
Hands-On with Optimizely Commerce: Fine-Tuning Catalogs, Personalization, and Performance
If you're running an e-commerce platform, you know that success depends on three critical factors: how well you organize your products, how effectively you personalize the shopping experience, and how fast your site performs under pressure. Optimizely Commerce, formerly known as Episerver Commerce, brings these three elements together in a single platform that's now reached version 12, with version 13 approaching.
What makes Optimizely Commerce particularly interesting right now is its integration into the broader Optimizely One Digital Experience Platform. This means your commerce capabilities aren't isolated. They work directly with content management, personalization tools, and experimentation features. For businesses looking to create cohesive shopping experiences, this integration removes many of the traditional barriers between different systems.
The platform handles both B2B and B2C scenarios equally well, supporting everything from simple product catalogs to complex multi-market setups with thousands of SKUs. Let's explore how to get the most out of its catalog management, personalization features, and performance capabilities.
Core Concepts: Understanding the Building Blocks
The Catalog Architecture
At its heart, Optimizely Commerce uses a hierarchical catalog structure that should feel familiar if you've worked with other e-commerce platforms. Products live within categories, and variants represent different versions of the same product (like sizes or colors). What sets Optimizely apart is the flexibility you have in customizing this structure.
Starting with version 14.13.0, you can now add custom properties directly to catalog root nodes. This seemingly small change opens up significant possibilities for catalog-specific metadata and settings. For example, you might add region-specific information or special pricing rules that apply to an entire catalog.
Here's what a typical catalog structure looks like:
Fashion Store Catalog
└── Men's Clothing (Category)
└── Oxford Shirt (Product)
├── Blue, Medium (Variant)
├── Blue, Large (Variant)
└── White, Medium (Variant)Personalization Engine
The personalization features in Optimizely Commerce have evolved significantly, especially with the unified personalization module launched in 2024. Instead of treating personalization as an add-on, it's now built into the core platform experience. This includes AI-driven product recommendations, visitor segmentation, and real-time A/B testing capabilities.
What's particularly useful is that marketers can create and preview personalized content using a no-code visual editor. This means your marketing team doesn't need to wait for developer resources every time they want to test a new personalization approach.
Performance Framework
Performance in Optimizely Commerce isn't just about server response times; it's about creating a responsive experience across the entire customer journey. The platform provides several tools for this, including built-in caching mechanisms, asynchronous processing capabilities, and integration with Optimizely Find for fast product searches.
Comparing Catalog Management Options
When setting up your catalog structure, you'll face several key decisions. Let's examine the trade-offs:
Single vs. Multi-Catalog Architecture
A single catalog keeps things simple and is usually the right choice unless you have specific business requirements. You might consider multiple catalogs if you're running completely separate B2B and B2C operations, or if different regions require fundamentally different product structures. Our experience shows that most businesses overestimate their need for multiple catalogs. A well-designed single catalog with proper categorization usually provides more flexibility and easier maintenance.
Flat vs. Deep Category Hierarchies
While it might be tempting to create detailed category trees that mirror your internal product classifications, customer experience research suggests keeping category depth to 2-3 levels maximum. Deeper hierarchies confuse customers and complicate navigation. Instead of creating subcategories like "Men > Clothing > Shirts > Casual > Short Sleeve", consider using filters and faceted search to help customers narrow their choices.
Product vs. Variant Modeling
This decision significantly impacts both performance and content management. Use variants for attributes that don't require unique content or SEO treatment (typically size, color, or simple configuration options). Create separate products when items need distinct descriptions, images, or URL structures for search engine visibility.
For example, a t-shirt in different colors would use variants, but a laptop with different processors might warrant separate products if each configuration has unique features worth highlighting in search results.
Real-World Applications and Use Cases
Retail Fashion: Managing Seasonal Collections
Fashion retailers face unique challenges with rapidly changing inventory and seasonal collections. Optimizely Commerce handles this through its flexible catalog structure and powerful merchandising tools. You can schedule product visibility, create seasonal categories that automatically populate based on product attributes, and use the personalization engine to show relevant seasonal items based on browsing history.
