Nebojsa Radakovic

In today’s cutthroat eCommerce world, being buried on page two of search results might as well be the same as being invisible. Shoppers rarely click past the first few results, so if your product information isn’t optimized for search engines, you’re losing out - big time.

The good news? There are smart strategies to make your product data work harder for you, and that’s where SEO, product info, marketing content, and Crystallize come into play.

Crystallize is more than just a headless commerce platform—it’s your SEO ally in disguise.

This post should serve as your guide to mastering product information optimization with Crystallize and show you how it helps you boost visibility and bring that coveted traffic straight to your digital doorstep.

Yes, I’ve made some bold claims here, but before we get to them …

In the bustling world of eCommerce, where every customer interaction counts, businesses are turning to subscription models to foster long-term relationships and ensure a steady revenue stream.

But with great potential comes the need for precise management.

Enter subscription management—the secret sauce to keeping your customers happy, your billing seamless, and your growth on an upward trajectory.

The shift towards sustainability in tech stacks, some even say towards building eco-friendly websites, is nothing new. It aligns with modern demands for responsible business practices. According to some estimates, the carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet, and the systems supporting them accounts for about 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions (source), And these emissions are predicted to double by 2025.

Clearly, (besides hype), there is a need to embrace more energy-efficient and sustainable solutions and tech, and oddly enough, there are business gains that come with it.

The key to creating a sustainable, green, eco-friendly, energy-efficient, or (call it what you will) eCommerce tech stack and reducing your online carbon footprint is to focus on efficiency and scalability at every level, from infrastructure overbuild tools and practices to user interaction.

Product catalogs are rapidly expanding, and customer expectations for seamless, dynamic experiences are sky-high, making efficient Product Information Management (PIM) a necessity rather than a nice-to-have feature.

The subscription business model has seen exponential growth in recent years, with notable success stories in industries ranging from software and entertainment to physical goods and professional services.

Still, even with growing adoption, many businesses are unaware of the full spectrum of benefits that a subscription model can offer. We’ve already discussed this in our What's a Subscription Business Model and How Does It Work? blog post. So, here, let’s just quickly go over the benefits of subscription models for businesses and customers.

For Businesses:

• Predictable Revenue: Subscription models ensure a steady cash flow, aiding in better financial management and planning.
• Customer Loyalty: Continuous customer engagement fosters loyalty, reducing churn rates and increasing lifetime value.
• Operational Efficiency: Streamlined processes and automated billing reduce administrative burdens and costs.
• Market Differentiation: Unique subscription offerings can differentiate a business in a competitive market.

For Customers:

• Convenience: Regular, automated deliveries or services eliminate the need for repeated purchases.
• Cost Savings: Subscriptions often provide better value than one-time purchases, especially with bundled offers or long-term commitments.
• Personalization: Ongoing services can be tailored to individual preferences, enhancing customer satisfaction.
• Exclusive Access: Subscribers often enjoy exclusive content, products, or services, adding to the perceived value.

It is not all bells and whistles. There are some challenges as well. The subscription market is becoming increasingly saturated, with numerous players vying for the same customers. Retaining customers is a significant challenge, and high churn rates can undermine the benefits of the subscription model, leading to revenue instability.

Finally, scalability issues, such as maintaining service quality with a growing subscriber base or the technical challenges of scaling a subscription platform, are a concern for growing businesses.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have always been about more than just boosting sales—they’re about creating lasting customer relationships. The best way to do this? Videos. Let me explain.

Even if your business isn’t global, every language you add to your eCommerce platform increases the number of people who can use your services or products.

Nearly 73% of consumers said they would be more inclined to buy a product with information in their language. In comparison, 56.2% said that the ability to obtain information in their language is more important than price.

And it makes sense.

Imagine you’re in a foreign country where no one speaks your language. There is a certain level of anxiety when you purchase something, right? And it feels great when you finally find someone who speaks your language.

So it goes without saying that it is a great business move. At first glance, becoming a multilingual online store may seem complicated and impossible, but with the right tools, it’s trouble-free.

