The WECO team is hard at work to bring version 9.0 of the software later this year. As we wait for the release later this summer, I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the new and exiting features that are on the roadmap. Over the next few blog posts I will share some of the features that are planned for this release.
In Part 1 of the series I will start with the biggest improvement - adding support for "headless" eCommerce scenarios. First a bit of background...
eCommerce platforms have a difficult task to balance 2 somewhat conflicting forces. On one side, they serve as a marketing tool to draw and keep customers engaged by providing polished, easy to navigate and, more importantly, a constantly evolving user experience. On the other side, they have to execute complex business rules like checking availability, pricing, discounts, shipping, providing right recommendations etc..
Keeping the site fresh is all about encouraging changes and experimentation, while keeping the site stable is all about minimizing changes (as any change can unintentionally break one of the many business rules that are needed for the proper ordering process).
WECO uses BSP (Business Server Pages) for building user facing web pages. Like many of its counterparts on other platforms, the BSP technology, unless done carefully, presents a risk of intermingling the code for the business rules that govern the page business logic with the presentation components (buttons, tables, sliders etc.). Any changes to the look and feel, could potentially cause unintended effects on the business logic (for example adding a new way to add/remove products to a shopping cart, needs to also properly trigger the appropriate business logic for recalculating pricing, discounts, shipping etc.). This dependency creates challenges for developers who are in charge of building the user experience as they have to carefully track what business rules are attached to what UI component and predict how they will be affected if the element is moved, removed or redesigned. This tracking and constant re-testing is one of the main culprits that slow down the rate at which Marketing departments can deliver on their vision.
“Headless” eCommerce architecture greatly reduces the dependency between the page “look & feel” and the page business logic by enforcing a clear separation between the two. The term “headless” means that the core of the eCommerce platform, (what implements the "business logic"), is so independent that is usable on its own, even without any user interface (or “head”).
WECO will continue to fully support and enhance the BSP version going forward. The "headless" version will co-exist with the BSP version to provide the flexibility when needed. The overall WECO functionality and experience will remain mostly the same (with a several enhancements that I will share in Part 2 of this blog).
In addition to the standard WECO BSP modules that are currently available (e.g. B2B B2C etc.) WECO will release additional modules that can be used when customers prefer a headless solution:
This is preliminary information and may change before the official WECO 9 release later this year
Working together, both modules will provide similar set of functionality as the existing BSP solution but in a more flexible and future-proof way. Customers, who opt for the "headless" solution will also gain several important benefits:
In part 2 of this series, I will cover some of the other features that are planned for v9 - Stay Tuned.