DEV Community: Slatwall Commerce

Slatwall Commerce for Contentful App & Starter Kit

Jon — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 21:11:19 +0000

Big news! We just launched our new app and starter kit for Contentful and couldn’t be more excited!

You’ll now be able to pull product data directly from the Slatwall Commerce platform into your Contentful pages to create the exact customer experience and storefront design you want.

The Slatwall Commerce for Contentful app and starter kit empower brands to employ the full benefits of headless commerce and content management by providing everything eCommerce marketing and development teams need to quickly build, launch and continuously optimize unique and high-performing digital commerce storefronts.

For businesses investing in digital commerce, launching new storefronts or upgrading existing stores, finding eCommerce platforms and services that meet the demands of the marketing and business teams while making easy-to-use tools available to developers has always been a challenge. Developers need a platform that is agile, powerful, and flexible while marketing teams require complete control over the design, content and creative aspects of the storefront. The Slatwall Commerce for Contentful integration and storefront starter kit delivers headless commerce + content to satisfy the requirements of both teams.

Here are just a few of the many benefits:

Faster time to market. Developers can quickly install the app, connect their Slatwall installation and the storefront is up and running, thanks to a complete storefront template and framework that is purposefully built for integration.
Improved flexibility and control. The storefront starter kit is easily customized, extended, and themed, allowing for complete control over the customer experience and storefront design while maintaining all of the power that an integrated storefront has to offer.
High performance. Not only can the app be installed within minutes, but by leveraging the speed of the API, storefronts built with the new starter kit are high-performing, making them perfect for search engine optimization and mobile shopping experiences.
Merchandising control. Marketing teams have the ability to pull data directly from Slatwall Commerce using the app, allowing them to create pages to exact specifications using product information within the platform.

To get the Slatwall for Contentful app: https://www.contentful.com/marketplace/app/slatwall-commerce/.

To get the storefront starter kit: https://www.slatwallcommerce.com/contentful/storefront-starter-kit/.

To learn more about connecting Contentful with Slatwall Commerce: https://www.slatwallcommerce.com/contentful/.

Announcing Slatwall Commerce for WordPress New Release v1.1

Jon — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 17:16:15 +0000

Slatwall Commerce for WordPress: Seamlessly Combine Content & Headless Commerce

Slatwall Commerce announces a new version of the Slatwall Commerce for WordPress plugin and starter kit. We’re calling it version 1.1. Get the plugin and starter kit on Github.

We’ve been working with enterprise WordPress developers and agencies to create a solution that makes it easier to connect WordPress CMS with enterprise level headless commerce. Slatwall Commerce for WordPress gives developers the opportunity to connect two best-of-breed solutions and improve the speed, performance and scalability of their storefronts. And combined, of course, with enterprise level features and functionality.

Here’s what we’ve added to the Slatwall Commerce for WordPress plugin and template starter kit:

Listing Page & Merchandising

We enhanced our product listing features to give merchandising and marketing teams the opportunity to manually assign products to blocks directly within WordPress. Assign products directly to blog posts, articles or any content page or block.

New Shortcodes

There are now new shortcodes to allow your team to rapidly assign and deploy templates for new product listing pages built for brands, categories and keyword search results.

Product Kits & Bundles

The most complicated product configuration and kits are available through a new product display template. Of course, with Slatwall, there are no limits to the complexity of the bundle groups and kit setup options.

Gift Cards

We’ve also made available a starter template for electronic gift card products that includes support for both dynamic and fixed gift card amounts and captures gift recipient properties.

My Account & Reordering

Several enhancements have been added to the “My Account” area of the site including new order delivery display, tracking information and “Recent Order” view. The highlight of updates is the new single click reordering giving users the ability to duplicate an order with one click and easily confirm the purchase. Or, reorder a single item with the same speed.

Miscellaneous

There have been a number of small performance fixes, styling changes, additional tweaks and updates to the starter kit as well.

Thanks to all of our development partners who provided invaluable feedback as we’ve made these enhancements and updates.

What’s coming next?

We’re working on some exciting new enhancements to the starter kit and plugin that will include some enhanced integrations between the WordPress administration area and Slatwall Commerce as well as new subscription commerce capabilities.