Sure enough, staying true to your brand’s identity matters, but it matters just as much as creating a seamless, engaging shopping experience that easily guides visitors from the homepage to checkout. It matters just as much as your website performance or having an omnichannel strategy in place.

Given that the design of your eCommerce store depends greatly on your product, product industry standards, and audience expectations, crafting a one-size-fits-all web design guide is not really feasible.

So, instead of creating a universal blueprint for eCommerce web design, here we’ll focus on articulating a set of best practices we see successful online stores (our clients) implement, be it for the sake of UX or SEO or they are simply cool to have 🙂

The headless approach is eating the web dev world… There is a good reason for it. Traditional monolith eCommerce platforms (like WordPress, Wix, Magento, Shopify, Drupal, etc.) often limit customization and agility due to their tightly coupled front and back systems.

Headless architecture, on the other hand, allows businesses to use different technologies for the front and back end, providing the freedom to create unique customer experiences without being constrained by the limitations of a monolithic architecture. Additionally, it allows for a best-of-breed approach to building your online store, where you can pick and choose the best solutions for your use case.

For many businesses, the decision to re-platform to a headless architecture is a technological upgrade and a strategic business move because it offers opportunities for enhanced agility, scalability, and a deeper engagement with customers through bespoke user experiences. This, more often than not, means a loyal audience and, ultimately, more sales.

How easy/hard it is to migrate to a new CMS/eCommerce/PIM platform depends heavily on your starting point, i.e., do you have a platform, and are you moving from a monolith or headless solution?

No platform/CMS? This should be easy because you are building a new digital experience for your audience and your team from scratch, which means there are no pre-defined restrictions your team should know.

Moving from monolith solution? Migration depends heavily on the solution you’ve used before. Migrating to a headless architecture involves significant technical challenges, including the re-architecture of the existing system, integration of APIs, and ensuring that all components work seamlessly together.

Changing headless platform? Again, it depends on the solution. Decupled front and back ends mean you can quickly adopt the exact content modeling in your new setting.

Transition requires meticulous and strategic planning, considering various factors, including technological limitations, integration complexities, future growth prospects, and budget constraints, making it much more difficult than anticipated.

However, there are general recommendations that will help you map out migration steps more easily.

The traditional eCommerce setup often entails substantial upfront investments in server infrastructure, complex management, and maintenance routines. Additionally, the rigidity of such setups can impede the scalability essential for handling traffic surges during sales events, thus affecting performance and user experience.

Serverless eCommerce emerges as a solution to these challenges, offering a new approach that significantly reduces operational overhead, enhances scalability, and optimizes cost-efficiency.

The State of Serverless 2023 report by Datadog underscores a rising trend in major cloud providers adopting serverless technologies​. The global serverless architecture market, valued at over USD 9 billion in 2022, is projected to burgeon at a CAGR of over 25% from 2023 to 2032​. Similarly, the global serverless computing market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 20.8% from 2022 to 2028​.

The statistics we mentioned above testify to the significant strides the serverless approach is making. It's (kind of) evident that if you haven't done so already, now is the time to delve deeper and enumerate serverless benefits, check real-world use cases, discuss technical considerations, and understand best practices for businesses eyeing a transition to this modern eCommerce paradigm.

But before all that we've got some term explaining first.

The global eCommerce sales for 2023 surpassed $6.5 trillion for all online products (source). What can we expect this year? Well, can't be sure about the exact number, but I feel it will only go up.

While this rapid growth means more opportunities, it also means tougher competition where only the best make it. I've read somewhere you need to sell where everyone scrolls, searches, and shops. It's only partially true because you need to sell where YOUR audience is scrolling, searching, and shopping, not everyone.

How do you do that?

I'm glad you asked. With an effective marketing strategy that helps your businesses increase brand awareness, drive traffic, generate leads, and ultimately boost sales and revenue.

That's easier said than done🤔

While it is never good when you have to explain why you are doing something, this article (kind of) deserves it because it has been in the making for quite some time and comes as a sum of conversations with our clients and my personal meandering past and present experiences. The article is tailored for emerging eCommerce ventures and seasoned brands aiming to enhance their digital footprint. It's crucial to acknowledge the unique nature of each business, which means that not all strategies discussed may align with your specific business model and use case.

