WebSphere Commerce

IBM has announced the release of WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0, which delivers a market-leading customer interaction platform, which enables companies to provide a rich, customer-centric experience across multiple channels and touchpoints. WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0 enhancements enable you to:

• Design and execute a differentiated brand experience by recognizing and responding to customer interactions across multiple channels and touch points
• Build a dialogue with the shopper by delivering contextual targeted marketing information to shoppers
• Support automated, one-to-one ongoing dialogs with shoppers based on preference, purchase history, and shopping behavior
• Support mobile devices for browsing the catalog, receiving marketing messages, promotions, coupon codes, and completing transactions
• Integrate product review & ratings, blogs, photo galleries, and user profiles into your online store
• Provide rich, streamlined and B2C-like experience to B2B e-commerce sites
• Enable peak performance and process higher transaction volume while minimizing cost
• Reduce the cost of operation and deployment
• Accelerate the integration with e-commerce ecosystem

To help customers achieve the above benefits, WebSphere Commerce provides the following enhancements:

• Precision Marketing engine to capture customer triggers (e.g. abandoned shop cart, mobile interaction, social participation) across channels and respond with a wide range of actions (e.g. promotions, mobile coupons, loyalty rewards) that goes far beyond just the web.
• Dialog Activity Builder for business users to compose and execute automated one-to-one dialog with shoppers using triggers and actions.
• Automated, one-to-one ongoing interactions with shoppers based on preference, purchase history, and shopping behavior.
• Mobile store model optimized for smartphones including iPhone and Blackberry to provide end-to-end shopping flow including stock locator, store locator, and buy on mobile and pick up in-store.
• Support product ratings and reviews, blogs, photo galleries, and user profiles into the shopping flow by integrating with 3rd party vendors.
• New B2B Starter store leveraging Web 2.0 best practices to deliver rich experience, buyer-centric marketing and operational automation.
• Enhanced business user tools to create and manage dynamic customer segments and e-marketing spots.
• New data load tools allow for efficient loading for catalog, pricing, and inventory information.
• Web analytics integration framework for consistent integration with third-party web analytics vendors.
• Latest software stack of IBM WebSphere Application Server V7 and DB2 9.5 for improved performance.
• A set of standardized services to quickly and easily integrate WebSphere Commerce with existing back office infrastructure and 3rd party solutions.