Configure Instead of Customize
When making decisions about customizing your Commerce website, like whether to develop themes and extensions to create the experience you want for your customers, be sure you understand the capabilities that are already built into SuiteCommerce. Review the following information to learn more:
Core Features
The capabilities you want may already be available as part of the NetSuite or SuiteCommerce applications. Consider these features:
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Personalized catalog views that let you control the items and categories that are shown to groups of customers. These personalized catalog views also provide more granular controls, like who can add items to the cart. For more information, see Personalized Catalog Views.
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SuitePromotions allow you to offer discounts on orders and items and also offer discounts directly to specific customers and customer groups. For detailed information, see Promotions.
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Strike-through pricing can be configured on item records to highlight how your prices are lower than the manufacturer’s recommended retail price. To learn more, see Strike-Through Pricing.
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Access controls can be placed on your site so that only specific groups of people can access the site or see prices for items on the site. For more information, see Website Restriction.
The Configuration Record and Website Setup Record
In addition to implementing core features, you can enable or modify several additional features in the configuration record and website setup record. These records control different aspects of your Commerce website:
|
Record |
Description |
More Information |
|---|---|---|
|
Configuration record |
Includes frontend configuration settings that allow you to control how the site is presented and different aspects of the user experience. |
To learn how to access configuration settings, see Configure Properties. To review all supported configuration settings, see Configuration Properties Reference. |
|
Website setup record |
Includes backend configuration settings that allow you to enable or disable specific features, control integrations between your Commerce website and NetSuite, and also control the type of data that is available in API calls. |
To learn more about initial setup and configuration, see Prepare the Web Site Setup Record. To review all available settings, see Comprehensive Web Site Setup Reference. |
When designing and planning your Commerce website, you should review the options available in these records to understand the capabilities they offer. For example, using the configuration record you can control these aspects of your website:
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Specify which columns are displayed in transaction lists in My Account, such as the order history. To learn more, see Transaction Lists.
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Allow your customers to create quotes online. For detailed information, see Quotes for Commerce Websites.
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Allow your customers to review and rate items on your website and also view ratings and reviews submitted by other users. To learn more, see SuiteCommerce Product Reviews.
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Analyze visitor traffic on your site with the most widely used analytics tools available, such as Google Ads and Google Universal Analytics. To learn more, see Analytics.
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Configure facets for displaying item results. For detailed information, see Select and Configure Facet Fields.
Commerce Extensions
Commerce Extensions offer a wide variety of features and functions that you can use to enhance your Commerce website. Why customize when the feature you want may already be available in an extension distributed by NetSuite?
Most of the Commerce extensions introduce new options to the configuration record, making it possible for anyone to configure and maintain the additional functionality. Commonly used extensions built by NetSuite include:
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SC Custom Fields extension – allows you to add custom fields to the Checkout application and Product Detail Pages (PDP) of your website. For details, see Create Custom Fields Using an Extension.
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SC Blog extension – lets you create blog posts for your website using Site Management Tools (SMT). You can add posts with images, include post excerpts, and organize posts with categories and tags. For more information, see Blog.
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SC Grid Order – lets you set up matrix items to display purchasing options in a table on the PDP. For detailed information, see Grid Order.
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SC Infinite Scroll – loads content continuously as users scroll down the page, eliminating the need for pagination. For more information, see Infinite Scroll.
To review a complete list of Commerce extensions and the functionality they provide, see Commerce Extensions.
To see example implementations of Commerce extensions, choose the See it in action link for each extension on the Extension Showcase site.
Site Management Tools
The site management tools (SMT) also allow you to modify your Commerce website without writing code. Using SMT, you can control several aspects of your site, including:
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Landing pages and static images
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Content management and visibility
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Custom content types (CCTs)
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Several extensions, like SuiteCommerce Blog
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Page layouts
SMT also includes the Theme Customizer/Theme Skin Manager, which let you make changes to how your site looks.
If your account is using Aconcagua or earlier, you manage themes and skins using the Theme Customizer. If you are using the 2019.2 release of SuiteCommerce and SuiteCommerce Advanced or later, you can use the Theme Skin Manager. The Theme Customizer is similar to the Theme Skin Manager in that it enables you to make changes to the appearance of your website and apply them.
If you want to customize the look and feel of your site, before developing a new theme of your own, verify if you can use the Theme Customizer or Theme Skin Manager to achieve the same results. For more information, see Theme Skin Manager or Theme Customizer (Aconcagua or Earlier).
To learn more about Site Management Tools and all the capabilities this feature provides, see Site Management Tools Overview.