Frontend support for content search has been added to Salesforce B2C (SFCC) cartridge, version 24.2.0. Customers have expressed the need for a unified search experience that includes both product data and content such as FAQs. SFCC content assets and Page Designer content indexing is now available with added frontend support for Autocomplete and InstantSearch. This enhancement allows customers to achieve a truly unified search experience, improving discoverability and user satisfaction by seamlessly integrating product and content search capabilities.

Learn more: Indexing | SFRA Frontend Support

Version 24.2.0 of the Salesforce B2C (SFCC) cartridge has been released, featuring enhanced variant handling through a new record-per-base product option and out-of-the-box frontend support. This update addresses the need for e-commerce customers to merchandise and optimize relevance at the base product level rather than on a per-variant level. Merchandisers can now manage relevance for products with different colors and sizes as a single entity, simplifying the process and aligning with their view that variants do not significantly influence relevance. This flexibility allows customers to display products in a combined result tile with variant-specific swatches and images, enhancing the user experience with minimal coding effort. The new option provides customers the ability to choose between managing products at the base level or variant level, depending on their preferences. 

Learn more: Record Model Considerations | SFRA Front End Support of Color Swatches 

The new “Recommended for You” model is now in private beta. It enables the creation of personalized product carousels by leveraging individual affinity profiles. This feature delivers more relevant content to your users, boosting user engagement and conversion. 

Merchandising Studio performance has been significantly improved, addressing previous slowness issues. Enhancements in caching, API efficiency, and request management have reduced loading times by 60%, particularly on the Visualize page. These optimizations enhance user experience, ensuring smoother and faster interactions. Further enhancements are in progress to ensure ongoing performance gains.

Revenue Analytics is now out of beta, providing new revenue metrics for improved business decision-making. This highly requested feature closes a competitive gap and enhances the ability to demonstrate the value Algolia brings to your bottom line. Available to all customers on Build, Premium, Elevate, and Elevate Ecomm plans. Click here to learn more.

The new Comparison Mode in Merchandising Studio is designed to enhance transparency and control over ranking factors such as NS, QCat, DRR, and Rules. This unified view allows merchandisers to easily simulate changes and understand the impact of each ranking layer, improving decision-making and identifying potential misconfigurations. By providing clear insights into the AI and ranking system, this feature fosters trust and enables more effective management of result sets. Future updates will continue to refine this tool based on user feedback.

”Looking Similar,” a new visual recommendations model, has been launched in Recommend. This innovative feature analyzes images to find visually similar items, addressing the cold start problem by generating recommendations without needing events. Perfect for eCommerce companies aiming to create visually engaging shopping experiences. Available to all Recommend users starting today, this model marks our first step into image-based recommendations and search.

The Algolia Insights Adobe Data Collection extension is now available in the Data Collection Extension Catalog. This extension streamlines the process for customers tracking event data in Adobe, enabling them to send Insights without writing code. It is provided under an Open Source License and is documented for easy use. While official support is not provided, our Professional Services team is available for consultations and assistance with event strategies and implementation. This extension enhances data integration efficiency, benefiting your analytics and decision-making processes. 

The Events Hub has been updated to improve usability based on customer and SME feedback. The new design includes a decluttered landing page and a separate Debugger tab for relevant information. Each event-driven feature now displays a tile indicating potential issues with event data, enabling easier and faster identification and resolution of problems. This update enhances the efficiency of managing event data quality and will continue to evolve with user feedback, particularly in refining "health checks" and status indicators for feature tiles.

Improved support for color swatches has been added to the record-per-variant data schema. This update enables the optional inclusion of color swatch and image information for related variants, along with corresponding SFRA/SiteGenesis frontend cartridge support for displaying these swatches and images in combined tiles. Implementing color swatches on storefronts is now simplified and accelerated, enhancing the consumer experience. Click here to learn more.