Release Notes Q3 2022
The NextChapter eCommerce platform is continuously updated and innovated. In these Q3 2022 Release Notes, we have listed a number of important improvements again for you.
In addition to this, we are constantly working on further product development. So keep an eye on our blog, LinkedIn page and newsletter and you’ll won’t miss anything. Would you like to know more about the release notes or their implementation onto your webshop(s) and channels? Please contact us.
We’ve done a lot in the past few months:
Marketing and frontend features
Integrations
NextChapter backend
NextChapter Core
New launches
1. Marketing and frontend features
Marketing features
Clean url landing pages for SEO
For you and your marketing agencies a clear url structure is important to execute your SEO strategy. A clean url is one of many factors that contribute to a successful SEO strategy. Therefore, NextChapter cleaned up the url of landing pages by removing needless parts from the url. E.g. the url has been changed from domain.com/nl/home/landing/name-landing-page to only domain.com/nl/l/name-landing-page.
Better insights in sessions in Google Analytics
We have implemented a solution for a common situation with incorrect / incomplete analytics data of user sessions.
When a visitor is using an in-app browser (for example the Facebook app) and makes a purchase, it’s common that the thankyou page opens up in a different browser. Because cookies are browser-based, this results in one session that abruptly ends and another session that starts after the payment has been made.
This may result in incorrect analytics data and may complicate analyzing your advertising channels.
Cookies worldwide are used browser-based and therefore this occurs worldwide. How often it happens, depends on your marketing activity in (for example) social channels.
To connect multiple sessions to each other, NextChapter can add the cookie in the return url after the payment is made.
This way, you or your marketing agency can recognize and connect these two sessions together via Google Tag Manager.
If you are interested in this feature, please contact your account manager and we can arrange this for your webshop(s) too.
Additional fields for Google Enhanced Conversions
The thank you page of your NextChapter webshop is extended with additional first party data like email address, home address and phone number.
You or your marketing agency can use this information to implement Enhanced Conversions via Google Tag Manager.
The need for use of first party data has become extremely important as measurement via third party cookies is becoming harder. To support webshop owners to keep useful and correct insights in their (ad) results, Google launched Google Enhanced Conversions.
Google uses (GDPR-proof) first party data on your webshop's thank you page to measure a.o. purchases. Enhanced Conversions is used in addition to the existing conversion tags that measure via third party cookies.
Frontend features
Sticky “proceed to checkout” button in cart
When your visitors arrive at the cart page, you want to smoothen the way to the checkout as much as possible. Therefore the “proceed to checkout” button in the cart can remain sticky on phone devices. The button is always in sight, wherever you go in the cart.
This feature is similar to the “add to cart” button on the product page. Together they can be real conversion boosters.
Out of Stock property in Promotion module
Sometimes you want to show the out of stock products on your webshop, but you don't want to include these products in promotions. Or the other way around: you want to create a promotion (like showing an overlay image) specifically for out-of-stock products.
This is now easily manageable via product promotions in the Promotion module of NextChapter. In the tab “Conditions” an extra condition is added: “out of stock”.
Buy larger volumes on productpage
When ordering a product, the buyer has to select a variant (for example a size) on the product page.
Sometimes buyers buy multiple variants of the product. And sometimes they buy high numbers of (multiple) variants. (For example in the Do It Yourself industry, when a handyman needs a large amount of screws in different sizes.)
To simplify ordering multiple variants and higher volumes, you can show a table on the product page, including all variants information.
Now buyers see at a glance all available variants and quantities. They select the number of variants wanted, and with just one click all variants and quantities are added to the cart.
Show/Don't show stock reminder feature
With the stock reminder feature, webshop owners easily stay in touch with buyers that show interest in out-of-stock products. Buyers leave their email address and automatically receive an email when the (variant/size of the) product is back in stock.
The stock reminder feature is by default visible for all out-of-stock products. In some industries however, it's useful to keep the product pages of out-of-stock products. In some cases, these products will never get back in stock though and it’s not useful to show the stock reminder.
Therefore the stock reminder feature has become more flexible.
It’s now easy to manage -per product- (not) showing the stock reminder.
Improvements in Product Options
Product options has been an existing feature in the NextChapter platform for years. The pricing part of this feature has been improved in usability. The price of a product option can now be managed in two ways:
1. You can manually override the product option´s price.
For example if you want to sell the main product including the product option at a discount. (existing)
2. By default the standard price of the product option is shown. (new)
This saves a lot of time, especially if you use a large amount of product options.
With product options you can easily upsell on your product detail page (PDP) and increase the average basket value by suggesting small, related products to your buyer. For example, electricity plugs for a washing machine, or earplugs for an iPhone.
2. Integrations
E-mail marketing
Effective Profiles
Effective Profiles is an email marketing platform for marketing automation. A full integration including newsletter subscriptions, products, orders and customers is now available for you.
Copernica
The integration with email marketing platform Copernica has been extended with products and orders. All this data can be exchanged for the purpose of effective and automated email marketing campaigns.
Reviews
Trusted Shops
Via NextChapter you can easily integrate with Trusted Shops for reviews.
Loyalty
TritonX
The integration with loyalty platform TritonX is extended with saving and redeeming loyalty points in the checkout and My Account.
Other
Update in Adyen integration
The Adyen integration has been updated to the latest version.
Extension of integration To Be Dressed
The integration with outlet platform To Be Dressed is extended and completed with the return flow.
Packing slips from external channels
NextChapter can provide packing slips from external channels in the NextChapter platform.
Update in Google AI technology
The Google AI technology for product recommendations on webshops has been updated to the newest version of the Google Retail API.
3. NextChapter backend
From “Websites” to “Channels” in OMS
If you are selling multichannel, you'd like to see results per channel.
Therefore, in the NextChapter OMS the dropdown selection for webshops has been changed to a dropdown for channels. Channels can be your webshop(s), but also other channels like marketplaces, affiliates or custom channels. Results are per channel separately shown in OMS.
Channels in Order reports
Also in order reports you can filter your results by channels. This makes it easier to analyse the performance of your channels.
From “Channel” to “Device”
To use the term Channels in a clear way, we clarified this in multiple positions in the NextChapter platform.
For example, the dashboard showed data regarding channels. These “channels” however are devices, like desktop computers, tablets and phones.
To clarify the difference between channels and devices, all information about devices in the backoffice has been renamed to “device”.
For example in the dashboard (revenue by device), in Order Management and on the Order Detail Page.
(Don't) show dashboard information to your team members
Your team members work in the NextChapter platform with their own personal account. These users all have different jobs and NextChapter can give them a perfectly implemented backend with only the roles and rights regarding their job. NextChapter supports this already for a long time.
These rights are now extended by showing, or not showing, dashboard information to an account.
Quick access link in Content pages in CMS
When editing content it can be easy to click a link and immediately check out your content page on your webshop, without having to type in the url first.
This quick access link was already available for category pages and landing pages. It’s now also available for content pages.
Improvements in Blog module
It´s now possible to manage content and SEO-content for all blog related pages.
You can add a description, a page title and a meta description to the blog overview page and blog categories.
It was already possible to do so for blog pages itself.
Link in menu blocks
Menu blocks give you the opportunity to manage your webshop menu dropdown. You can choose to show categories, images, properties, etc.
In addition, you can now also show a title and directly link this title to a specific page.
4. NextChapter core
Platform performance and pagespeed
Also in the most recent sprints we improved multiple stuff in performance and pagespeed. For example in lazy loading and fonts on the webshop frontends. Another example is improvements in quantity dropdowns on lister pages and product pages, which strongly reduces the html in the DOM (an important factor for Google’s Pagespeed Test).
These improvement are on top of the excellent results in platform performance and pagespeed scores that we achieved over the past months already.
See below the above average Google PageSpeed score for our client Ballegooyen Modes.
Relaunch frontend SPORT2000.nl
Recently we updated the SPORT2000.nl frontend with an entire redesign: www.sport2000.nl. The storefront has been modernised and turned responsive.
SPORT 2000 is part of ANWR Garant Nederland, as well as many other formulas and collective platforms. ANWR uses this storefront basis for to modernise the storefronts of other formulas as well. This is an efficient and cost effective way of working.
Launch Royalgoedewaagen.com
Royal Goedewaagen is an international multibrand webshop in the tableware industry, with a multichannel strategy.
Royal Goedewaagen is part of Royal Tableware, which runs multiple brands in the world of ceramics. Examples of those brands are the famous Dutch Boerenbont tableware (www.boerenbontservies.nl) and Belgian brand Royal Boch (www.royalboch.com).
Royal Tableware is using the entire NextChapter suite, profiting from the strong backbone (with a.o. PIM, OMS and CMS), integrations with ERP Odoo, and multiple international webshops.
The setup of the infrastructure is very important, because it makes Royal Tableware's growth scalable: it's easy to onboard new brands to the existing infrastructure, with a shared PIM (Product Information Management) and OMS (Order Management System), but with a unique frontend to market the specific brands.
Launch LOOkX.com
In September 2022 the new webshop of beautybrand LOOkX. www.lookx.com is launched on the NextChapter platform and is, just like ANWR, an efficient yet flexible blueprint for many more storefronts.
LOOkX Group is a organisation that contains several beautybrands in the B2B and B2C market.
No bugs
Issues and bugs in the platform are always directly fixed by us. Therefore the NextChapter Platform is completely bug free.
Contact
Do you have any questions about the Release Notes of May 2022 or their implementation on your webshop(s) and channels? Let us know. Check our previous Release Notes here.