Adobe Announces New Commerce Features to Improve Customer Experience

The pandemic sped up advancements in digital commerce technology. What would normally take two to three years to develop happened in just months. During this time, customer expectations also changed dramatically as more people shopped online. Not only are their expectations about the buying experience much higher, but the amount of e-commerce spending also exploded. Digital Commerce 360 estimates if it weren’t for the bump in online sales from the pandemic, the $861.12 billion in e-commerce sales in 2020 wouldn’t have been reached until 2022.

The growth isn’t just in B2C or direct to consumer (D2C) markets; B2B digital commerce is growing rapidly, too. According to a McKinsey report, 85% of B2B companies shifted their models to include digital commerce in 2020.

The boom has resulted in customers of all types who are much more discerning about their shopping experience. What used to be acceptable just one year ago now looks “old, tired, and frustrating.” To help brands deliver a compelling, frictionless, and fulfilling commerce experience, Adobe is delivering exciting new features within Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) that provide a differentiated and engaging commerce environment. The platform has three very attractive new features that are worth exploring:

• AI-powered Live Search: For customers, finding what they want in an online storefront is critical to a positive customer experience (CX). With the new Live Search feature, it is now possible to offer consumers “searchandising,” which provides them with fast, personalized search results that enable them to find what they want quickly. The feature also has numerous back-end reporting capabilities that allow brands to better understand buyers’ search activities and to enhance algorithmic search functionality to continually improve the overall CX.

• Extended product recommendation capabilities: The ability to quickly recommend the right product or offer to a customer goes a long way toward building loyalty and repeat purchases. This new capability in Adobe Commerce uses customer data and insights to deliver relevant recommendations. Such a capability is growing in importance, as an Epsilon survey found that 80% of customers would rather do business with a brand that offers personalized experiences. Adobe now offers product recommendations for B2B merchants as well. In these cases, recommendations are tailored to the product line that a specific buyer buys. For example, a company’s building hygiene team would be given products appropriate for their needs, while the team managing environmentals would see more HVAC offerings.

• Integration of Adobe Sign: When any digital commerce process requires a written signature, the result is a full stop. This disrupts the buying process and could lead to lost sales for the supplier. Several components in the purchase process may need a signature, such as purchase orders, waivers, terms and conditions, and warranties. Integrating Adobe Sign into the Adobe Commerce platform removes this barrier and dramatically reduces friction in the buying process. This is an important feature for both B2B and B2C brands.

These enhancements to Adobe Commerce solve problems that have plagued digital commerce experiences. From the customer’s perspective, these features dramatically improve CX. For brands that want to compete on CX and reduce commerce friction, these three features should be a priority for deployment. The race to up-level digital commerce is on, and brands that utilize these types of advancements will reach the winner’s circle.