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"Click and Collect" is blossoming, and it will stay with us

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"Click and Collect" is blossoming, and it will stay with us
COVID outbreak accelerated the growth of the entire eCommerce industry in general, but one sector has literally exploded. That winner is eGrocery, and it is quite an unexpected win as this sector was hardly a top student when it comes to digitization so far.
Due to severe last-mile limitations, the food sector was lagging behind electronics, clothes, and beauty that already adapted and - in some cases - mastered to perfection their online channels. Yet, pandemic changed the game, forcing Food merchants to roll out their online entities to stay on the surface. Click and Collect quickly became a must.
Just one year ago, 81% of consumers never bought groceries online, but nearly 79% of shoppers did so during the pandemic. Moreover, U.S. online grocery sales surged to $7.2 billion in June 2020, up from a mere $1.2 billion the year before. 
There were vast grocery brands that almost overnight pivoted their strategies to digital and went to omnichannel to fulfill the expectation.
Besides offering home delivery, most of the chains started or broadened their Click and Collect services investment. That was a natural direction that allowed them to leverage their existing and typically the vast number of brick and mortar stores. They were promptly re-modelled in a logistic center, enabling customers to pick up their orders from designated locations.
&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vuestorefront.io/resources/ebooks/click-and-collect?utm_source=machalliance.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=blogpost-mach-click-and-collect&utm_content=cta">Download the Click and Collect eBook</a>&nbsp; <h2>Click and collect benefits</h2> Click and Collect is a perfect option for mobile shoppers who are always in a rush and - at the time - for retailers who gain a chance to turn occasional customers into retaining ones. Yet, there are much more benefits implied by this model. 
It allows reducing the logistic cost and avoids the risk of damaging goods. As a result, retail brands are not responsible for the last mile they cannot control, which is crucial for the food industry.
Moreover, physical presence leads to the opportunity for sales-boosting based on personal interactions with customers, attracting tech-savvy users at the same time. <h2>Click and collect challenges</h2> Typically, click and collect options required building advanced, custom-made integrations with their eCommerce platform as all processes related to inventory had to be automated and error-free. It was costly and difficult within monolithic platforms or SaaS solutions because any additional features require deep interference with the entire system. 
An extended time to market was not an option during the pandemic nor will it be when it's over. The feature should be a ‘plug-and-play solution, ready to integrate with an analytical tool designed to track ROI and report upselling. 
Within <a href="https://www.vuestorefront.io/headless-commerce">Headless Commerce</a> or - to be precise - with an eCommerce system that consists of Headless eCommerce platform (commercetools) and <a href="https://www.vuestorefront.io/bodiless-frontend">Bodiless Frontend </a>(Vue Storefront), it is just easier. 
And here we are. <h2>Vue Storefront Click and Collect</h2> Watch our demo&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/V9gIArCR8ZQ">Click and Collect Preview | Vue Storefront</a>
Vue Storefront Click and Collect - a result of a close collaboration between commercetools and Vue Storefront - is a toolset that enables merchants to implement the Click and Collect approach into their marketing strategy. 
As a mobile-first, cloud-native, and API-focus solution, VSF Click and Collect delivers advanced out-of-the-box integration with the commercetools backend and enables adding various other MACH-oriented tools, such as Headless CMSs, search engines, and payment systems. All of it under one straightforward cloud license.
The solution's versatility is based on its powerful API that allows picking the best-of-breed tools, with no compromises forced by technology limitations. “Vue Storefront Click and Collect provides out-of-the-box integrations with MACH to cut time to the market, but they don't collide with the possibility of creating more custom-made solutions. If any merchant wants or needs non-MACH services to be connected, there are no obstacles.” Filip Rakowski, CTO at Vue Storefront. 
The endless possibilities in shaping how the solution should work go hand in hand with complete freedom regarding its look. Merchants can use out-of-the-box UI templates as well as customize them freely based on their individual business needs. To explore Click and Collect start a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vuestorefront.io/free-trial?utm_source=machalliance.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=blogpost-mach-click-and-collect&utm_content=cta">60 days free</a> trial of Vue Storefront Enterprise

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Site search is a rare moment when a customer directly tells you what they want. Showing shoppers relevant products is now table stakes, and brands are on the hunt for new ways to help people find exactly what they're looking for. 
“When you look at the search experience of the new world it’s going to look much more like a magazine. You’ll have content embedded together with the product search results,” says Eli Finkelshteyn, Founder and CEO of <a href="https://constructor.io/">Constructor</a>, the AI-first site search for eCommerce. “It’s a much more visually pleasing array that also takes into account all of the different things that a company has to offer.”
An overview of local hiking trails can be shown to a person browsing tents and camp cookware. The results of a search for peanut-free products can include an allergen FAQ. A designer’s video interview can sit among the products in her new line. Blending quality content with the powerful personalization of AI-driven commerce search helps shoppers discover not only the most relevant products and services, but the ones most attractive to them in each context. 
A recent Forrester report on <a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/Drive+Shopper+Relevance+With+AIDriven+Digital+Commerce+Search/-/E-RES165132">driving shopper relevance with AI commerce search</a> explains the role of contextual content in modern commerce: 
“Finding related products or content, especially when the searcher doesn’t use the precise product taxonomy, is the crux of delivering relevancy in digital commerce. What started as product recommendations has developed into mature search solutions that serve up congruent products and content related to the original query, much like how standing in a store would allow a consumer to see similar items in the aisle.” <h1>Intelligent search and scalable content </h1> A dynamic blend of content and commerce requires a search engine that goes beyond basic keyword matching and a content solution that makes it easy for marketers and merchandisers to design and scale the experience. 
As stated in the <a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/Drive+Shopper+Relevance+With+AIDriven+Digital+Commerce+Search/-/E-RES165132">Forrester paper on shopper relevance</a>, “Automation enables relevant personalization at scale, which is all but impossible with older manual methods, and places control in the hands of the merchandising teams. New search solutions provide predictive merchandising tools with easy interfaces to adjust results, read consolidated data, and apply changes at scale.”
AI search can free up merchandising and marketing teams from tedious manual tasks, such as maintaining a synonym list so people searching for “grey blouse” are also shown “gray shirt” or creating a workaround to make your system register grammatical anomalies like “Jordan 1s”. 
“If merchandisers are sitting in legacy search tools correcting misspelling, that's under utilizing the really useful business information that’s in the head of the merchandiser and often not anywhere else,” says Constructor's Finkelshteyn, who explained that modern AI tools empower teams by not only taking care of menial tasks but by giving merchandisers the data, insights, and creative control to test out new ideas. 
“If they think a new product is going to sell like crazy, they can simply make it the first result for a few queries and the system can learn from there,” says Finkelshteyn. 
When intelligent search tools are combined with a headless content management solution (CMS) that makes it easy for marketers and merchandisers to create content for any channel, commerce teams can quickly scale up intelligent product discovery. Content can be designed and managed within the CMS and integrations can pull that information to a modern search engine where it’s immediately searchable and surfaced in relevant quieres. <h1>Can’t teach an old suite new tricks </h1> Legacy search solutions struggle to merge content marketing, merchandising, and product catalogues into an attractive shopping experience. 
Search platforms built in the age of keyword matching and Lucene indexing simply don’t have the core functionality to support AI initiatives at scale, and large “one-size-fits-all” suites lock companies into the capabilities and development roadmap of a single vendor. 
To compete in eCommerce, companies are turning to architectures that let them create their own ecosystem of best-fit tools. <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/mach-approach-to-ecommerce-get-the-first-mach-alliance-ebook">This composable commerce approach is often driven by MACH </a>(microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless) tools, which are designed to easily integrate functionality and data with other tools in your stack. 
From ordering results based on local in-store inventory levels, to boosting organic products to the shopper reading articles on sustainability, to providing personal sizing guides for the new summer fashions - a composable approach gives brands the freedom to design product discovery tailor-fit to their customers. <h1>Kickstart revenue without a replatform </h1> A core benefit of moving toward composable commerce is the ability to <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/future-proofing-the-tech-ecosystem-for-an-uncertain-future">build a future-proof tech stack in steps</a>. Brands can use MACH tools to get new initiatives up and running while transitioning off legacy tools at their own pace. 
If, like many organizations, you are not quite ready to replace your core transactional engine, adopting MACH content and discovery tools offers a shortcut to a valuable shopping experience. 


“Focusing on content and search can be a great place to start because these are both directly tied to a company’s revenue,” says Finkelshteyn. “You can implement them while leaving your existing commerce platform in place and quickly see revenue lift, which you can use to gain momentum and fund the rest of your MACH transformation.” <a href="https://constructor.io/">Constructor</a> and <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Contentstack</a>, the headless content platform, are teaming up to showcase just how quickly brands can tap into the benefits of content and commerce - no need for a major replatform. Check out the joint <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/commerce-meet-consumer-demands-with-ai-and-omnichannel-cms/?utm_medium=partner-link&utm_source=machalliance.org&utm_campaign=fy22-q3-constructor&utm_content=blog">pilot project</a> to learn more about the powerful combination of flexible content, intuitive editing, and intelligent product discovery.

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Intelligent product discovery fast-tracked by MACH

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Blog Post

<h2>Summary&nbsp;</h2>
MACH is an acronym for Microservices; API-first, Cloud-native; and Headless. The modular design of MACH solutions enables businesses to keep up with emerging technologies without undertaking multiple replatforming projects. With MACH, companies have the freedom to choose from the best technologies on the market that they can easily change to evolve their ecosystem as needed.
Additionally, MACH technologies replace single vendor systems where interdependence meant a single update could break part of the system. MACH applications are divided into a series of small, specialized components (microservices) that create a flexible framework upon which companies can evolve at their own pace. The API-first foundation of MACH technology makes content an easily-accessed service that supports delivery to any website, software platform, voice-activated device, and more. MACH answers the demand for omnichannel, personalized experiences that today’s consumers crave. 
These are just the basics of what MACH means and why modern businesses should care. Learn more by downloading the <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture">Break the Replatform Cycle with MACH Enterprise Architecture</a> ebook. 
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Today, business technology is evolving so quickly that some tools are on their way to being considered outdated almost as soon as companies implement them. The problem with that goes well beyond simple frustration — it also negatively impacts organizational progress. 
According to Devada’s “2019 State of the Developer Report,” 66% of developers find that maintaining and “paying for” technical debt (aka the <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/technical-debt-wrong-cms">money, flexibility, and opportunity lost</a> to a bad technical investment) associated with outdated technology is bad for their productivity at work. This is why it’s no surprise that <a href="https://www.spiceworks.com/marketing/state-of-it/report/">64% of businesses list the need to upgrade outdated infrastructure</a> as the top reason for increasing their IT budgets in 2020. 
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Unfortunately, removing suites, dependencies, and customizations can often take just as much effort as continuing to maintain them. But that cost was worth the reward for British media company The Spectator (read The Spectator’s story in this newly-published <a href="http://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture">enterprise architecture ebook</a>).
 
“In terms of ability to innovate, everything had a cost associated with it, which put us off doing anything risky,” said Tom Morgan, Director of Digital at The Spectator. “That meant our technology was stagnating — as was our ability to serve customers.”
How did The Spectator implement an affordable solution to revive their enterprise technology, improve their customer experience, and grow their overall conversion rate — and how can your business replicate their success? 
With MACH. 
<h2>What is MACH? </h2>
Inspired by the speed at which software ecosystems serve enterprise customers and coined by a group of independent modern tech companies including <a href="https://commercetools.com/">commercetools</a>, <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Contentstack</a>, <a href="https://www.epam.com/">EPAM Systems, Inc.</a>, and <a href="https://www.valtech.com/">ValTech</a>; <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/6-ways-identify-modern-enterprise-software">MACH is a term for technologies</a> that are natively modular, pluggable, scalable, and easily updated via agile development to support a continuously-evolving digital experience.
 
MACH software relies on microservices; it is API-first (never added), cloud-native, and headless from the ground up. Let’s dive deeper into what each of these MACH features means when it comes to business technology. 
 

Microservices
Microservices architecture consists of a collection of small services that are used to build an application. Each service is created to perform a specific task. Additionally, each service can use different code and can be developed, updated, deployed, and maintained independently. The services use light-weight protocols and communicate through the application programming interface (API) technology that we’ll discuss next.
API-First
API-first means that the application was built from the ground up with APIs and revolves around delivering content to omnichannel devices and client applications. An API-first approach involves developing APIs that are consistent and reusable using an API description language — including a contract on how an API is supposed to act.
Cloud-Native SaaS
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) leverages the full capabilities of the cloud. Beyond storage and hosting, that includes elastic scaling of highly-available resources. Cloud-native SaaS technology is updated automatically by the vendor — no manual effort required by your team. APIs enable flexible and secure communication and can be easily adapted and implemented across all channels for customers.
Headless
With headless software, front-end presentation is completely decoupled from back-end logic. This separation enables business technology to be channel, programming language, and framework agnostic. 
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<h2>Why Does MACH Matter Today?</h2>
World-leading retail brands including Bang & Olufsen, EXPRESS, and others are outpacing the competition by adopting MACH software. These early adopters know that MACH architecture accelerates digital transformation to support the next generation of consumer and commerce experiences. 
But MACH architecture doesn’t apply only to the world of ecommerce. This modern infrastructure applies to any company looking to end the costly replatforming cycle, deliver modern digital experiences, and remain ready to scale at a moment’s notice. 
<h3>Put an End to the Expensive Replatforming Cycle</h3>
As hard as it may be to believe, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone">the first iPhone was introduced</a> 13 years ago. Today, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-around-the-world-but-not-always-equally/">76% of people in advanced economies</a> (and 45% in emerging ones) use smartphones. Then there were smart speakers, which <a href="https://medium.com/voice-tech-podcast/alexa-the-smart-speaker-revolution-a-historical-perspective-essay-94cf551bbec1">made their debut six years ago</a> with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant and Echo smart speaker. In 2019, <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/4748/smart-speakers/">an estimated 35% of U.S. households had at least one smart speaker</a>. By 2025 it’s thought that that number will reach 75%.
Technology is advancing, and consumers are becoming digitally fluent with increasing speed. But thanks to their modular design, MACH solutions give businesses the tools they need to keep up.
Making the switch to MACH is the last replatforming project an enterprise will ever need to face. With MACH, businesses have the freedom to choose from the best tools on the market so they can continuously remove, add, and replace technologies to evolve their ecosystem as needed.
“Part of the reason we went for [MACH] is that we don’t want to ever go through a major replatforming again,” said the director of digital technology at an iconic British luxury brand. “If a few years down the line, something emerges that is far and above what we have, we want to be able to adopt it without the barriers of the past. For the last ten years, unstitching technologies has been too big an effort and cost. The new architectural approach represented by headless provides more flexibility in evolving in the future.” 
Read more about making the move to MACH and how to replatform for the last time by downloading <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture">Break the Replatform Cycle with MACH Enterprise Architecture</a>.
<h3>Build Endless Business Flexibility</h3>
MACH technologies create a flexible framework upon which companies can evolve at their own pace.
A suite architecture combines front-end and back-end processes into a single system. This interdependence means a single change to an application’s code could affect — and even break — the entire tool. But by dividing an application into a series of smaller, specialized parts (aka microservices), a MACH approach gives developers the flexibility to use the right tools and the right code at the right time. 
For example, think about breaking up a shopping experience into multiple microservices. You might have a different service for handling user profiles, managing the shopping catalog, checking inventory, processing credit cards, and tracking orders. With a shopping experience built on MACH technology, a business can update their catalog service as often as needed without negatively affecting any of the other services or environments. This speeds up development time and enables businesses to pivot with demand. 
Microservices are transforming the business world. Just look at Netflix, Amazon, Twitter, PayPal, and eBay — all of which are examples of companies that moved from single vendor systems to a microservices-based architecture to enjoy unlimited flexibility and scale. 
MACH Alliance founding member <a href="https://commercetools.com/commerce-platform">commercetools created a headless commerce platform</a> where businesses can optimize their flexibility by monitoring all their different microservices, gaining insight into how everything is working together, addressing any performance issues, and customizing their microservices to meet unique business requirements.
<h3>Deliver The Modern Experiences Consumers Demand</h3>
Besides enabling microservices to communicate with each other, APIs also enable the omnichannel delivery of content to any device, channel, or platform. 
A pinnacle of MACH technology, an <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/cms-guides/headless-cms">API-first, headless content management system (CMS) separates content</a> from how it’s displayed so content can be created once then optimized and published to any channel at any time.
This API-first approach turns content from a static resource to a highly-accessible service that can be called by a website, a mobile device, a software platform, an automobile, a VR headset, a voice-activated device, a Jumbotron, and anything else tomorrow’s technology brings. Additionally, <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/all-contentstack-experience-extensions/">APIs introduce extensibility so you can integrate any tech</a> — localization tools, personalization engines, customer data integrations, etc. — to power the unique, omnichannel experiences that modern consumers crave.
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Neha Sampat, CEO of Contentstack</a> — another MACH Alliance founding member — explains why companies like hers are focusing on designing extensible products: “Companies are modernizing their approach to digital in stages. They need to be able to access new technology and tools while transitioning their stack over time. Modern software needs to integrate not only with other new technologies but also with legacy tools to make the wider digital transformation as smooth as possible.”
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This is only the beginning of MACH technology, and these are just the basics of what MACH means and why every enterprise needs to invest if they want to remain relevant.

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”66% of developers find that maintaining and “paying for” technical debt (aka the money, flexibility, and opportunity lost to a bad technical investment) associated with outdated technology is bad for their productivity at work." 

State of the Developer report 2109, Devada

MACH: Business Technology for 2020 and Beyond

Moving to Headless Commerce - The 8 most important Technical Considerations

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Moving to Headless Commerce - The 8 most important Technical Considerations

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