The key takeaway for you is to use this article as a starting point for developing a strategic framework that will help your business increase website traffic and elevate revenue.

In the ever-growing world of eCommerce, where consumers have endless choices, brands rule the world. Brands rule shopping habits. Brands rule shoppers' expectations. Well, we might not be there yet, but we’re pretty damn close, and that’s what makes building brand loyalty more important than ever.

It’s what can set you apart from competitors and ensure a constant stream of revenue.

And the industry realizes this. For example, 50% of marketers list brand loyalty as one of the top goals of their content marketing strategies.

How can you win the hearts and minds of customers so that they return to your business repeatedly? Why do people go from casually browsing for a product to fiercely advocating for a specific brand? How did the brand win them over?

A couple of months back, I talked about it with Bård Farstad, our CEO, and Ståle Eikeri, our sales guy and COO, and what you read are my notes turned into an article. It’s not like we share the best-kept secrets of turning shoppers into brand loyalists, it’s more like we share our experience and what worked for us.

Sweef.se, renowned for its unique, high-quality, on-demand furniture at reasonable prices, is doing it by offering not just furniture but Sweden's comfiest furniture, fostering a culture of comfort, quality, and individual expression. They needed solid tech to back their efforts to deliver that via their digital storefront.

The previous platform, PrestaShop, although functional, lacked the flexibility and speed essential for delivering a superior user experience and managing the complex product configurations offered by Sweef.

Betting on a monolithic approach in the age of omnichannel demand, composable commerce, and best-of-breed tech stacks is an arduous task doomed from the beginning. So, instead of going the beaten path of eCommerce, they took a leap of faith and opted for a headless approach.

Are you considering going headless with your project/business? Good🤘

The headless commerce surge continues redefining the eCommerce landscape, offering enhanced flexibility, better performance, and tailored customer experiences. However, getting all stakeholders on board with the idea of adopting headless architecture (or rather moving away from known monolith solutions) is not always easy.

To help you plead the case to your team, we did in-depth research on the current state and trends in adopting headless and gathered statistics that underscore the momentum headless commerce is gaining. We'll lay it all here and let you asses and interpret the stats.

Let’s dive in!

In the rapid and ever-evolving world of eCommerce, keeping a grasp on product information is imperative for businesses to thrive. Product Information Management (PIM) platforms are at the forefront of this endeavor, offering companies unparalleled organization, efficiency, and scalability.

The 21st-century consumer is discerning and well-informed and demands immediacy with a personal touch and feel while navigating seamlessly between online and offline channels. For businesses, this means maintaining an accurate, updated, and consistent database of product information is a must, and this is becoming an arduous task, especially for enterprises with vast product portfolios spread across multiple channels (we really did not want to say Excell sheets 🫨).

In the dynamic world of eCommerce, satisfying customer demands while managing operations efficiently is a juggling act. Ever wonder how successful online retailers manage it all? The secret sauce is order orchestration.

According to Semrush, 50% of brands are still not using structured content. This means that the content a half of businesses out there create isn't reaching relevant people or at least isn't doing it nearly as successfully as it could be.

The online world is more crowded and competitive than ever, making it difficult to stand out and get noticed. And don't get us started with AI stuff that is published/made at a staggering rate. On top of all that, your audience's expectations are higher than ever: they want personalized, relevant, and engaging content everywhere they go online.

All this is made possible with structured content.

Structured content enables you to do more with your content. Not only does it enhance the user experience by providing precise navigation and consistency, but it also improves search engine optimization (SEO) by increasing relevance and improving ranking.

Implementing structured content on your website is becoming a crucial step to drive traffic, engage users, and achieve online success.

But first …

The global eCommerce market reached a US $13 trillion value in 2021 and is forecasted to reach a whopping US $55.6 trillion by 2027.

With such growth of eCommerce year over year, it's essential for online retailers (and other businesses) to have the right technology to support their business and strategy. But with so many eCommerce platforms available, how can you tell which fits your business best?

How do you pick the one that suits your needs, keeps up with the development and market trends, and ensures your business's online success?

