After spending years and years working on Oracle Commerce implementations for big multinationals, I got used to big implementations lasting 1 year or more, where millions of pounds is the budget available for a typical implementation.
However nowadays speed to market and cost is everything, with the likes of Demandware offering those type of solutions, it is a lot cheaper and easier to create a commerce shop.
The Oracle Commerce Cloud is Oracle’s response to Demandware.
Meant initially for smaller customers with more standard requirements and who sell physical goods over the internet, Oracle Commerce Cloud is a rewritten version of the on-premises version Oracle ATG Commerce, for the cloud.
All the features that are normally required for a typical physical goods e-commerce shop are already available:
- Fully responsive layout
- Powerful media management and automatic image scaling
- Integration with Akamai out of the box
- Search & Navigation powered by Endeca
- Integration with ratings & reviews
- Zoom functionality in product page
- Multi-language support for 20 languages
- Multi-currency and multiple price lists(coming in early 2016)
- Preview functionality
- Recommendations
- Promotions & Coupons
- Payments integration with Cybersource, Paylatam, Paypal, etc
- Tax calculation using Avalara Avatax
- Integrations using web hooks
- Powerful catalog management using Visual Merchandising tool
- Easy customisation of layout using Visual admin tool
- Easy customisation of emails using Freemarker
- Agent interface
- …
There are many more features available in the Oracle Commerce Cloud and more to come. Thanks to an aggressive release cycle, every quarter new features are added.
Some of the most promising features to come in 2016 are B2B functionalities and the ability to create custom payment processors.
The skill set required for an Oracle Commerce cloud developer is completely different from the typical ATG dev. A Front End developer with HTML, CSS/JS and knowledge of Knockout JS will feel at ease customising the Front End. In fact Elaine Turner one of the clients showcased in San Francisco, hired an intern to customise the front end. It is quick & easy to learn.
Finally, Oracle is running a SELECT customer program, which is a means to influence the roadmap if a client has requirements that are yet not available on the customer cloud.
Would you like to find out more about the Oracle Commerce Cloud? Please contact me for more details, if you also want to request a demo please let me know.
Further Info:
Two examples of webshops currently running on the Oracle Commerce Cloud:
And for a more exact list of features in the commerce cloud:
http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/oraclecommerceclouddatasheet-2555857.pdf
