Optimizely Commerce Connect vs. Optimizely Configured Commerce

Very strong fit for mid-sized organizations that need more flexibility and customization as compared to canned or template-based offerings, but also want the efficiency and externalization that comes with a pre-existing, cloud-hosted platform (as compared to a full custom offering). Works well with a PIM and more mature catalog data in order to fully leverage the dynamic data capabilities.

Incentivized

I think that there are a lot of companies (us included) that are looking for a solution to fit into their current needs, versus looking for a solution that is going to solve all of their problems. For us, Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud fits into the former in that situation where we have specific ERP needs, specific data needs, usability and user management needs, etc. and Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud just happens to fit in there the most.

Incentivized

• Web content management -- the interface is drag and drop and makes it very easy for business users to create product pages.
• In site search with Episerver Find -- it is easy to promote attributes and make quick tweaks to fine-tune results.
• Integrate with other systems -- we have integrated with our ERP, our product information management system, our digital asset management system and our marketing automation system to take advantage of investments we have already made in content and customer data.

Incentivized

• Edit Pages - A visual editor with custom widgets allows a quick way to edit the website
• Manage users - in the back end editing and managing users is very easy
• Data - the whole system allows us to track users and collect data fairly easily

Incentivized

• Support. Episerver used to have direct support and access to the tech team to discuss and resolve issues. The new support portal is not enough for developer needs.
• Quality Assurance. We find issues in the Episerver code that should have been resolved in QA before release.
• Sales. Episervers sells the framework as a solution while showing Alloy. While it helps Episerver sell more, it puts the implementation partner into trouble as the client thinks they bought the solution. Episerver does not provide a solution. It provides a framework that you can build a solution on.

Incentivized

• It deployed with a major bug in Guest checkout. It is now fixed, but we lost a lot of business because of it.
• The pricing API is not working.
• Support for multi-warehouse product availability would be helpful. If we have the product in stock in any warehouse, we should be able to book the order.

Incentivized

Really want to be able to spend more time and resources on rolling out new things with Episerver but at the moment we seem to be fixing alot of issues and pain points with the way our system was setup.

Incentivized

The job functionality is one of the strongest benefits Optimizely offers. It allows a savvy user to quickly go in to a given job, see the job history to find errors and then even take the steps of a job, copy the code and paste it back into your source to diagnose a potential issue.

Incentivized

Quite flexible and easy to use for daily marketing user tasks, like updating page listings, promotions, and copy. More in-depth tasks like managing product attributes, rearranging product taxonomy placement, and CMS editing are not user-friendly and require a careful and detailed process to follow.

Incentivized

We had an incredible team at Episerver Supporting us with the go live, reviewing our integration, and pushing our integration partner to deliver a quality product

Incentivized

It's a mixed bag. The team has been very nice, but there has been an underlying feeling of condescension because we have complained or "caused trouble" over the inadequacy of the CMS component. Also, support for modifications or UI changes has been terribly slow. Understandably, COVID has made life hard for everyone, but there is an expectation that we complete our work immediately, but their team will "put it in queue" when we have a request or find a bug. Further, we certainly feel that we were sold a list of capabilities that we have not seen come to fruition. Finally, the change of ownership 3 times (Insite -> Epi -> Opti) over our implementation period has been both confusing and disruptive.

Incentivized

Fully understand what is OOTB feature of the platform before proceeding to develop. Then implement a customization of key features once you can prove they are working as OOTB to make them more user friendly and productive for the business. Eg pre order and e gift card

Incentivized

Stibo STEP MDM was a powerhouse. It seems we could do anything we could dream up, but we also had an in-house IT dev team to support it. The cost was the reason we went with Optimizely Commerce Connect. We did not explore HubSpot for this project.

Incentivized

We selected Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud (when it was Insite Commerce) as they were specifically focused on manufacturing clients and the storefront and data management were very robust. The business model and cost were more in our price range as well, so an overall better value for the solution. The ability for the product data to be updated once on the catalog side as well as on the CMS website side was the benefit we saw with a small team of resources to support the product. However, there are definite drawbacks to having not gone with a more turnkey website CMS.

Incentivized

• Positive: We have a usable website - better than what we had before and we are seeing a constant increase in adoption.
• Positive: Counter associates are using the website to help customers.
• Negative: Too much time being spent QCing previous work.

Incentivized

• Higher AOV - online customers are buying more than they did before
• amount of pressure it's taken off branch employees who no longer have to give prices or inventory info for every customer request
• But we are spending a LOT of money on custom development to get exactly what we need / want

Incentivized