In part two of the five-part article series, we discuss choosing an eCommerce platform that's the right one for your use case.

Gartner magic quadrant view, business expectations, industry leaders' opinions, most popular solutions… best of articles come in all shapes and sizes. This one of ours about eCommerce platforms is a bit different… we hope.

Driving customer acquisition, optimizing the eCommerce experience, fostering loyalty, and scaling operations are the reason why brands opt out for Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) approach in business and marketing. But is it for everyone, and how do you start with it?

More than a buzzword, decupled eCommerce is the future of online shopping that is already here. Let’s talk about it.

eCommerce is wildly different than it was ten years ago. With the rise of omnichannel and globalization, managing your store has become increasingly complex.

Webhooks are popular in web development, especially in headless and strongly decoupled architectures.

On-Premise and Cloud PIM, the benefits, the differences, and drawbacks of each, with examples of PIM platforms for both.

72% increased conversion rate and 3 seconds faster load times on average just by moving from Magento to Crystallize. Not bad.

When it comes to managing product information, two terms often used interchangeably are PIM and PCM. While they may sound similar, these two concepts are quite different and serve different purposes in the world of e-commerce and product management.

ERP helps to manage core business processes (manufacturing, supply chain, services, procurement, finance, HR, etc.) in an integrated system efficiently.

Welcome to another battle of acronyms! Who will come out on top: PIM or PLM?! Spoiler alert, ideally, they’d work together.

Businesses and organizations that need to manage and organize massive amounts of product-related data effectively should use PDM.

With the number of available tech solutions, tools, architectures, and approaches to web development today, it is easy to get overwhelmed when choosing the one for your online store.

When it comes to managing digital content, there are two main types of systems that professional businesses use (oftentimes together): Product Information Management (PIM) systems and Content Management Systems (CMS).

Personalized experiences increase the likelihood of purchase by 80% for consumers. And with that, experience management platforms (XM) entered the scene.

ZipFit needed a modern website that performed well to help them continue to grow. Next JS + Crystallize delivered everything they needed.

MDM manages all types of company data, including those managed in PIM, making PIM a subset of MDM. Wait, what?

Headless, composable, API-first, Remix, UI or UX-driven design, etc. Tracking development and design trends in eCommerce is both tough and rewarding at the same time.

The eCommerce space is animated with various business models, each with its unique set of advantages, challenges, and requisites, making it hard to identify which is the best fit for your use case.

What follows is a mish-mash of research, dry definitions, suggestions gathered from our clients, and our in-house and world-famous brand examples in an article to help you make that decision a little easier.

Wondering if a multichannel approach could help you increase sales in 2023? Wonder no more, your hunch is correct: multichannel eCommerce will help you reach those goals.

In today's society of continuous technological innovation, consumers expect businesses to have a strong omnichannel strategy: they demand highly relevant and customized interactions across various platforms.

Scandinavian retailer Carling’s stunt with Digital Collection influencing people to think differently about clothes, in general, was backed by a headless commerce architecture.

Did you know it takes users around 50 milliseconds (source) to form an opinion about your website? And if their first impression and experience are bad, 88% of consumers (source) are less likely to return to your website. How your products are organized and how easy it is for your customers to find what they are looking for play a massive part in that first impression.

That’s where product taxonomy comes in. A well-defined taxonomy helps manage large inventories and create a seamless and efficient shopping experience. It can make or break the user experience and seriously impact your bottom line.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Are you struggling to convert your website traffic into paying customers? Are you tired of spending hours and resources on driving traffic to your site with little to no return on investment? Then it's time to focus on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).

Raw, uncontrollable power. That’s what word-of-mouth is. Word-of-mouth marketing is what you do to create that power.

Nuwo is a home office-as-a-service solution that provides companies with personalized online stores from which their remote employees can pick and choose furniture/equipment for their home office.

The B2B eCommerce sector is undeniably booming, marked by an exhilarating growth trajectory. As of 2021, different sources have reported the market size ranging from USD 2.3 billion to a staggering USD 7.35 trillion, with a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) varying from 17.48% to 29.3% for the coming years​.

One notable driver of this growth is the swift ascendancy of manufacturers in the eCommerce arena, who amplified their online sales by 18.4% in 2021, reaching $543.25 billion from the previous $458.7 billion​.

The fervent expectations of B2B sellers further underscore this upward trend, as nearly 20% anticipate their eCommerce sales to burgeon by at least 25% in 2023​.

B2B eCommerce is not just a modern-day convenience; it's a strategic imperative for businesses aiming to secure a competitive edge in today's digital-first marketplace.

But is it an approach for your business?

Local SEO focuses on optimizing a website's online presence to attract more local customers and improve search engine rankings for location-based queries.

We just scratched the surface by explaining product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM). Time to compare these two concepts and systems and describe the business benefits of using them.

How do you build a remote team? Why company retreat is the best way to do it? What happened and what lessons did we learn last week at Crystallize 2022 retreat?

Running a conference is no easy task but it is a rewarding one. While React Norway 2022 wasn't our first React conference it certainly was the best one yet.

A subscription business model is a revenue model that allows customers to pay a recurring fee, typically monthly or annually, to gain access to a product or service. Unlike traditional sales models, which focus on one-time transactions, subscription models emphasize ongoing customer relationships, providing continuous value in exchange for recurring payments.

Subscriptions are already embedded in our culture, so much so that we do not consider them special. The average U.S. consumer subscribes to 3.7 services (source), spanning from electricity and apartment rent, streaming services like Netflix or Spotify over office furniture renting like Nuwo, and phone cloud storage iCloud to (why not?) commerce platforms like Crystallize and productivity apps such as Microsoft Office.

The above should not come as a surprise because the demand is there. As of 2023, the average monthly spending on subscription services per consumer in the U.S. was approximately $237 (source).

The subscription model has gained immense popularity due to its ability to create predictable revenue streams, enhance customer retention, and provide businesses with valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors.

Wow… that’s great, but is it the right fit for your business? Let's explore that.

Google announced Universal Analytics (UA) would no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1, 2023, and that you should be moving to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). It’s not like the world is ending, right? But what does that mean for your business?

With just a couple of months before G sunsets Universal Analytics for GA4, I’ve wondered if there are any Google Analytics alternatives you might want to move to.

You've probably heard the terms APIs, and Microservices used when talking about web development. What are they? How do you use them, and what is the difference between them?

Omnichannel commerce is all about meeting your customers where they feel comfortable shopping - and with just the right information.

In eCommerce, it’s not uncommon to think that organic traffic mainly comes from the home page or (keyword-oriented) category pages. While this might be true for well-known brands (think of Nike, Channel, Longines, Porsche, etc.), this is not true in general.

As we became more search engine literate, Google (and Bing and others) became the starting point of buyers’ journeys, with the end destination being product pages. Over 23.6% of online searches for products begin on Google, while 43% of overall eCommerce traffic comes from organic Google search results (source link).

No in-between pages (like category) or online store browsing makes product page search engine optimization (SEO) hugely important. Many businesses already know that, so chances are your competitors are already investing heavily in product page optimization, and it’s about time you start doing it as well.

Many cool posts/guides/articles about product page optimization exist online. Still, many fail to point out that you should consider two aspects of product page optimization: SEO and clickthrough rate optimization (CTR).

The first is about the appearance of your product page in search engine results for desired keywords. The second is about your product's conversion or selling on those pages. The following tips/tricks/best practices are written with the two in mind. Luckily, the two are intertwined🤪

With digital asset management (DAM) platforms, you get the power to store, share and organize all digital assets from a single secure location.

Composable Commerce represents a paradigm shift in eCommerce architecture, fundamentally redefining how businesses approach their online shopping experiences.

Gartner predicts that by 2023, organizations that have taken to the composable approach will outpace the competition by 80% in the speed of new feature implementation.

Monolith, headless, microservices, Jamstack, MACH, composable… just when you thought you’d caught up, a new tech term popped up on the market. Distinguishing what they mean for you and your business is as hard as understanding their subtle differences, so let’s unwrap them today.

With Google having a clear bias towards big media publishers (trustworthy, authority sites) and thousands of mediocre AI content published daily, how do you fight for those top places in search engine results in 2024?

