Yes, supporting WebSphere Commerce sites as a marketer or merchandiser can not only be easy but it can be fun! If you are at THINK2019 come by our booth #616 and see an amazing demonstration or ask us what we think is the best path for your WebSphere Commerce implementation. If you can’t make it to our booth or set up a meeting with me and the team then take a look at this short video series and see how easy eCommerce and Content can be managed in a single studio – the CoreMedia Content Cloud.
So you are evaluating your eCommerce digital strategy. You want to continue to have a best of breed eCommerce digital strategy. You know your options, but what if you could see your options, live, on stage, at THINK? If you are an IBM Commerce customer and you are at THINK 2019 you can’t miss this session…
See how Apple Pay and Commerce on Cloud can help you add Apple Pay to your storefront, giving your customers the latest shopping experience.
Instart Logic has an amazing solution that will increase your conversion rates and speed up your site greatly. Check out this video where I introduce the solution and then see a quick demonstration of the Instart Logic solution implemented on the WebSphere Commerce starter store.
I had the pleasure of seeing this demonstration at Amplify in Tampa this year and I was immediately impressed with what CoreMedia has accomplished. I am just amazed that every year CoreMedia seems to provide an amazingly easy to use digital experience integrated with the IBM Commerce platform.
One of the cool features WebSphere Commerce added last year were banner ads that hover above the product image in category lists or search results. Here is an example banner ad for the IsNew attribute and how it currently shows on the product image:
If you inspect the banner ad element you will see this in the inspector for the HTML div:
Notice it has two classes associated with it. It applies the default value RibbonAdDefault and also automatically puts in another class with the same name as the attribute, in this case, IsNew. Since I just created this attribute it, is using the RibbonAdDefault class because I have not created an IsNew class.
The RibbonAdDefault css is the following:
.product_image .RibbonAdDefault {
position:absolute;
bottom:40px;
left:0;
width:110px;
height:20px;
background-color:#2C2C2C;
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right top, color-stop(0.76, rgba(68, 68, 68, 1)), color-stop(1, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)));
background: linear-gradient(to right, rgba(68, 68, 68, 1) 76%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 100%);
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Gradient(gradientType=1, startColorStr='#FF444444', endColorStr='#00FFFFFF')";
zoom: 1;
font-size: 14px;
line-height:20px;
font-family: arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color:#FFF;
padding-left:10px;
border-radius:3px;
text-align:left;
vertical-align:baseline;
overflow:visible;
white-space: nowrap;
}
What we are going to do is override this with our new CSS specifying the IsNew attribute. We are also going to change the position and have it be an image with no text. Here is the new CSS for the IsNew attribute:
.product_image .IsNew {
position:absolute;
display: block;
top:10px;
left:0;
width:60px;
height:60px;
background-color:#2C2C2C;
background: url("../images/new-icon.png") no-repeat;
zoom: 1;
font-size: 0px;
line-height:20px;
font-family: arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color:#FFF;
padding-left:10px;
border-radius:3px;
text-align:left;
vertical-align:baseline;
overflow:visible;
white-space: nowrap;
}
This gives us an end results with the follow image:
Notice since I made the font-size zero pixels. This is essentially making it so there is no text and it ends up just being the image.
Watch the video below to see me implement this:
Imagine having the ability to have products placed into categories automatically in your online store front based on an attribute name and value. In WebSphere Commerce FEP8 you can now create rule-based categories that can be refreshed on an interval automatically. Check out the video below to learn more about rule-based categories.
Our friends over at Dynatrace just published an ebook giving us 12 tips for optimizing your IBM WebSphere Commerce site from five experts. I really like the style of this ebook because it gives you some concrete tips and also references some of the experts blog posts. Just knowing these experts in the eCommerce field is worth having a look at some of these great tips. Check out the title and author of the tips below and then go register for the ebook here.
The paper ends with some great links to some webinar replays, some recommending readings and a blog roll.
Since my last post about Metail the primary question I have received is “does Metail help with our key performance indicators or KPI’s?”. In other words, does it keep people shopping, raise conversion rates, contribute to additional sales, etc.
Metail’s solution is a sub 1 minute process and involves taking high quality photographs of garments from 8 specific angles to then construct a 3D model of the garment.
Well, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tom Adeyoola, CEO of Metail, and he and his team were kind enough to share some results that abof.com (All about Fashion) has seen since their launch. All about Fashion launched in October 2015 with Metail available from day one. Within a period of 6 weeks, Metail has already demonstrated that abof.com customers who used Metail spent more time on the website, came back to the site more often, and ultimately purchased more.
Check out some of the statistics they sent me:
Customer engagement & retention
– Metail users spent 4x longer on abof.com than non-Metail users
– Metail users tried on 3 items per session on average
– Metail users were 2x more likely to revisit abof.com
Revenue impact
– Metail users accounted for 23% of total sales
– Metail users had a 6.6x higher conversion rate
– Metail users had a 8.6x higher RPV (Revenue Per Visitor)
Even though these are very early statistics giving it has been live for less than two months, this is very encouraging. Check out abof.com and let me know your opinion.
This video is about the Metail solution and I demonstrate how your Metail account can be used across multiple stores for getting a visual for how the clothes will look on you. The really cool aspect of Metail being a Software As A Service (SaaS) is that as more and more sites get on board with Metail a persons model can follow them. Watch the video and see how easy it is to visualize the clothing across multiple site.
And if you thought that was cool, check out Metail on mobile in the video below: