Innovation is key to our success and in 2021 we continued to add more value adding features to the AB Commerce platform
Below is a summary of the Upgrades delivered in 2021
BREXIT Custom Commodity Codes
Getting the right commodity code is fundamental and it is the legal obligation of your business. For Retailers that are selling into the UK, our most recent upgrade to the platform means you can now enter commodity codes against your products which can be used for customs with the UK after 1st Jan 2021. Read more here
PSD2
The good news is your platform is ready to switch over to PSD2. We have Updated Realex/Global Payments, Authipay and Elavon to be PSD2 compliant. Read more here.
Advanced Stock Display Options
AB Commerce now has the ability to display stock levels customer side. You can choose to display various options including: “Only X Left” when stock is below a certain threshold or “Low Stock” message, you can also display “In Stock – Ships in X Days” when products out of stock but have an out of stock lead time. Read more here.
GDPR Cookie Popup
When a user comes onto your website, they are shown a pop-up message asking them to ACCEPT ALL COOKIES or MANAGE THEIR PREFERENCES. They are not allowed to use the website until they have made their selection. This is in accordance with EU GDPR regulations. User can elect to turn off cookies and still use the website perfectly. Analytics added to dashboard showing % users who disable cookies. Read more here.
Google Shopping Integration
We have expanded our Google Shopping Integration with the addition of 6 new fields: gtin, product_type, material, pattern, color, size, gender, age_group. These new fields can be updated through manual admin screens, bulk import or systems integration.
Facebook & Instagram Integration
With the expansion of our Google Shopping integration this has been extended for Facebook and Instagram. Including the addition of VIEW PRODUCT DETAIL tracking for Dynamic Remarketing within Facebook tracking. Read more here.
Linked Websites
AB Commerce now has the facility to link other abcommerce websites together so that one website shows products from another website. You have the ability to control the product fields you can show on the 2nd website. Read more here.
Scurri Integration
For our clients utilising Scurri for order fulfilment we have added order items and weight to report download so that dispatch notes can be implemented in Scurri and also added Brexit Commodity Code Field.
Fact Finder Analytics Integration
we have further developed our Fact Finder Integration and added analytics integration for viewing products and purchases resulting from keyword searches.
Black Friday & Custom Icons
You asked and we listened. Additional Black Friday Icon added to the platform and you now have the ability to add up to five custom icons of your choosing. Contact help desk to learn more.
McLernons Integration Plugin
We are delighted to advise we have now completed an Integration with McLernons ePos system. Read more here.
Google Adwords Integration
Conversion tracking when submitting contact forms has been added to our Google Adwords Integration.
LinkedIn Integration
You can now add a tracking code for LinkedIn analytics
New Facebook Domain Verification
Due to recent Apple IOS Updates and the implications, for clients using Paid Ads on Facebook & Instagram, we have developed a new way of Verifying Facebook Domains. Read more here
Images & SEO Updates
We have reduced the max file size for uploading images through widgets from 500k to 250k (it’s recommended to keep banner images less than 100k for SEO site speed).
Your site speed is very important for your SEO ranking – SEO specialists advise that if you can reduce your average download speed for each page by 1%, your revenue will go up by 7%.
The platform is highly optimised for speed thanks to our caching technology (you’ll see all your pages take less than 1 second to download).
However, your home page banner images may be adding seconds to your download speed, so can you please ensure that all your graphics are less than 100k in size. We used to allow up to 500k per image to be uploaded through the Widgets, but we’ve now reduced it down to 250k max size. We will soon reduce this down to 100k.
Snapchat
For clients wishing to use Snapchat display ads as part of their Digital Marketing campaigns, our new integration will allow you to record analytics for your ads including page views, product views, and completed orders.
TikTok
With the TikTok trend showing no signs of slowing down, you now have the option to add a link to your TikTok account at the footer of your website.
If you have a TikTok account that you would like to link to your site, email the team at HelpDesk
RRP
For our clients who would like to display an RRP price or a third price outside of the Was and Now pricing our recent upgrade allows you to do this. Read more here
Reorder
We have now included a Reorder facility for your clients, this is especially useful for clients that return time and time again to purchase the same items from you, making the process much more user-friendly. We would encourage you to switch on this functionality on your site Read more here.