Product Information Management (PIM) is the key to eCommerce success.

Netlify, Vercel, Platform.sh … the static website hosting landscape has changed significantly in the past few years and is only getting better.

Subscription ecommerce business models have seen fantastic growth in recent years. With Crystallize being at the forefront of it, now is the time to dive into the ins and outs of starting, running, and scaling an eCommerce subscription business.

Often critiqued for NOT delivering on a promise of transforming front-end development, since its release in 2013, React JS has been under the fray of the dev world.

Last year's annual State of JS report on front-end frameworks and libraries survey showed interest may be falling, but React usage is growing (source link). Furthermore, insights from the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023 reinforce React's position in the ecosystem as the most loved web framework, with a notable percentage of developers either using it or expressing interest in using it shortly (source link).

While we wait on fresh stats, one could argue it is the framework of the web. Still, web development is an ever-changing beast. Yesterday's underdogs are today's hyped frameworks/libraries/approaches/architectures/concepts _________________(add anything here).

Not long ago, most businesses relied on monolithic solutions for content management (CMS) and eCommerce with coupled front and back end. That became a problem as new screens, markets, and channels emerged. The rise of headless architecture allowed businesses to think differently.

New technologies/frameworks significantly simplify the web development, management, and distribution processes while allowing for better reach, performance, and the web in general.

Why are we mentioning this here? Well, if you know React and are ready to take advantage of headless architecture in your blog or online store, all you'll need is a static site generator to get you going  (so to speak).

In the simplest possible terms, a headless CMS is a backend content management system (CMS) that exists independently of the front end - the presentation layer.

New sales channels appear every day. Instagram now has a shopping tab, WhatsApp is getting one, TikTok is jumping onto the eCommerce wagon, and purchasing groceries from your smart fridge has become a reality. If your online store is your only sales platform, then you’re seriously missing out.

Yes, we get it.

First, it’s creating content for your website. Then, it’s creating content for mobile. It’s creating social media sales channels, smartwatches, and other IoT devices. Moreover, the number of these will only increase in the future.

And who has a team that large? Not many! But hey, that’s why you’re here because this is where headless commerce shines.

Headless commerce and headless architecture have gained much traction lately, so the market for headless commerce is projected to expand to around USD 2.2 billion by 2023. Over six in ten retail companies plan to migrate to headless commerce platforms by 2024, while over 20 percent already use them (source: headless commerce stats 2024).

Video is dominating the digital marketing landscape and contrary to what you may have heard there are a couple of ways you can easily add them to your Jamstack website.

We've talked lengths about site speed and performance affecting your search engine ranking and organic traffic but did you know site speed affects Adwords pricing and ranking as well?

With the rapid growth of tools and solutions available in the space now is probably the best time to move your online store to Jamstack eCommerce architecture.

Creating a seamless and engaging on-site customer experience is the ultimate goal for everyone running an online store. Besides your product/service, your store performance and product videos ensure you get the much-needed attention.

Check out the top reasons your ecommerce platform needs to be blazing fast if the satisfied customer is not a good enough explanation.

Not your average list but a comprehensive 19-point eCommerce SEO checklist with everything you need to know to optimize your store and successfully grow organic traffic and revenue.

Core Web Vitals, LCP, Cumulative Layout Shift, FID, Webpagetest.org, Google Lighthouse, Pagespeed Insight, CrUX, or the latest one, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) —we're sure you've stumbled upon one of these in your quest to improve front-end performance.

But how do you measure performance? And why do you need to be data-driven and continuously monitor, optimize, and build a performance testing and optimization culture?

Let's explore that. Let's go millisecond hunting.

PIM is your centralized product information system from which the product data is distributed to all relevant stakeholders, teams, and sales channels.

React and React-based frameworks are super popular for eCommerce these days. Due to their awesomeness, single-page applications are typically the starting point for many businesses. However, React SPA is far from awesome for SEO, search, and time to first meaningful render.

Let’s delve into effective strategies for optimizing React eCommerce SPAs for SEO, ensuring that your web application is not only user-friendly but also highly visible in search engine results.