Follow along on the Slatwall roadmap for the latest updates and timing. Grab the latest plugin and starter kit code on Github.

Announcing Slatwall Commerce for WordPress

Jon — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:31:50 +0000

Content + Commerce for flexibility & scalability

https://github.com/ten24/slatwall-wordpress

We're excited to announce that we've launched a first-of-its-kind enterprise eCommerce plugin designed specifically for WordPress. Slatwall Commerce for WordPress is designed to be a headless commerce solution that easily integrates into WordPress using the Slatwall Commerce API. It allows companies to leverage the features and benefits of an enterprise eCommerce platform within the WordPress environment they know and love.

By utilizing the plugin, developers can design, build, and launch the exact storefront they want in WordPress and connect it to Slatwall Commerce. The solution is designed for companies that have outgrown simple eCommerce plugins and need a new, feature-rich enterprise platform that works with their existing WordPress-powered websites.

Until now, organizations have had to compromise on eCommerce options that were integrated with WordPress but couldn’t deliver enterprise-level features or stable performance. By connecting WordPress with the Slatwall Commerce platform, businesses can have a complete enterprise-ready platform that’s built to scale, can be launched quickly, and is completely flexible from a design and layout perspective.

With WordPress being one of the most popular CMS platforms, developers shouldn’t be forced to choose between lack of functionality on the eCommerce side or limited design and layout options. Compromises on eCommerce platforms often mean lost opportunities, shaky performance, and disjointed web design and layouts.

Slatwall Commerce’s eCommerce plugin is a headless commerce solution that easily integrates into any existing CMS system, including WordPress, without any need for changes or additional services. Not only does the plugin allow for more design flexibility, and an improved feature set, but the performance and stability of the WordPress system is optimized as all eCommerce data and processing is stored and managed by the hosted Slatwall Commerce services. With Slatwall’s headless commerce structure delivering a faster and more stable website, businesses are set up to support long-term growth.

The new Slatwall for WordPress plugin improves developer efficiency while enhancing security in a completely hosted environment. Development teams will appreciate that the Slatwall plugin also comes with starter templates to help quickly create a storefront, add products, and launch without needing to bring in an expensive development team to get started.

Learn more about Slatwall Commerce & WordPress

Headless Commerce for WordPress

Jon — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:05:13 +0000

What are the benefits of headless commerce for Wordpress?

If you're like most WordPress developers, you're looking for a complete eCommerce platform solution with no plugins or extensions to build the front end that you want. Whether you're building from scratch, replacing an existing design or migrating to a new platform, the theming process can be challenging and time intensive.

Implementing a headless commerce platform solves those challenges and removes traditional restrictions around building and designing for eCommerce. Headless capabilities give web teams flexibility to build complete eCommerce storefronts within the WordPress environment.

Why Headless Commerce for WordPress?

So what makes headless commerce for WordPress such a great option? Why change how you're integrating eCommerce with your WordPress powered websites?

A few key points to agree on right off the bat:

Building for eCommerce on the front end is intensive and time-consuming. Each project has many moving pieces with complex requirements that change on a client by client basis.
The content experience from website to eCommerce should be seamless. No subdomains for your store with a different look and feel. Customers expect consistency.
Reducing the time and cost of front end development will help to boost ROI and encourage new web investment.
If you can keep your web team and technology team building in an environment they're comfortable with (WordPress), have lots of experience and expertise in - everyone wins.
Hosting, monitoring and securing an eCommerce website requires extensive investment of time and resources.

How does a headless commerce solution solve these challenges?

Make Theme Development Easier

Engineering, building and designing unique customer storefronts have always been a challenge and traditionally, most eCommerce platforms have been able to deliver a rich feature set, but can be challenging to work with.

Whether the template structure is rigid, massive hacks or workarounds are required or the front ends are built in an inaccessible methodology, developers are often frustrated by the limitations in building eCommerce storefronts that will meet customers requirements. At launch, the developer is left thinking they could have built something better in less time if only they had more flexibility around design and implementation.

With the headless commerce approach developers are not bound to develop, create and design in a certain way. The idea of a single way of building the front end no longer exists. The development team now has complete control to access and interact with the platform through an API framework.

Use any theme, frontend framework or content management system to build all the experiences you need for your storefront. From product listing and search through checkout and account management, the headless platform delivers the data and functionality through the API for the entire commerce lifecycle and includes the backend administration tools to completely manage the eCommerce business.

Integrate With Existing Design

So what happens when you aren't building from scratch? You're adding eCommerce to an existing design or moving from one platform or another? Is it necessary to start over completely and rebuild and redesign everything?

Nope. With headless commerce, you don't have to. In fact, in many cases, you can leverage the existing layouts and design and replace the data calls and functionality request with references to the headless platform. The display is the same, but the tool delivering the data has changed.

Customers may not even notice that there has been a change to the system when the design, layout and theme remains consistent.

Better yet, the ability to integrate with an existing design means you can focus your development efforts on replatforming with eCommerce first, reviewing the results and the investment in a redesign later, if necessary.

Migration Friendly

When the time comes to rework or redesign the storefront, the last thing you want to be forced to tackle at the same time is a brand new eCommerce platform or be forced to upgrade. So much more testing and development is required that the process can be overwhelming.

With a headless commerce implementation, you have the flexibility to redesign whenever you’d like. The headless commerce implementation has no required built in front end specifications, template or restrictions. The API call to get products, place an order or apply a promotion is the same regardless of what your design looks like.

Upgrade Safe

With a separate content management system and eCommerce platform, the technology team can count on quickly rolling out and implementing new versions of the eCommerce platform as they are released and become available. Significantly less time will be spent working on testing upgrades, reviewing release notes and checking for plugin operability post upgrade.

For making upgrades and core updates to the CMS platform, the WordPress team can leverage any of the latest theme development tools, core platform version or combinations of plugins and not interrupt the operation of the eCommerce platform or force an unplanned upgrade.

Both systems are connected through the API, but can be upgraded, secured and maintained separately.

Expansion Capable

What happens when your client needs to expand their business? Including looking at opportunities for additional websites, additional storefronts, mobile applications outside of the WordPress environment?

A headless commerce platform is designed to be client agnostic and perform the commerce tasks that are needed; handling data, returning results and processing commerce transactions. The open front end approach means that the web development team has the flexibility to link the headless commerce platform wherever needed: point of sale, mobile application, website and more. Future growth isn't limited or restricted to the WordPress environment.

Cost Competitive

How can integrating a headless commerce platform be cost competitive with more traditional eCommerce implementations?

With a more efficient front-end development process, you're only building what you need. Create the exact design you want and integrate the API-based platform into the front end experience. No workarounds means faster development, fewer resources and quicker project launches.

There are fewer workarounds, plugin-installations and extensions required for the platform that you'll need. Less resources and time means better results at lower costs.

Secondly, there are no fixed hosting infrastructure assets required and with a dynamically scaled environment, you aren’t paying for infrastructure that isn't being used. No servers sitting there "just in case" you need them. Your hosting environment should be cost-optimized for low and high traffic. A SaaS service should have no licensing costs & reflect scaled pricing that is performance driven only.

Security

With a separated CMS and commerce platform, you are secure knowing that the entire database and eCommerce platform is only accessible through direct access and a permission based API.

It's important to consider a headless commerce platform that is PCI Level 1 certified. A single tenant hosted infrastructure will ensure a secure environment as your web operation grows, succeeds and expands.

Content & Commerce

Slatwall Commerce can help you build a headless storefront powered by WordPress with no gaps in functionality across the commerce lifecycle. Merchandise multiple physical or digital product types without plugins or extensions:

Merchandise
Subscriptions
Content Access
Events
Gift Cards
Product Bundles

Add complex price groups & promotions with orders across multiple sites & currencies. Manage quotes, account credit terms & payment methods. Pick, Pack & ship orders or pick up in store. Report on your data & automate workflows to capture abandoned carts. Track & automate low inventory alerts & place vendor orders. Integrate with other systems to automate marketing opportunities. Do all this and more under one roof. With a complete and fully featured eCommerce platform, you're not limited in functionality and options to build exactly what you want.

"If you build it, they will come."

Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams

Learn more about Slatwall Commerce & WordPress