committed to the journey by introducing the latest functionalities and capabilities to keep your customers engaged and converting. Staying up-to-date not only keeps you in lockstep with your customers but a step ahead of your competitors as well. Upgrading your site to Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 is the next, crucial step. Innovations include:

                  • Faster access to innovative features delivered as SaaS services
                  • Easier and more cost-effective maintenance and upgrades
                  • Continued flexibility and customization to meet unique business needs
                  • Significant increases in performance and scalability
                  • Better developer experience and tooling
                  • Ability to more deeply integrate with other Adobe Experience Cloud applications

                  Don’t waste another day. Don’t lose another conversion. Contact a Senior Member of our Development team and get this update moving today.

                    Get expert help today!

                    An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

                    Drop Us a Line At:

                    Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
                    Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

                    4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
                    Cincinnati, OH 45241

                    Magento 2.4.3 Release Highlights

                    Magento 2.4.3 Release Highlights

                    Magento, aka Adobe Commerce, is constantly focused on providing value to its merchants and making sure that each customer enjoys a fast, reliable and secure experience. Their latest update, Magento 2.4.3 is now available.

                    Adobe Commerce is not only growing in its offering and abilities but it is also growing in its complexity. The sophistication of the software only amplifies a brand’s need to work with Certified Magento/Adobe Partners.

                    That’s InteractOne. In business for over 24 years, we are an Adobe Certified Partner built to code Magneto/Adobe. We are skilled at maintaining and optimizing clients’ Magento/Adobe Commerce online stores.

                    Book your consultation with your Magento Certified Partner right now. Spots are filling up.

                    Magento 2.4.3 Release Highlights

                    Magento 2.4.3 brings with it a slew of performance and security enhancements, including 370 new fixes in the core code and 33 security improvements.

                    Security improvements cover the expansion of reCAPTCHA coverage and include the built-in rate limiting.

                    Substantial Security Enhancements of Magento 2.4.3: 

                    Total, there are 33 security enhancements and fixes in this Magento update. The security fixes are backported to Magento 2.4.2-p2 and Magento 2.3.7-p1 and help close remote code execution (RCE) and cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities

                    Additional enhancements include:

                    • New Composer plugin that help to prevent dependency confusion and identifies malicious packages with the same names as the internal packages on the public package repository.
                    • Rate limiting is now built-in to Magento APIs. This improvement will help to prevent (DoS) denial-of-service attacks.
                    • ReCAPTCHA capabilities have now been extended to more pages.

                    Performance enhancements of of Magento 2.4.3: 

                    This release now empowers Magento Merchants to be able to exclude a website from the Shared Catalog or Customer Group, which can minimize the number of records for indexing and improve the indexing times. It can also has the capability to decrease indexation time for the Product Price and Catalog Rule indexers.

                    Additional enhancements include:

                    • Core Composer dependencies and third-party libraries have been upgraded to the latest versions that are compatible with PHP 8.x.
                    • The KnockoutJS library has been upgraded to v3.5.1 (the latest version).
                    • The deprecated TinyMCE v3 library has been removed.
                    • The Magento_Tinymce3Banner module and MFTF tests related to TinyMCE v3.x have been removed from Adobe Commerce.
                    • Magento Open Source 2.4.3 has been tested and confirmed to be compatible with Redis 6.0.12. (Magento 2.4.x remains compatible with Redis 5.x.)
                    • Laminas library dependencies have been upgraded to PHP 8.x – compatible versions. Some redundant dependencies have been removed from the composer.json file. Magento Open Source 2.4.3 uses Laminas 3.4.0.

                    Live Search Update

                    Adobe Sensei now powers Live Search. By harnessing the data of AI and machine learning algorithms This update will deliver a more intuitive search experience by analyzing aggregated visitor data.

                    B2B Bug Fixes

                    Magento 2.4.3 introduces the B2B v1.3.2 which includes new features and multiple bug fixes in the following areas:

                    • Company
                    • Company Credit
                    • Quick Order
                    • Negotiable Quote
                    • Purchase Orders
                    • Requisition Lists
                    • Shared Catalog

                    Page Builder Update

                    Page Builder is now currently available as a bundled extension in Magento Open Source. You will see that Page Builder is now the default content editing tool for Adobe Commerce 2.4.3 and Magento Open Source 2.4.3. It has the ability to replace the WYSIWG editor with any third-party module.

                    Page Builder also replaces the TinyMCE editor in the following Admin areas:

                    • CMS Block
                    • CMS Page
                    • Product Description
                    • Category Description

                    Cloud Managed Service Updates

                    This release is making improvements to support Amazon Simple Store Service (AWS S3) and Amazon Aurora cloud managed services. It provides certified support for the following AWS Services:

                    AWS ElastiCache
                    AWS ElasticSearch
                    AWS Managed Queues (Rabbit MQ)

                    The Magento 2.4.3 release includes 370 new fixes in the core code and 33 security improvements. It includes the resolution of 290 GitHub issues by the Magento Community members.

                    AWS Managed Queues (Rabbit MQ)

                    Vendor Developed Extensions

                    There are some updates on the features of the following vendor-developed extensions. Please click on each extension to get more updates.

