The Echidna Blog

Quoting is not the reason your products cannot be sold online. Unexamined quoting workflows are. Sort your order volume honestly, move the standard majority to self-service, give the negotiated remainder a visible digital workflow, and measure quote abandonment the way you measure cart abandonment.

B2B site search fails when it speaks catalog language instead of buyer language. The evidence is sitting in your search logs right now, and most of the fixes are content and configuration work, not a replatform.

‍

We rank nine real use cases by whether they are delivering ROI in production today, whether they are conditionally working depending on the substrate underneath, or whether they remain experimental for most enterprise teams. The framing matters. Investing in a use case in the wrong bucket is how AI budgets quietly disappear in year two.

‍

After working with enterprise B2B commerce teams for seventeen years, including most of the past three years deep in AI implementation work, a pattern is clear. The companies pulling ahead are not the ones investing the most in AI. They are the ones operating with the clearest framework for what AI is actually changing in commerce, and what it is not.

‍

AI commerce features rarely succeed or fail cleanly. They tend to deliver real value in narrow places and underperform in others, with the net result obscured by attribution challenges, attribution overlap with other initiatives, and metrics that were not set up at the start of the project to answer the question that finance is now asking.

The teams that hold up well in their year-two budget conversations are not the ones with the biggest results. They are the ones with the clearest measurement. Six metrics, in our experience working with enterprise B2B commerce organizations, cover the picture honestly. Together they tell finance whether the AI investment is paying back, where it is leaking, and what to fund next.

‍

A failed or underperforming integration does not just delay your go-live. It creates ongoing operational drag that undermines the business case for the entire commerce investment — for years. This guide gives enterprise teams a practical framework for evaluating integration partners: what to look for, what to ask, and what answers should give you pause.

‍

Enterprise eCommerce integration projects have a failure rate that the industry does not talk about enough. Failure as in the integration was built, went live, and then proceeded to quietly undermine the commerce experience it was supposed to power. These are not edge cases. They are the normal outcome of integrations that were designed without enough rigor, implemented without enough governance, or handed off to teams who lacked the context to maintain them.

‍

‍

B2B eCommerce integration is not a technical afterthought. It is the connective tissue that determines whether your commerce platform works as a real business capability or as an expensive storefront with a broken backend.

The organizations that treat integration as a strategic investment — architecting it deliberately, governing it continuously, and partnering with specialists who understand the complexity — are the ones whose commerce channels actually deliver the ROI they were promised.

‍

Most B2B eCommerce projects launch. Few scale. The difference is strategy—defined before the platform is chosen and executed long after go-live.

‍

Most B2B eCommerce sites look fine and perform poorly. Here's what enterprise buyers need from a digital commerce experience—and where most designs fail.

‍

Boomi is how Echidna builds that foundation. Not as a simple data pipe — but as the central nervous system of the enterprise, transforming and cleaning data in transit, enabling parallel workstreams, and making it possible to modernize legacy systems without replacing them.

‍

Choosing the wrong platform costs millions and years. This guide walks through the evaluation criteria that actually matter for enterprise B2B organizations.

‍

Enterprise eCommerce integration projects have a failure rate that the industry does not talk about enough. Failure as in the integration was built, went live, and then proceeded to quietly undermine the commerce experience it was supposed to power. These are not edge cases. They are the normal outcome of integrations that were designed without enough rigor, implemented without enough governance, or handed off to teams who lacked the context to maintain them.

‍

‍

Boomi is how Echidna builds that foundation. Not as a simple data pipe — but as the central nervous system of the enterprise, transforming and cleaning data in transit, enabling parallel workstreams, and making it possible to modernize legacy systems without replacing them.

‍

Let’s debunk a popular myth before we start: Continuous innovation is not a one-off event or just a buzzword. It’s not about having that one groundbreaking idea that skyrockets your business to success. True innovation is a continuous process. It’s about applying strategic, tactical, and operational strengths consistently to prepare for future shifts. In a world where technology evolves at breakneck speed, staying relevant requires more than a flash of brilliance. It demands a relentless, ongoing commitment to change.