If you would like to activate the Reorder functionality, email the team on Helpdesk.
Widgets Updates
Now even more flexibility with further widget options;
- There is now an option to add widgets in the Footer sitewide, this means you can place it at the bottom of any category page, on any product detail page, and on the view the basket page.
- Option for designers to add widgets to the Footer menu bar and the View Basket left sidebar.
- Product List Page – you can now pass in ?nobanners=y to any URL so that widget banners are not displayed on the page the user goes to.
Free Shipping Banner
Free Shipping Banner is now also enabled for the Ship by Weight algorithm.
Analytics Updates
Further development of our Analytics module supports you with further insights and data;
- New Analytics Channel Breakdown Report on the dashboard and gives you the ability to add UTM parameters to your URLs so that their revenue breakdown appears in these reports – more information here.
- Out of Stock Email Alerts – UTM parameters are now automatically to all links from this email so that it’s now recorded separately under email in Google Analytics and AB Commerce Analytics.
- Analytics update for users who see the Cookie Popup message – Since the turning on of the new Cookie popup, a lot of “organic” traffic is being treated as “direct” traffic in Google Analytics – this is because until the user accepts cookies, Google Analytics does not start recording anything. We have started putting in fixes to try and address this logging by sending the same information to Google after the user selects to accept all cookies.
AWS Autoscaling of servers
We have recently applied an upgrade to the platform, that allows our websites to be run across multiple web servers at the same time if required.To support your online business through continued growth and ensuring your customers have a smooth shopping experience we now have deployed an upgrade that will automatically add new web servers within 10 minutes when the CPU on the current web server goes above 30% for a sustained period
Credit Card BIN Attacks
As many of you know, last year many of you experienced credit card bin attacks where robots tried random cards on your website tens of thousands of times to try and find out valid credit card numbers. We now have new algorithms to help protect against credit card bin attacks.
SEO Updates
As we are all aware SEO plays an integral part in the success of your online store we have further optimized SEO on the AB Commerce platform.
- For all pages, if a URL has “/” at the end of it, we are now 301 redirecting to the same URL without the “/” at the end of it – this is to avoid duplicate URLs being recorded for the same page.
We have added a meta tag to all test sites for ROBOTS with NOINDEX to ensure no robots get into the test sites and start including them in the search results.
New Automated Emails
As part of the new email subscription module, there is also a New automated THANK YOU FOR JOINING email, that a subscriber will receive when they sign up to your mailing list. Again you have the ability to edit the emails through LIVE EDIT. Read more here.
New Subscriber Features
When you are setting up your email marketing pop up you are now able to choose from the following options to include in your new subscriber features, all information gathered will automatically be uploaded to your Mail Chimp Account
- You can collect a customer’s birthdates – read more here.
- You can collect customer’s preferences – read more here.
New Content Management Features
As part of this upgrade you now have the ability to content manage the following features. You can read more here.
- You can content manage the JOIN page and the JOIN THANK YOU page
- You can content manage the SUBSCRIBE page and the SUBSCRIBE THANK YOU page.
Set Products to COLLECTION ONLY
If you have products in your Catalogue that should only be collected In Store and not Delivered you now have the option to update this setting.
It is possible to Update Individual Products or use our Bulk Upload facility for multiple products.
Once the setting is in place ‘Collection Only’ text (this text is editable) will appear above ADD TO BASKET.
Edit Order Post Sale & Resend Order Confirmation Email
Enhance your customer service by Editing an Order Post Sale if for example the product your customer ordered is out of stock and you have agreed to replace it with an alternative item. It is also possible to resend the Order Confirmation Email to reflect the change(s) in the Order
Please note that this feature is NOT available to Retailers whose orders are being downloaded to ePos/ERP through a Systems Integration
Product Detail Page
The following updates have been made to the Product Detail Page
Bulky Item Text (this text is editable) is now displayed above the ADD TO Basket.
For our websites that use the Custom Version Table Layout, it is now possible to display Version Product Codes when using Version Buttons.
Omnichannel – QR Codes
It is now possible to print a QR Code on your Gift Voucher and when scanned the Gift Voucher code is automatically entered at VIEW BASKET.