One clothing retailer implemented personalized product recommendations on their cart page and saw average order values increase by 37%. They achieved this by combining behavioral data (what customers viewed) with contextual information (current season, local weather) to suggest complementary items.
B2B Manufacturing: Complex Pricing and Catalog Access
B2B scenarios often require customer-specific catalogs and pricing. Optimizely Commerce supports this through customer group settings and price lists. You can create different catalog views for different customer segments, hiding certain products or categories from specific groups.
A manufacturing company using the platform set up tiered pricing based on order volume, with automatic discounts applying at certain thresholds. They also created separate catalog views for dealers versus end customers, showing different product information and pricing structures to each group.
Multi-Brand Retail: Shared Infrastructure, Unique Experiences
Companies managing multiple brands can use Optimizely Commerce to share product data and infrastructure while maintaining distinct brand experiences. Each brand can have its own catalog root with custom properties, allowing for brand-specific settings while sharing the underlying product database.
Making Smart Implementation Decisions
When to Invest in Custom Catalog Properties
The new ability to customize catalog roots should be used thoughtfully. We've found that custom properties work best for settings that truly apply catalog-wide, such as default shipping methods, regional tax rules, or brand-specific display preferences. Avoid the temptation to add properties that would be better managed at the category or product level.
Choosing Your Personalization Approach
Start with simple segmentation before jumping into AI-driven recommendations. Basic visitor groups based on new vs. returning customers or geographic location often provide significant value with minimal complexity. Once you have solid baseline metrics, layer in more sophisticated personalization features.
Consider this progression:
- Start with basic segmentation (new vs. returning visitors)
- Add behavioral triggers (abandoned cart reminders)
- Implement product recommendations on key pages
- Test AI-driven personalization against rule-based approaches
Performance Optimization Priorities
Focus your performance efforts where they'll have the most impact:
- Search and filtering: These operations happen constantly and directly affect user experience
- Category pages: Often the highest-traffic pages after the homepage
- Product detail pages: Critical for conversion but can be resource-intensive
- Checkout process: Every millisecond counts when customers are ready to buy
For catalogs with over 10,000 SKUs, implementing distributed caching (like Redis) becomes essential. Below that threshold, output caching and careful query optimization usually suffice.
Professional Recommendations for Success
Start with Search
Before worrying about complex personalization or catalog structures, get your search functionality right. Teams we work with report that improving search relevance and speed often delivers faster ROI than any other single improvement. Implement Optimizely Find early in your project, configure synonyms for your industry's terminology, and use search analytics to continuously refine results.
Build Incrementally
Don't try to implement every feature at once. Start with a solid catalog structure, get your basic product pages working well, then layer in personalization and advanced features. This approach lets you learn from real user behavior and adjust your implementation based on actual needs rather than assumptions.
Invest in Monitoring
Set up comprehensive monitoring from day one. Use Application Insights or New Relic to track not just system performance but also business metrics like search success rates, category page engagement, and personalization effectiveness. Create dashboards that both technical and business teams can understand and act upon.
Plan for Content Management
Remember that someone needs to maintain all this product information. Design your catalog structure and variant approach with your content team's capabilities in mind. If you only have one person managing products part-time, a complex multi-level category structure with extensive variant options will quickly become unmaintainable.
Test Continuously
Use Optimizely's built-in A/B testing capabilities liberally. Test different category page layouts, product recommendation algorithms, and personalization rules. Even small improvements in conversion rates compound over time. Document what works for your specific audience, what succeeds for one retailer might not work for another.
Conclusion: Building Commerce Experiences That Convert
Optimizely Commerce provides a solid foundation for creating personalized, high-performing e-commerce experiences. The key to success lies not in using every available feature, but in thoughtfully selecting and implementing the capabilities that align with your business goals and technical resources.
Focus first on getting your catalog structure right. This decision affects everything else you'll build. Then layer in search and basic personalization before moving to more advanced features. Throughout the process, maintain a relentless focus on performance and user experience.
If you're evaluating Optimizely Commerce for your e-commerce platform or looking to improve an existing implementation, we can help you assess which features would deliver the most value for your specific situation. Our team has guided numerous businesses through catalog restructuring, personalization rollouts, and performance improvements, and we understand the practical challenges of balancing technical possibilities with business realities and resource constraints.
