Adobe announces new solutions to improve ecommerce experience for Adobe Commerce

At Adobe Summit 2021, we’re announcing new capabilities for Adobe Commerce to improve the ecommerce experience for our merchants.

COVID-19 was one of the defining moments of 2020, and its impact on how we connect, work, shop and entertain ourselves still reverberates today. One of the most profound shifts we’ve seen during the global pandemic is the significant and almost immediate acceleration in ecommerce. According to Adobe’s Digital Economy Index, the pandemic gave ecommerce an extra $183 billion boost in the U.S. within the last year, as consumers flocked online to meet their daily needs and mitigate the spread of the virus. And, as significant as the changes were on the consumer side, the shift to digital among companies serving business buyers was even more dramatic. According to a McKinsey report, 85 percent of business-to-business (B2B) companies shifted their models to include digital commerce in 2020.

In today’s digital economy, the idea that brands must better understand their customers’ path to purchase and provide a compelling shopping experience is no longer a competitive advantage — It has become table stakes whether you’re a direct-to-consumer (D2C) or a B2B brand. In order for brands to thrive and win at customer experience management (CXM), it’s imperative that they seize the opportunity now to invest in ecommerce capabilities that will enable them to anticipate and understand their customers’ needs as well as address their pain points.

At this year’s Summit, we’re announcing new capabilities for Adobe Commerce powered by Magento (formerly Magento Commerce) that extend the intelligence of features like Product Recommendations and Live Search. An upcoming integration with Adobe Sign means a more seamless commerce experience for any transactions that require e-signatures as part of the checkout process. Lastly, a new financial solution with Wayflyer enables merchants to focus their efforts on taking control of the businesses and accelerating growth.

AI-powered live search

When it comes to online shopping, consumers expect to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. For merchants, directing shoppers to the most relevant search results without delay can become a competitive advantage. To that end, we’re excited to announce that Adobe Commerce merchants can now add AI-powered site search to their online storefronts. Powered by Adobe Sensei, our AI and machine learning technology, Live Search grants our merchants “searchandising” capabilities to provide their customers with fast, personalized search-as-you-type results that become smarter over time, based on ongoing AI-driven analysis. Because Live Search relies on the same product catalog metadata as our Product Recommendations feature, it can be easily enabled for merchants that have already implemented Product Recommendations. Live Search also offers robust reporting on search queries to help with merchandising. For example, analysis of popular or top searches can help inform the merchant on what future products or bundling of existing products to offer in their storefront. Another example, after seeing which search queries are producing zero product results, the merchant can update the algorithm to recommend other products in their catalogue that may fit the bill for what the customer is looking for.

Live Search offers lightning-fast search-as-you-type results based ongoing AI-driven analysis of shopper behavior.

Adobe Commerce merchants will soon be able to integrate Live Search to their storefront by downloading the extension in the Magento Marketplace. The new capability will be generally available to Adobe Commerce merchants in the second half of 2021.

Extending product recommendations capabilities

Since we launched Product Recommendations powered by Adobe Sensei, the feature has been embraced by many Adobe Commerce merchants, enabling brands of all size to use consumer data and insights to drive real-time relevance and personalized experiences. According to an Epsilon survey, appeal for personalization is at an all-time high with 80 percent of consumers indicating that they’re more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences. Today, the Product Recommendations feature is being implemented in over 300 Adobe Commerce-powered sites globally to deliver contextually relevant recommendations that respond to consumer preferences.

At Summit, we’re announcing new enhancements to allow merchants to set up Product Recommendations for B2B buying scenarios. Adobe Commerce merchants will soon be able to set up recommendations with varying rules — difference in pricing depending on the customer, variance in the catalog of goods that are offered up — that also takes into account the nuances of a B2B buyer’s purchasing behavior. For example, it’s common for B2B brands to work with different buyer types from the same company. Perhaps one is solely focused on purchasing safety equipment while his colleague is responsible for ordering sanitation supplies. With the new B2B feature, the product recommendations that are served up to these buyers will adapt based on their area of focus.

The new B2B enhancements to Product Recommendations will be available to Adobe Commerce merchants in Q2 2021.

In addition, Product Recommendations can now be embedded in a PWA Studio-based storefront. And a new preview feature for Adobe Commerce Admin allows the merchant to see a preview of their product recommendations as it’s being configured, providing merchants with a peace of mind knowing that their recommendations will yield appropriate results.

Adobe Sign integrates with Adobe Commerce

B2B and B2C commerce processes are often interrupted when the transaction requires a signature. For example, reflect back on a time when you were shopping for a new smartphone and had to contend with signing multiple contracts tied to service, device upgrade eligibility and more. Recently, the adoption of e-signatures has increasingly made in-person deal closings a relic of the past. And in the age of COVID-19, e-signatures have thrived even more as businesses shifted to a digital-only or digital-forward model. In fact, Adobe Sign has seen over 200 percent user growth year-over-year when comparing last February to this year.

To enable merchants to easily deploy digital signing processes as part of the customer journey, we’re excited to announce an upcoming integration between Adobe Commerce and Adobe Sign. For many Adobe Commerce merchants that have to contend with various contracts or signature workflows as part of the buying journey — think purchase agreements, event waivers, terms & conditions, warranty or service agreements and more, this integration can provide their customers with a more streamlined, frictionless digitized experience where e-signing becomes a natural part of the checkout process. Adobe Sign features can be easily configured via the Adobe Commerce Admin to match the look and feel of the merchant’s Adobe Commerce-powered storefront.

With the upcoming Adobe Sign integration, collecting e-signatures becomes a natural part of the checkout process.

Merchants using Adobe Commerce will be able to integrate Adobe Sign into their storefront by downloading the Adobe Sign extension in the Magento Marketplace by Adobe. This feature will be rolled out globally in the second half of this year.

Announcing merchant financing solution from Wayflyer

As ecommerce boomed this past year, retailers had to scale quickly but found that it was a challenge to access the capital they need in order to grow their business. The clear winners of the pandemic were those that prioritized their move to a digital-first environment, had the foresight to invest in their supply chain and inventory and made the technology investments to differentiate on experience.

To help eliminate challenges that merchants face when seeking capital, Adobe is partnering with Wayflyer to provide access to their financing solution via an extension for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source merchants. This new financing option will provide merchants with access to competitive working capital loans to help them improve and scale their online businesses. Merchants can use the loans to purchase inventory to help meet demand around popular online buying moments like the holiday shopping season, increase demand generation activities such as marketing and digital advertising, and invest in discounted shipping and returns programs to drive online conversion and improve competitive differentiation. Loans may also be leveraged by qualifying legacy Magento 1 merchants to upgrade to the latest Adobe Commerce platform or modernize the brand experience by working with Adobe’s many Solution Partners.

With this new financial solution, merchants can now focus on taking control of their businesses and accelerating growth. For more information, visit here.

Tune into Adobe Summit — The Digital Experience Conference

For more information about all the commerce innovations coming out of Adobe Summit and how they’re enabling merchants to be more agile, open new channels and enable new buyer journeys across industries, check out “The New Commerce Imperative” session on April 27.