The Echidna Blog

It seems silly posting about Holiday 2018 when we are sitting poolside and the kids are out of school. But continuous innovation never stops. Harnessing data from Holiday 2017 and these past quarters to begin to compile profiles of your buyers and brainstorming themes for the upcoming 2018 holiday season is imperative and doesn't have to mean implementing a new technology or feature before the rush starts. Simple updates to your online checkout process and customer experience can help improve drop off rates and abandoned carts. And optimizing your order management and inventory can save you hundreds of thousands this holiday season. We could create a much more extensive list than 3 to prepare for holiday, but decided that these are a great place to start preparations as we kick off our Holiday Readiness Series. Utilize this short list to enhance your competitive edge this upcoming holiday shopping season and over the next three weeks look to the blog as we dive deeper into each of these three holiday readiness readiness tips.

Over the past four weeks, we have been discussing various hot topics in B2b Digital Commerce that our clients frequently ask us about. The Consumerism of B2b has lead to an expectation of a personalized, omnichannel purchasing experience with an equivalent level of choice, price transparency and service. This personalized expectation is not just about the shopping experience but also speaks to expectations around information consumption and device enablement. Pivoting into a modern and future-ready B2b commerce organization is complicated by both business process and technology, as there are many approaches and options. Expect these expectations will only grow stronger, and those able to digitally mature to offer these experiences will be seen as the industry leaders.

Welcoming change can be difficult. It’s human nature to enjoy the “comfort zone” and resist stepping outside of it. However, the most successful companies welcome change, seeing future unknowns as opportunities to disrupt and win. Committing to this type of mentality requires disruptive thinking, commitment across your entire organization, and creating a sound roadmap to guide the tactical execution of your winning strategy. At Echidna, we call this being future-ready. And the future comes fast in the digital age. Part of being future-ready means having the ability to change rapidly and regularly. Digitally mature companies regularly set goals, make plans, build solutions, change how they operate, and measure the results. If the results are good, they repeat. If they are bad, they change.

Customer expectations are rising across all industries and verticals. To retain business, B2b companies must embrace digitization. If you don’t offer a superior web, mobile, and conversational interface, your customers will look for the supplier that does.

Business to business in short means that products and services from one business are marketed to another business. But with different ways to go about transactions in business to business, the team at Echidna decided it should be expanded on further because certain businesses will require specific features, functionalities, or user experiences that others don’t. When discussing digital maturity and commerce, first decide- just what type of “b” are you?

When it comes to manufacturing, continual improvement has always been a common theme on the factory floor. But what about about the sales floor? How are you continually improving your customer experiences? How does your sales, support, and marketing operations look compared to your top competitors? To outpace your competitors and see continual growth it goes beyond being in the right market, offering excellent products and services, or simply being the lowest cost producer. This is because as competitors find increased mobility and expanded access to knowledge these once differentiators are quickly disappearing. Continually improving your sales, support, and marketing processes start with taking a look at your buyers and overcoming two common misconceptions around digital commerce for manufacturers.

Your company has been doing this for years and seen nothing but success. You created a website because "that's what you're supposed to do", but you depend solely on your sales reps because that site is more about offering information to your partners, not conducting complex transactions.

We know constituents in any B2B commerce construct (customers, business partners, colleagues, etc.) demand a familiar B2C experience, thus the need for organizations to pivot to B2B commerce.

From meeting your brand goals of multi-channel offerings, to strong personalized targeting, and the never to be forgotten site performance - the facets to review and understand when preparing for the holiday season are endless. And right now is a critical time to start planning and executing various aspects of your holiday planning. This doesn’t necessarily mean a complete website re-design or total back-office overhaul of systems. Instead, build on your existing merchandising and marketing to cater to holiday shoppers, offering them easy-to-find gifts for others (or themselves) with ease and convenience. Echidna calls attention to a few pieces of the digital puzzle to ensure our clients are planning not only for Summer or Fall, but for what many merchants call their bread and butter - holiday shopping season. Here are four hot topics to consider when planning for a strong digital holiday season.

Each year the holiday season brings new excitement and challenges for merchants. This year is a bit different. This is the start of an era in commerce where we will see the marketer evolve fully into the merchant role, and the consumer will be faced with what they have always wanted and seemingly feared: infinite choice. With infinite choice, it is more important than ever for merchants to take control of the experience being delivered to the consumer by their brand. If they don’t, the consumer will craft their own assumptions, which may or may not lead to a purchase and future brand loyalty.

When it comes to digital, one industry is making waves in how they are utilizing it. This industry may seem like an unlikely candidate for digital, as traditionally it was a very sensory experience — smelling, examining in all lighting conditions, the occasional taste test(?!), and of course lots of sampling. Alas, those days are largely in the past. What is this industry, you ask? Beauty.

Forget flipping through your Sunday paper to see what department stores are having sales. And no more grabbing Cosmopolitan magazine in the checkout aisle to be your main source of the latest fashion trends. Today’s consumer is smarter. Savvier. And online. All the time. From baby boomers to teenagers, the consumer now expects brands to know what they want before they know they even want it. This means even the previously traditional fashion sector is seeing a shift due to the digital disruption of a few perceptive incumbents. Here's a look at three very different sources of fashion and how they have each successfully embraced digital.

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.

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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.

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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?

Generative AI is quickly revolutionizing eCommerce, transforming how businesses engage with customers, optimize operations, and drive growth. For enterprise-level eCommerce players, the challenge is no longer just about adopting AI but effectively scaling it to maintain competitiveness and deliver exceptional customer experiences. This article explores how generative AI can be scaled within eCommerce enterprises, the challenges involved, and the strategies that can lead to success.

Industrial Goods B2B buying is experiencing a significant transformation. As manufacturers strive to meet the evolving needs of their buyers, they are faced with unprecedented complexities in the sales process. Traditional sales channels are rapidly evolving, and the demand for a seamless, one-stop-shop experience is at an all-time high. To stay competitive, Industrial Goods (IG) manufacturers must embrace technology as a critical tool for managing these complexities and delivering the streamlined experience their customers expect.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of B2B commerce, the buying journey is becoming increasingly complex. As companies strive to engage with clients on a more personalized level, the challenge lies not just in understanding individual customer needs but in tailoring experiences that resonate across entire accounts. In 2024, the digital B2B buying experience has reached a tipping point where personalization is no longer a luxury but a necessity, and those who master it are poised to lead their sectors.

Personalization has emerged as a key strategy for differentiation in aftermarket parts eCommerce. Encompassing a vast range of products, from brake pads and tires to high-performance enhancements this industry is characterized by its complexity, driven by the need for a wide variety of parts that cater to different makes, models, and years of vehicles. Customers in the aftermarket parts industry seek tailored solutions that meet their specific business needs. Personalization can significantly enhance the aftermarket parts buying experience by delivering relevant product recommendations, customized pricing, and personalized content, thereby improving satisfaction and loyalty.

Pulling off an exceptional customer experience (CX) in aftermarket parts eCommerce can be the key to differentiating your business and fostering long-term customer loyalty. For customer experience managers, marketing professionals, eCommerce platform developers, and product managers, understanding and implementing effective CX strategies is crucial.

Halco Lighting Technologies is recognized for its energy-efficient solutions and extensive product range in the lighting industry. Serving both B2B and B2C markets with over four decades of experience and a commitment to quality, Halco is committed to deliver innovative solutions that meet the diverse needs of their customers and drive sustainable growth.

In the fast-paced world of eCommerce, user experience (UX) can make or break a business. A smooth, engaging, and intuitive user experience not only attracts customers but also keeps them coming back for more. But what exactly sets apart a stellar UX from a mediocre one? The answer often lies in the details—specifically, in microinteractions.

In the ever-evolving landscape of search engine optimization (SEO), staying ahead of the curve is crucial for success. Recent developments have shed light on new opportunities and challenges within this dynamic field. A glimpse behind the curtain has provided us with a deeper understanding of how Google possibly evaluates and ranks content, underscoring the importance of adapting our strategies to align with these newly uncovered criteria. However, Google does caution against making assumptions based on potentially outdated or incomplete information contained in these documents.

Echidna Partners with Jessup Manufacturing to Redefine eCommerce User Experience

Whether you're looking to revamp your current site or build a new one from scratch, understanding the key elements of effective website design can significantly impact your business's success. Keep reading to learn about the key elements of B2B sites needed to set a solid foundation for online growth, plus the top advanced B2B eCommerce website design elements and features your team should consider before you even get started.

In the digital marketplace, first impressions are everything. Your eCommerce website acts as the frontline ambassador for your brand, and its design directly influences consumer behavior and sales outcomes. This is where an expert eCommerce web design agency steps in, transforming standard online storefronts into captivating, user-friendly experiences that drive sales and customer loyalty.

Unlocking Digital Success: Echidna Partners with HubSpot to Create a Best-in-Class Experience for Specified Technologies, Inc.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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If your brand sits in that sweet spot—north of $10M, south of $5B—social shouldn’t just be “posting and hoping.” In 2025, social is a performance channel, a customer research lab, a talent magnet, and for many categories, a storefront.

Let’s be honest: digital marketing budgets are under more scrutiny than ever.

When it comes to showing up in search, your site isn’t just competing for attention—it’s fighting for relevance. And in 2025, the rules of SEO are sharper, smarter, and more user-focused than ever. If you want better rankings, more organic traffic, and a website that actually converts, it starts with a solid on-page SEO audit.

Unlock Better PPC ROI with the Right Strategy and Execution

Why eCommerce Platform Implementation Matters

A Strategic Approach to SEO and Digital Marketing for Sustainable Growth

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.

Imagine this: A small eCommerce business invests $500 in a PPC campaign and, within a month, sees a return of $2,000 in sales. That’s a whopping 300% return on investment (ROI). This scenario isn’t a fairy tale but a real possibility when PPC campaigns are executed effectively. However, achieving such high ROI isn’t just about luck; it’s about leveraging data to drive decisions.

In the ever-evolving landscape of search engine optimization (SEO), staying ahead of the curve is crucial for success. Recent developments have shed light on new opportunities and challenges within this dynamic field. A glimpse behind the curtain has provided us with a deeper understanding of how Google possibly evaluates and ranks content, underscoring the importance of adapting our strategies to align with these newly uncovered criteria. However, Google does caution against making assumptions based on potentially outdated or incomplete information contained in these documents.

The boundaries between social media and eCommerce are becoming increasingly blurred. Today's buyers expect not only to interact with brands through social platforms but also to make purchases there without skipping a beat. This shift has given rise to a new phenomenon known as social commerce, a fusion of online shopping and social media that is transforming the way brands interact with their customers.

Echidna will be at Boomi World 2026 in Chicago. As a Boomi partner with 16+ years of integration experience, we work with B2B commerce organizations to design and implement the integrations that keep operations moving — from ERP and EDI to CRM, PIM, OMS, and modern commerce platforms.

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March 2025: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

February 2025: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

January 2025: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

The NRF 2025 Big Show is packed with innovation, inspiration, and strategies to shape the future of retail. With so many sessions to choose from, it can be tough to decide where to focus your attention. That’s why we’ve rounded up three of the most exciting, game-changing sessions you simply can’t miss. These discussions bring together retail leaders, digital visionaries, and industry disruptors who are reshaping the way we do business.

December 2024: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

November 2024: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

October 2024: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

September 2024: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

August 2024: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

July 2024: Your Monthly Digest of Top Digital Commerce Insights

The automotive industry is undergoing a major shift, driven by rapid advancements in digital technology. This transformation is reshaping how vehicles are manufactured, marketed, sold, and serviced. From AI-driven manufacturing processes to sophisticated online sales platforms, automotive eCommerce is becoming the backbone of modern automotive operations. This shift is not just a trend but a necessity for survival and growth in an increasingly competitive market.