eCommerce

Last update: April 24, 2024

CREATED FOR:

  • Admin
  • Developer

Adobe provides two versions of the Commerce Integration Framework:

CIF on-premCIF Cloud
Supported AEM versionsAEM on-prem or AMS 6.xAEM AMS 6.4 and 6.5
Back-end
  • AEM, Java
  • Monolithic integration, pre-build mapping (template)
  • JCR repository
  • Adobe Commerce
  • Java & JavaScript
  • No commerce data stored in JCR repository
Front-endAEM server-side rendered pagesMixed page application (hybrid rendering)
Product catalog
  • Product importer, editor, caching in AEM
  • Regular catalogs with AEM or proxy pages
  • No product import
  • Generic templates
  • On-demand data via connector
Scalability
  • Can support up to a few million products (depends on the use-case)
  • Caching on Dispatcher
  • No volume limitation
  • Caching on Dispatcher or CDN
Standardized data modelNoYes, Adobe Commerce GraphQL schema
Availability

Yes. SAP Commerce Cloud (Extension updated to support AEM 6.4 and Hybris 5 (default) and maintains compatibility with Hybris 4

Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Connector open-sourced to support AEM 6.4)

Yes via open source via GitHub. Adobe Commerce (Supports 2.3.2 (default) and compatible with 2.3.1).
When to useLimited use-cases: For for example, scenarios where small, static catalogs may need to be importedPreferred solution in most use-cases

eCommerce, together with Product Information Management (PIM), handles the activities of a website focused on selling products by way of an online store:

  • Creation, lifetime, and obsolescence of a product
  • Price management
  • Transaction management
  • Management of entire catalogs
  • Live and centralized storage records
  • Web interfaces

AEM eCommerce helps marketers deliver branded, personalized shopping experiences across web, mobile, and social touchpoints. The AEM authoring environment lets you customize pages and components based on target visitor context and merchandising strategies; for example:

  • Product pages
  • Shopping cart components
  • Checkout components

The implementation allows real-time access to product information. This can be used to enforce:

  • Product information integrity
  • Pricing
  • Stock-keeping inventory
  • Variations in state of a shopping cart
NOTE
To use the integration framework with external eCommerce providers, you first need to install the required packages. For more information, see Deploying eCommerce.
For information about extending eCommerce capabilities, see Developing eCommerce.

Main Features

AEM eCommerce provides:

  • A number of out-of-the-box AEM components to illustrate what can be achieved for your project:

    • Product display
    • Shopping cart
    • Check-out
    • Recently viewed products
    • Vouchers
    • and others

    geometrixx components example

    NOTE
    The integration framework provided by AEM also lets you build additional AEM components for commerce capabilities independent of your specific eCommerce engine.

  • Search - using either:

    • the AEM search
    • the search of the eCommerce system
    • a third-party search
    • or a combination thereof.

    search example

  • Uses the AEM ability to present your content on multiple channels, be that full browser window or mobile device. This delivers your content in the format needed by your visitors.

    mobile view example

  • The ability to develop your own integration implementation based on the AEM eCommerce framework.

    The two implementations currently available are both built on the same basis - on top of the general API (the framework). Implementing a new integration only involves implementing the feature(s) that your integration needs. Front end components can be used by any new implementation as they use interfaces (so are independent from the implementation).

  • The possibility to develop experience-driven commerce based on shopper data and activity. This lets you realize many scenarios:

    • One example might be providing reductions in shipping costs when the total order exceeds a specific amount.
    • Another might let you provide seasonal offers that use profile data (for example, location). These can then be highlighted, again depending on other factors when necessary.

    In the example below one teaser is shown as the contents of the cart are less than $75:

    shopping cart with client context

    This can be changed when the contents of the cart exceed $75:

    shopping cart with client context after change

  • And other features including:

    • Shopping cart contents retained across sessions
    • Full order history
    • Express catalog update

The Framework

The Concepts section covers the framework in more detail, but the following provides a high-level, high-speed view of the framework:

What?

  • The integration framework provides the API, a range of components to illustrate functionality and several extensions to provide examples of connection methods.
  • The framework provides the basic structure needed for a project implementation.
  • The framework is extensible.
  • The framework does not provide an out-of-the-box, ready-to-use site. A certain amount of development work is always needed to adapt the framework to your specifications.

Why?

  • To provide the basic mechanisms needed to quickly realize a customized eCommerce site.
  • Tp provide the flexibility needed for developing a real-life eCommerce site.
  • Illustrate best practices.

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