Optimizely Commerce Connect (formerly Customized Commerce): A Guide

Optimizely Commerce Connect, previously called Customized Commerce and before that Episerver Commerce, is Optimizely’s commerce engine for B2C and content-led ecommerce. It runs alongside Optimizely CMS, so marketers manage content, products and campaigns in one place, while developers get full control of the storefront through APIs, including headless builds. The current version is Commerce Connect 15.

What Commerce Connect includes

• Catalogue management for products, variants, bundles and categories
• Pricing and promotions, including campaigns, discounts and market-specific prices
• Carts, checkout and payments, with customisable order pipelines
• Order management and reporting
• Customer accounts and organisations
• Multi-market, multi-currency and multi-language selling from one platform
• Content and commerce together: product pages, campaigns and editorial content edited in Optimizely CMS
• Headless delivery through APIs and Optimizely Graph

Who it suits

Commerce Connect suits brands where content drives sales: considered purchases, rich product storytelling, and campaigns that change often. It also suits teams that want a distinctive storefront rather than a template, and organisations already using Optimizely CMS that want to add commerce without a separate platform. For B2B selling with customer-specific pricing and quoting, Optimizely’s Configured Commerce is usually the better fit. Our guide to Optimizely Commerce compares the two.

Versions and upgrades

Commerce Connect has moved through versions 13, 14 and 15. Commerce Connect 15 runs on CMS 13 and .NET 10, so upgrading to it means upgrading the CMS at the same time. It also requires Opti ID and Optimizely Graph, and no longer supports Search & Navigation. Each major version includes breaking changes, so upgrades need planning and testing. If you are still on Episerver Commerce or Commerce 13, our Optimizely upgrades team can scope the move.

Getting more from Commerce Connect

• Experiment with promotions, product pages and checkout steps using Optimizely Experimentation
• Personalise content and recommendations using Optimizely Data Platform audiences
• Use AI through the Optimizely Agent Platform (formerly Opal) to generate product descriptions, translations and campaign content, paid for in usage credits. The product description and catalogue translation agents need Commerce Connect 15.
• Keep the catalogue clean with a PIM, so product data stays consistent across markets and channels

Work with an Optimizely Platinum Solution Partner. Remarkable became the UK’s first Optimizely (Episerver) partner in 1995, and our team has won more than 10 OMVP awards over the years. Find out how we help on our Optimizely partner page, or get an Optimizely quote.