In recent years, voice search technology has transformed the way people interact with their devices and access information. This innovation allows users to search the internet, control smart home devices, and perform various tasks simply by speaking commands. Voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant have become integral parts of our daily lives, making voice search an essential aspect of modern SEO strategies.

Throughout 2022 and early 2023, there was an explosion of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that captivated business leaders, investors, and society as a whole with its impressive ability to create new and seemingly human-made text and images.

You know that providing a seamless, personalized experience to your customers is the key to success. With online purchases on the rise and the growing popularity of omnichannel retail, chatbots have become the go-to tool for businesses looking to improve customer service and increase sales.

Construction Specialties has been at the forefront of providing specialty building products worldwide for more than seventy years. With a presence in twenty countries, they have obtained more than 40 registered product patents and produced ten distinct product lines. Their products can be found in or on some of the world's most famous buildings.

With eCommerce sales doubling in the past five years and markets expected to almost double again by 2026, companies are making sizable investments in their eCommerce capabilities.

In a time when every company is digital to some degree, your strategy is the differentiator. The stronger your strategy the easier it is to not only navigate rapid change and innovation, but as a result those companies also see higher conversion rates.

The automotive industry is at a crossroads. One way maintains the current status quo with little room for competitive edges and scalability, while the other path leads to reimagining its core operations and focusing on digital channels. While the latter path might seem intimidating at the moment, it is important to understand that the industry is moving towards digital selling as a business model for both B2B and B2C markets. Choosing to ignore buyer demands can hurt automotive brands in the long term.

We’re living in an accelerated world of eCommerce.

10 years growth in 3 months according to a recent study by Bank of America and Forrester Analytics. While it can be debated how this measured, we can all agree things have changed rapidly in digital.

We knew this year would require brands to work on the ongoing challenge of optimizing the customer experience. However, being able to embrace a customer-first approach through digital operations has turned instrumental for brands in 2020. As merchants work towards the post-coronavirus future, what does that look like?

Quoting is not the reason your products cannot be sold online. Unexamined quoting workflows are. Sort your order volume honestly, move the standard majority to self-service, give the negotiated remainder a visible digital workflow, and measure quote abandonment the way you measure cart abandonment.

B2B site search fails when it speaks catalog language instead of buyer language. The evidence is sitting in your search logs right now, and most of the fixes are content and configuration work, not a replatform.

‍

When a B2B buyer gets stuck on your site, they do not generally abandon the relationship. The site's conversion rate is technically unaffected, because the buyer never entered the funnel at all. Meanwhile a sales engineer spent part of their afternoon reading a spec sheet aloud. Your support volume is the usability report your analytics cannot produce. Here is how to read it.

‍

Most B2B eCommerce sites look fine and perform poorly. Here's what enterprise buyers need from a digital commerce experience—and where most designs fail.

‍

You don’t need another pep talk about “putting the customer first.” You need levers. The good news: modern UX testing tools are exactly that—levers that move revenue, reduce cost-to-serve, and de-risk big bets.

In today’s competitive online market, cutting the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your eCommerce platform is critical for long-term profitability. Believe it or not, one of the most effective ways to do that isn’t about the technology—it's about user experience (UX). Here’s how enhancing UX can help you slash costs, boost conversions, and reduce hidden operational drag.

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, mobile users demand seamless, intuitive experiences. A mobile UX audit is the key to uncovering friction points, optimizing usability, and boosting engagement. Whether you’re launching a new mobile app or optimizing an existing one, following best practices ensures your mobile experience meets user expectations and drives conversions.

Seamless system integration has become foundational for success in B2C and B2B eCommerce. As companies shift to digital-first strategies to remain competitive and responsive to client demands, integrating systems like ERP, CRM, and inventory management is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity.

Once upon a time, the most advanced digital assistant many of us knew was Clippy—the quirky, ever-helpful paperclip in Microsoft Office. For all his flaws, Clippy was groundbreaking: the first mainstream, interactive UX assistant that tried to understand what users were doing and offered guidance (even if often unrequested). Though Clippy fell short in many ways, he introduced the idea of proactive assistance in a digital workspace—a concept that has since evolved dramatically.

The holiday shopping season is already in full swing—don’t panic! There’s still time to make quick, impactful adjustments to your eCommerce site that can help you handle the holiday rush like a pro. 🎁 With these last-minute tips, you can boost site speed, optimize your checkout process, and leverage social media to drive more traffic and sales. Let’s dive into the tweaks you can implement right away to get your site holiday-ready.

The industrial goods sector has seen a significant shift toward eCommerce in recent years, with businesses increasingly turning to online platforms to purchase tools, machinery, and raw materials. However, selling industrial goods online comes with unique challenges—ranging from large and complex product catalogs to diverse customer needs, such as procurement managers, engineers, and technicians seeking highly specific items. In this evolving landscape, AI personalization in industrial goods eCommerce is becoming a key driver for success, as buyers now expect tailored product recommendations, custom pricing, and seamless navigation through large inventories.

In the rapidly evolving world of automotive eCommerce, data-driven decision-making is no longer just an advantage—it's a necessity. With the rise of online vehicle shopping, managing customer expectations, inventory, and competitive pricing has become increasingly complex. Automotive eCommerce managers need more than just intuition to succeed in this environment; they require the power of data to make informed decisions that drive growth and enhance customer experiences.

Quoting is not the reason your products cannot be sold online. Unexamined quoting workflows are. Sort your order volume honestly, move the standard majority to self-service, give the negotiated remainder a visible digital workflow, and measure quote abandonment the way you measure cart abandonment.

Replatforming does not have to cost you your search traffic or your place in AI answers. The teams that come through clean treat SEO and AI visibility as first-class requirements of the migration, with an owner, a checklist, and a monitoring window, not as a task for launch week.

B2B site search fails when it speaks catalog language instead of buyer language. The evidence is sitting in your search logs right now, and most of the fixes are content and configuration work, not a replatform.

‍

Digital commerce projects stall because the return gets measured in the wrong place. Incremental online revenue frames the website as a channel competing with your sales team. Cost to serve frames it as capacity you are currently spending on order entry. One of those arguments makes reps resist. The other makes them advocates. How to build the case, and the four things that have to be true first.

‍

Shopify B2B has closed most of the gaps that used to disqualify it for manufacturers and distributors. It has not closed all of them. Deeply configurable products, multi-stage quoting, and complex organizational hierarchies are still where the enterprise platforms earn their cost. A clear assessment of both sides, plus the four questions that produce an answer when feature checklists produce a tie.

‍

Every AI demo in B2B commerce is buyer-facing. Agents drafting orders. Chat windows answering spec questions. The work that actually returns is none of those. It is catalog enrichment, and it is the only AI investment that makes every later one cheaper. Why the unglamorous use case wins, what the work involves, and the four controls that keep AI-generated product data from becoming a liability.

‍

Adobe's lifecycle documentation lists August 11, 2026 as the end of support for the Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 release line. If you are running 2.4.6, your store does not stop working that day. What changes is quieter and sometimes moreexpensive. New vulnerabilities discovered after that date do not get official patches. Your PCI posture starts drifting. Extension vendors begin testing against newer versions and stop testing against yours. Every future integration decision gets made around a platform version that is no longer moving.

‍

We rank nine real use cases by whether they are delivering ROI in production today, whether they are conditionally working depending on the substrate underneath, or whether they remain experimental for most enterprise teams. The framing matters. Investing in a use case in the wrong bucket is how AI budgets quietly disappear in year two.

‍

Every B2B commerce leader is facing the same set of decisions right now. Should we build this AI capability ourselves. Should we buy it from a vendor. Should we wait until the market settles before committing budget.

Getting these three decisions right matters more than picking the right AI use case. A team that buys when they should build ends up locked into a vendor that owns their data. A team that builds when they should buy spends two years reinventing what was available off the shelf. A team that invests when they should wait funds a category that will look completely different in eighteen months. All three mistakes are common. All three are avoidable with a clear framework.

After working with enterprise B2B commerce teams for seventeen years, including most of the past three years deep in AI implementation work, a pattern is clear. The companies pulling ahead are not the ones investing the most in AI. They are the ones operating with the clearest framework for what AI is actually changing in commerce, and what it is not.

‍

After four articles on what AI-ready commerce actually requires, the question we get most often from enterprise commerce leaders is the same one: "How do I tell where my organization stands without spending six months on an outside assessment?"

Here are the twelve questions we use to anchor every conversation with a new enterprise commerce client. They are grouped into the four pillars of AI-ready commerce: data, integration, organization, and measurement. Answer them honestly and the priorities will be visible by the end.

‍

AI commerce features rarely succeed or fail cleanly. They tend to deliver real value in narrow places and underperform in others, with the net result obscured by attribution challenges, attribution overlap with other initiatives, and metrics that were not set up at the start of the project to answer the question that finance is now asking.

The teams that hold up well in their year-two budget conversations are not the ones with the biggest results. They are the ones with the clearest measurement. Six metrics, in our experience working with enterprise B2B commerce organizations, cover the picture honestly. Together they tell finance whether the AI investment is paying back, where it is leaking, and what to fund next.

‍

You know that search engine optimization (SEO) matters. If you’ve been reading our Roadmap to SEO Success Series, Part 1 and Part 2 lay a foundation for getting your brand where you want it in terms of ranking optimally for the correct keywords.

Organic traffic has never been easy but is especially difficult for eCommerce. However, if you have read our article, What to Expect With an Enterprise SEO Audit, and took advantage of our eCommerce SEO Audit service you already have better insight into what your site needs to do in order to improve search engine rankings. But how can you execute on those findings?

SEO complexity is constantly evolving as brands dive deeper into digital commerce. Beyond the normal technical and content requirements, now many companies require access to deep analytical abilities in order to understand the issues that arise from dynamically built sites. It is more important than ever to be able to quickly identify upward trends in searches and gaps. Many SEO experts also find themselves in the position to educate across multiple business units in order to receive buy-in and show value. Having a consistent strategy, regular implementation and optimization are key to long-term success with SEO- but sometimes that can be easier said than done.

Staying connected during stay-at-home orders means more people than ever are logging into social media. They are looking for your brand to communicate, inspire, and educate them. Shifting through all the social media marketing trends and all the social data you compile can seem overwhelming, but with the right team, technology, and strategy in place, you can start winning at social media marketing.

It is recommended that you perform an SEO audit of your site every six months. This means auditing your rankings, backlink profile, existing content… anything that could be hindering your search performance. We understand SEO can be extremely daunting. This post will break down a basic, but powerful DIY SEO audit to find top issues with your site, and don't forget to use our free SEO audit tool online.

Customers are more savvy than ever, with the ability to find what they perceive they want, when they want it. If your marketing pillar can focus on aligning itself with your organizations other pillars to gain important customer insights and move towards a strategy that treats customers as profiles not simply personas, to create a truly individualized experience, you will suddenly be able to perceive what these customers want before they do. And that is where your edge on the competition and ticket to customer loyalty is.

Theresa Kuske, Digital Marketing Manager at Ergodyne, was kind enough to sit down with us to talk about why Ergodyne is such a cool brand, the constantly evolving digital marketing landscape, and how Echidna transformed Ergodyne’s commerce.

With Facebook becoming increasingly pay-to-play for brands, the significance of analyzing brand performance has only gained importance. Facebook Page Insights provides multiple metrics and pieces of analytics data to help drive strategic marketing decisions. If you have admin access to your business page, then you can access regular Facebook Insights by navigating to the “Insights” tab in the Page Manager (note that a minimum of 30 likes is required for you to get Facebook Insights for your page).

On January 1st, 2015, Facebook changed its algorithm, which affects what shows up in users’ news feeds. These changes have had a tremendous impact on brands that were using Facebook as a medium to promote their products and services.

In today’s economy, amidst tremendous growth of online shopping, merchants are evaluating different approaches to acquire highly valued customers, convert shopping carts to purchases, retain customers, drive repeat purchases and create stronger customer loyalty... and the solution is this: Personalized commerce. Brick-and-mortar retail stores have an advantage over online stores in that they can offer personalized service. In-store sales persons can interact with the customers to find out wants, needs, and preferences, and can then suggest additional items to complement the existing items.

A site redesign could ruin all your SEO efforts in an instant. Digital marketers put so much time and effort into SEO, it would be a shame to throw it away overnight. But if you’re not careful, then a site redesign poses some serious threats that could end up causing that to happen. Usually, a site redesign is taking place for a reason and will be beneficial in the long run, but how can you make sure you don’t kill your SEO in the process?

Shoppable images are both immersive and contextual in ways that digital has never seen before. Whether it’s shoes, apparel, and accessories on a model or the latest living room setup, people want to be able to visualize how a product will fit into their own style and environment. Shoppable images are turning that idea into a reality for customers of all kinds. From the company’s perspective, shoppable images present a great opportunity to share the story of your brand – they allow you to naturally tell a story as users are browsing through products in a way that hasn’t been possible through traditional commerce.

Echidna is excited to announce our partnership with ShipStation. ShipStation is the leading web-based shipping software that helps online retailers streamline their order fulfillment, wherever they sell and however they ship.

On May 21, 2018, Adobe, a multinational leader in digital technology solutions, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Magento Commerce, a market-leading platform for open commerce innovation that offers digital commerce, order management and business intelligence to enable both B2B and B2C shopping experiences across the customer journey.

We’ve all been invited to a networking happy hour at some point in our careers. Lately, you will find they are all held at some hip Minneapolis brewery where you might meet a few like-minded folks, but conversations don’t run very deep.

It’s that time of year again. For the eighth year, the Magento ecosystem gathers under one roof for three days of networking and education with like minded peers. Even looking back to this time last year to where we are today in digital commerce; it is an exciting time. From finding viable solutions to making B2B Commerce work for enterprises most challenging operation requirements to having innovative personalization tools at our fingertips- it is going to be a great conference to connect with over 3000 merchants, Magento partners, developers, and commerce experts. Depending on what your goal is attending Magento’s Imagine 2018, your day may vary, but here are three not-to-be-missed items you will want to make room in your schedule for.

If the retail world can agree on one thing, it is that in order to stay relevant you have to constantly be evolving.

“Ecosystem” has become a buzzword within the commerce industry, so the team at Echidna thought it was time to shed some light on the subject. First, we did some hard-core research (i.e.: Wikipedia the definition). This is what comes up:

With less than two months to go, Echidna is gearing up to join over 2,500 Magento experts and pioneers at the 2017 Imagine Conference in Las Vegas, NV. As a Magento 2-trained Professional Solutions Partner with over 100,000 hours of Magento experience - from re-platforming to custom extension building and integrations to UX design expertise and accelerated site launch capabilities - we have become the preferred partner for our clients and one of the industry’s most trusted commerce partners. So what’s in store for those attending Imagine 2017, and where can you find Echidna? Read on to find out.

At Echidna, we’re always looking grow our partner ecosystem in order to bring more value to our clients. As we look to the future of commerce and retail more generally, we’re constantly evaluating new opportunities to help our clients stay ahead of their competition. So we’re happy to announce our latest partnership with Mirakl, one of today’s leading commerce marketplace platforms.

VOLT® Lighting is an industry-leading source for high quality, factory-direct lighting products for both pros and everyday consumers. We had the chance to catch up with Andrew Krasner, Director of commerce and Marketing at VOLT® Lighting, to talk about the company's new website, which is powered by Kibo, was implemented by Echidna, and launched at the beginning of the month. Read on for the interview.

“The cobbler’s children have no shoes.” You’re probably familiar with the phrase. If not, it means that a shoemaker is often so busy making shoes for customers that his or her own children are neglected and end up running around barefoot.

You’re almost there, Retailers. No, we’re not referring to the end of the holiday season, but to the kickoff of NRF’s Big Show. Happening January 15-17 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, this show is the retail industry’s flagship event. This year’s three-day extravaganza is toting over 3,300 retail companies, 510 exhibitors, and 300+ industry speakers, all descending upon New York City to discuss the latest trends, innovations and their very own successes and failures. Talk about an amazing community to network with like-minded industry peers!

For the second year in a row, Echidna’s work with Kohl’s has earned us another Vendor Appreciation Award! Our Kohl’s project team covers the web storefront and kiosk efforts for Kohl’s and Kohl’s Digital. Amzed Hussain, Senior Director of Technology and Innovation at Echidna, reflected on the award: