Release notes v1.74 – v1.79
In the last months of 2020 we worked on various interesting features and improvements in the platform. We also paid attention to scaling up core processes, due to the enormous increase in traffic and orders. In these release notes we summarize all the expansions and new features for you:
eCommerce platform
We have added several new features to the eCommerce platform, such as:
Link newsletter subscription to forms
You could already create unlimited forms in NextChapter. From now on you can also provide every form with the option to “subscribe for newsletter”. Of course you decide whether and where this applies. All newsletter subscriptions end up in the NextChapter backend and with your email provider (if applicable).
Rounding Prices
It is now possible to round prices via business rules via the promotion module in the NextChapter backend. For example, with a promotion of 10% off the range, all product prices after the decimal point can be rounded to .95 so that prices look consistent and more attractive. In addition, it is also possible to round amounts to whole tens in combination with the rounding after the decimal point. With this, an amount that comes out to € 68.92 via the promotion can be rounded to € 69.95.
Exclude products in promotion module
When creating a new promotion, products with certain properties or other variables (such as price) can be excluded.
Products required to disable or enable brands
A new setting at brand level ensures that you can always choose whether or not to display a brand name if there are no products from that brand in the webshop or if all products of the brand are out of stock.
Comment field in reservation form
When reserving a product, consumers can use an extra comment box with their reservation.
Central management of content blocks that you can use without limits
From now on you can create content blocks, filled with general content or a rail with products, centrally and then publish them on the product category pages in your webshop. This gives you a powerful and efficient tool to display relevant content and products in various places, while you only have to do work once. We call this 'dynamic content blocks'.
Dynamic delivery time based on stock locations
NextChapter now dynamically shows the delivery time of a product on the product detail page, based on the underlying stock location(s) of the specific product. In this way, the web shop visitor is well informed about the expected delivery time. The delivery times are shown in real time and also updated in real time if a product status changes. At the shopping cart level, the delivery time is also displayed dynamically, depending on the business rules determined by the webshop owner.
Responsive front end
An important step in our frontend implementations is that we can now provide webshops with a responsive frontend. We then work with one template that scales with the screen of each device. Originally, NextChapter uses adaptive technology, which means that for desktop computers vs. mobile devices use different templates. The adaptive technology offers advantages and is perhaps even better than responsive from a technical perspective, but our clients also expect responsive frontends and that is why NextChapter has now also developed a responsive product. If you start a new webshop or want to replace an existing frontend, we now offer a choice: adaptive or responsive.
If you are interested in the responsive product, please contact us. We can do this at a reduced rate for webshops that want to make their frontend responsive. We want to emphasize that this is not urgent. Please contact your account manager for more information.
PIM
New technology
Our team has migrated the underlying technology of NextChapter PIM to the latest version of the Angular framework. This will allow the PIM to handle even more data in even less time in the future. As a user of PIM you will not be affected by this, because these updates take place in the background and have no influence on availability.
Roles and rights management for PIM
You want to be able to determine who has access to certain product information and which roles and rights should exist within their PIM account. We've added capabilities for adding those roles and assigning an assortment's access and filtering for that particular user in PIM. It can therefore differ per role which access someone has to the product range. For example, user 1 only has access to all women's clothing in the range, while user 2 has access to the entire product range.
GUI improvements
The PIM graphical interface has been improved for cases with many product features.
Order Management
Automatic order cancellation and refund
Orders for items that are not assigned to a supplier in the allocation module are automatically canceled and customers automatically receive a refund.
Usability improvements
We have added some general improvements to the usability of the order management module. High volume orders are delivered faster to multiple retailers and processes of picking orders at high volumes have also been made more scalable so that processing time for the consumer is even shorter.
Stock level pick location
The pick location on the Picklist is now at stock level (this used to be at variant level). We have already migrated the underlying data for you. This is an important improvement for users of the Picklist.
Marketplaces
More and more of our customers also sell their products through one or more marketplaces. Sometimes a total range, sometimes a partial range. NextChapter regulates the technical highway in which we cover the 5 most important processes (article data, stock, orders, shipments, returns). We see a lot of activity on Bol.com, Zalando, Wehkamp and 6 Amazon countries (the Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain).
If you would like to learn more about the pros and cons of selling on marketplaces, please contact us.
Integrations
TritonX
NextChapter now has an integration with the Customer Data management platform TritonX.
Bugs
Issues and bugs in the platform are always resolved directly by NextChapter, making the platform error-free.
WHAT'S NEXT
Do you have questions about the implementation of new functionalities on your webshop? Please contact us.