Insights

With our latest advancements in SmarterCommerce Release 8 and 9 and the SmarterCommerce Cloud—spanning AI, usability, and scalable infrastructure—our solutions are designed to streamline operations and maximize the value of your ecommerce investment. See how we're improving your experience and the newest features you can experience yourself!

What's new with SmarterCommerce?

Our new features and releases can be broken down into three parts: Release 8 features, the upcoming Release 9 advancements, the SmarterCommerce Cloud, and SmarterCommerce Managed Services. All four of these sections work together to create an improved experience for SmarterCommerce customers. From current and upcoming AI features to internal code changes to improved cloud infrastructure, we're building a solution that scales with you and withstands the constantly changing digital landscape.

Overview of Release 8 Features

SmarterCommerce Release 8 has many exciting features that build on the already strong foundation of JD Edwards solutions we offer. 

One of the biggest evolutions we are fully engaging with in this release is the normalization and expectation of AI integration. Our team has been monitoring the AI landscape for ecommerce, and reports predict that by 2032, the AI ecommerce market will reach over $22 billion. With that in mind, now is the time to adopt AI—not later. 

SmarterCommerce Release 8 integrates with AI solutions in a few key areas, with new use cases being deployed in the near future. One example is generating product descriptions from your specifications to using your existing photography to create product images; you can quickly create new offerings on your ecommerce site without starting from scratch each time. Furthermore, with SmarterCommerce AI PO Import, AI can assist with quick ordering from the import of a PO, automatically adding all the items to the cart and making the experience seamless for your customers.

These are just two examples from a growing number of AI use cases that SmarterCommerce is deploying for its customers.

For a complete list of Release 8 features, you can refer to our Release Notes in our documentation.

Understanding Our Release 9 Strategy

With SmarterCommerce Release 9, we continue the evolution of SmarterCommerce. In the past, we have historically delivered our unified content and commerce solutions on a .NET frontend foundation. We continue to build on the solid foundation of a JDE-first commerce platform by evolving SmarterCommerce’s front end to Next.js. 

SmarterCommerce will deliver new Next.js frontends for both our Ecommerce and Retail POS. While the Frontend is new, it will be working with our proven SmarterCommerce JD Edwards integration and backend using a new REST API layer.

This change will allow us to more quickly provide better solutions to customers, with improved UX capabilities and scalability that are flexible enough to change with the digital world and new AI technologies. 

The new architecture is also more lightweight, allowing for faster web performance, which can improve the overall digital presence.

The best way to think about Release 9 is that it's not a complete overhaul of the system, but rather the natural evolution of our products that fits better into the future of commerce and your business's needs as you grow.

The Shift to the SmarterCommerce Cloud

One additional push we’ve made recently is with the SmarterCommerce Cloud, built natively on Amazon Web Services (AWS). With over 90% of businesses utilizing cloud technology, our new cloud infrastructure keeps our solutions forward-thinking. We allow customers to host their ecommerce and e-payments web server infrastructure on the SmarterCommerce Cloud.

The cloud provides a space for us to offer more robust solutions that perform better and safer than ever before. From load-balancing to PCI compliance, our cloud infrastructure eases the digital and management burden for customers, providing a better experience for customers. Our experience is that customers utilizing the SmarterCommerce Cloud experience fewer technical issues, have more on-time and on-budget SmarterCommerce projects, and allow our team to more quickly respond to support requirements.

Maximize Your ROI with Our Managed Services

For customers that are looking to bridge the gap between your ecommerce strategy, JD Edwards, and your day-to-day SmarterCommerce needs, you can greatly benefit from our managed services. Our Managed Services packages fall into two general categories:

• Commerce Support Services: We'll help to keep your customer platform functioning and easy to use. From web development support and content management to catalog services and general support, we ensure your platform is working for both your business and your client base.
• Technology Services: Technology is always changing and improving, and our technology services help you to keep up with the times seamlessly. We'll guide you through upgrades and JD Edwards implementations, maintain the integrations of your ecommerce systems, and provide expert guidance as you grow your business. 

The benefit of SmarterCommerce's managed services is that every engagement is personalized to your needs and goals. We'll build your service to turn variable costs into predictable expenses, to give you direct access to a team of experts on JD Edwards and your operational needs, and to allow you to focus on your growth while we handle the technical parts. 

This service also comes with a number of unique benefits, including: 

• Dedicated Customer Success Manager
• Enhanced ServicePlus support level for Priority-1 cases 
• Scheduling priority on requested enhancement development services
  

Discover the Full Scope of How SmarterCommerce Is Improving Our Solutions

There's so much more to SmarterCommerce. We're proud to keep continuously improving our solutions, so that you and your business can stay ahead of the curve.

With these upgrades to our JD Edwards integrations, we're also offering managed services—a personalized approach to your business where we can recommend the best solutions that meet your needs and exceed your clients' expectations. If you're interested in any of the new and upcoming capabilities shared here, we'd be happy to talk you through your options!