When you read about ecommerce platforms(opens in new tab), it’s usually focused on the latest and greatest features the solution provides, improving performance or optimizing any number of things like conversions and SEO. Rarely is there much discussion about the tools needed to manage an ecommerce site and how critical it is to a merchant.
A modern ecommerce platform should have tools that allow business users, ranging from website manager/admin to the marketing team, to easily manage their site, instead of troubling IT staff or paying professional services every time the site needs an update.
The site management tools within SuiteCommerce Advanced(opens in new tab) do just that. These tools are designed to enable business users to perform site management tasks such as manage content, add landing pages, enhance existing pages, manage commerce categories and subcategories as well as assign items to categories.
The WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to manage content, such as adding products to a merchandizing zone.
Users can manage content directly on the pages of their ecommerce site and then preview the content changes in real-time on the unpublished version of the site. Changes can be published immediately or scheduled when the changes go live. All revisions are tracked and auditable. Plus, site management tools utilize NetSuite roles and permissions so that only an authorized user assigned a role with website management permissions can manage content.
And with the ever-growing use of mobile devices being in the purchasing experience, it’s important to make sure that all the website changes are optimized for mobile. With site management tools, you can preview your site on different screen sizes to make sure your shoppers have a great experience no matter what device they may be using.
Preview your site on different screen sizes to ensure it displays correctly on any device.
Up until now, the site management tools have allowed business users to make changes themselves to their site, which have been in the form of text, images, merchandising zones and snippets of HTML. While this provides much-needed autonomy to users to manage their ecommerce site, it’s only the first phase of functionality. As of 17.2 and the release of SuiteCommerce Kilimanjaro, the tool has been enhanced to support a new type of content called custom content types (CCTs).
CCTs expand the possibilities for web store managers and developers alike. By working together, they can find ways for web store managers to have the functionality and content they desire without the need of a developer every time it’s needed on the site. In this new version, a CCT can be added much like any other SuiteCommerce Advanced Site Management Tools content type, but with the added benefit of being made specifically for the web store manager’s needs.
Custom content types provide a platform for SuiteCommerce developers to create custom drag and droppable content or features that are enabled and managed through the site management tool user interface. This enables SuiteCommerce users to implement custom content and expand functionality of their SuiteCommerce website with site management tools.
For example, a developer could create an image carousel as a CCT. Once this CCT is complete, the web store manager drags and drops the carousel CCT onto a page and then specify what images to include, what type of transition to use and how long to hold each slide. The ongoing task of updating the carousel is now in the hands of the business.
Custom content types allow your web store or marketing manager to update images in the carousel.
By empowering business users to make these day-to-day changes, it allows the developers to focus their time on more architectural projects. With the focus of making your SuiteCommerce web store easy to manage and enhance the business teams, you can become more agile and efficient as an organization and put forward an ecommerce site that stands out in today’s competitive digital space. Learn more about custom content types on the SuiteCommerce developer’s blog.