                    Amazon Pay
                    Braintree
                    dotdigital Engagement Cloud
                    Klarna
                    Vertex Cloud
                    Yotpo Product Reviews

                      Get expert help today!

                      An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

                      Drop Us a Line At:

                      Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
                      Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

                      4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
                      Cincinnati, OH 45241

                      Subscription Sales Strategy: Flexible, Scalable & Required

                      Subscription Sales Strategy: Flexible, Scalable & Required

                      There have been many changes to the eCommerce landscape over the last 20 months. Purchasing habits that were once rare and occasional just a short time ago are now considered routine. Prosper Insights and Analytics released a survey that showed that nearly half of all adult respondents reported that new shopping behaviors were becoming “recurring habits”. The portion of the market that has benefited the most from this shift are eCommerce merchant Subscription offers. The Subscriptions market for physical goods has grown 90% since the start of 2020. It’s not like Subscription services are a ‘new’ thing, they have always been a growth tool. But new market pressures, an emphasis on customer retention and technological advancements have made the Subscription model and service not only more functional but desirable for both merchants and customers. In this blog we’ll dive a little deeper into the Subscription model, why now is the time to implement this shopping tool, what customers expect and how to deliver on those expectations  on a regular and consistent basis.

                      There’s no time like the present

                      Simply put, millions of Americans go online to purchase their everyday needs and your site’s user experience needs to be as frictionless and personalized as possible so you can provide your share of needed products. For years now, customers have shown a willingness to purchase digital subscription products. Think Netflix, Spotify and even Patreon.. This boom in subscription digital products has now begun to bleed into physical goods. Whether due to the pandemic, the shifting needs of consumers, technological advances or some combination of the three, customers now want the products they rely on, delivered on a repeat basis without the need to ‘checkout’ each time. If you don’t already offer any sort of subscription service it’s only a matter of time before it becomes crucial, and odds are your competitors are already experimenting, if not already completely committed to Subscription services sales.

                      Subscriptions unlock long term growth

                      Targeting and acquiring customers has and always will be a struggle. It’s hard enough as it is but Apple’s recent changes to their Privacy agreement has made it even more difficult to identify and capture prospective customers. Brands everywhere are taking a second look at their customer engagement strategy. Brands of all sizes face the same challenge: they are spending tons and tons of advertising dollars attempting to get customers to discover and love their product but not being able to convert that first purchase into a second or third. It’s a bit of a leaky bucket and a lost opportunity, as there is a chance there to retain that customer and encourage additional sales. Offering a Subscription service can patch that hole in the bucket and launch a long-term relationship with your customers. For any eCommerce brand that wants to get serious about driving incremental LTV and growth, subscriptions (whether it be subscribe & save, membership, pure-play subscriptions) are probably the most effective way to maximize their investment into customers to date.

                      What trends are we seeing from shoppers?

                      The modern customer expects brands to know them on a personal level, while not being ‘too close’. You need to be able to personalize their customer journey while not encroaching on their privacy. It’s a very fine line to walk and starts with understanding how customers want to shop. A Subscription service allows your customers to dictate the terms of agreement (price, timing of delivery, quantity) which is extremely empowering from their perspective and infinitely valuable to your brand. By purchasing a subscription service your customers are telling you exactly what they want from you, how many they want and when they want it. This arrangement not only pays financial dividends to you immediately but it also provides you with vital information you can use to better plan for future products, product launches, offers, demand planning and inventory management. 

                      Even if your brand does not identify as a ‘Subscription’ business and it’s not something you have ever offered before, subscriptions are an engagement lever that is now more widely available due to improved technology, as you are now seeing physical-goods subscriptions being offered in every industry and vertical. From clothing to beauty products, to pet care and food, subscription services are now becoming the standard. 

                      Subscription services offer long term revenue streams, establish long term customer relationships, establish and open channel of communication and give you the ability to better understand customer needs and order patterns.

                      How should your brand think about subscriptions?

                      We want to debunk the myth that Subscriptions for physical goods aren’t just for “box” businesses. With the advent of new extensions and tools, Subscription services can now be added to any brand’s business model. Whether you are new to Subscriptions, rapidly expanding or Subscription-based only there are a world of options open to you. It’s important to remember that Subscriptions shouldn’t be a gargantuan task, requiring new customer support or dev team members. It’s another tool in your tool kit that, if set up and maintained properly, can provide you with a steady stream of income and amazing insights.

                      Bringing it all together

                      While technology has made it easier to build and fulfill a Subscription service that will appeal to a wide range of users, it’s still no walk-in-the-park to long term financial success and stability. It is of utmost importance to build a Subscription model that fits your products and margins. And, perhaps most importantly, have the structures in place to fulfill these recurring orders. Good news is, we’re experts in this field. Contact a member of our team today and let’s figure out a plan that works for you.

                        Get expert help today!

                        An InteractOne Senior Team Member will get back to you within a day.

                        Drop Us a Line At:

                        Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
                        Phone (USA): (513) 469-3346

                        4665 Cornell Rd. Suite 255
                        Cincinnati, OH 45241