Almost a year ago to this date, Sitecore and Microsoft announced they would collaborate on an offering to bring the best of experience marketing and commerce together. Today, Sitecore announced at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention in New York the availability of Sitecore Commerce 8 powered by Microsoft Dynamics. This solution is intended to enable enterprises to bridge the gap between in-store and digital experiences.
Over the past 12 months, Sitecore and Microsoft have developed the product together and co-designed its architecture to capitalize on the strengths of both Sitecore and Microsoft Dynamics AX. The combined solution allows businesses to create connected customer experiences optimized for visitors’ digital behaviors, devices and preferences, complete with real-time order management across any channel.
“We've been pleased with Sitecore’s rich experience management capability,” said Robert White, chief information officer, Ashley Furniture. “We look forward to leveraging the integrated and sophisticated online and offline commerce features offered by this new solution to connect the dots between ecommerce and in-store transactions.”
“Businesses, until now, haven't had a unified way to connect the customer experience between the worlds of online and brick-and-mortar,” said Darren Guarnaccia, chief strategy officer, Sitecore. “This partnership fills a real customer need by marrying the expertise and technology of two trusted global enterprise solutions. You can expect to hear more about the success of significant implementations over the coming months.”
Key features found in Sitecore Commerce 8 include:
- Shared Services Between Online and Brick-and-Mortar: All aspects of order capture (e.g. pricing, tax, discounts) are shared between digital and brick and mortar channels, supporting a consistent experience regardless of channel.
- Additional Omni-Channel Capabilities: Microsoft Dynamics AX’s comprehensive features in the areas of loyalty programs; store location with real-time inventory; buy online, pickup in store; order management, including returns; customer service and call center are all enabled in digital experiences built using Sitecore.
- Synchronization and Publishing: Synchronization service to aggregate catalog data from Dynamics AX and Sitecore’s Commerce Catalog to facilitate very high traffic digital experiences.
- Storefront Solutions: Support for multiple storefronts representing different countries and legal entities in the same deployment. A reference storefront is provided to accelerate customer deployments.
Sitecore Commerce 8 powered by Microsoft Dynamics is expected to be broadly available shortly after this announcement has been made. At the time of the announcement, pricing was unavailable.
Source: Sitecore Press Release