Icecat Service Roadmap 2021

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Icecat Service Roadmap 2021

In 2021, the Icecat Group is going to further improve its services and add new functionalities for its users. Below, a concise summary of the planned developments in the Icecat Service Roadmap 2021.

Icecat brand dashboard and reporting

A critical project is to publish more analytics on our front office in the Brand Rank Page and to include more of our reporting in this graphical interface behind a brand login.

– Expand the brand rank page further with insights.Q1-Q4
– Statistics API out as a microservice.Q1-Q3
– Documenting the Reporting API.Q1
– To include all LIVE events in the standardized report. This includes for example video and 3D usage, content interactions, and scrolling.Q2
– Track more interactions with product assets.Q1-Q4
– Rework logical/tech user filtering.Q2
– Limit report on Brand locales.Q2
– Possibility to exclude users with an empty value for “Business type”.Q2

Icecat Portal

The Icecat portal attracts around 8 billion visits annually. Improving usability, functionality, and SEO are therefore critical points.

– Monitor and improve searchQ1-Q4
– Use LIVE for various product assetsQ1-Q4
– Download generic data of distributor feedsQ2
– Social media login/registrationQ1
– Allow users to upload SLA product listsQ3-Q4
– AMP roll-out in all templates, and more standard SEO improvementsQ1
– Add logistical data to “missing products”Q2
– Creation of PDF from the Icecat liveQ1
– Unique email addresses during user registrationQ2
– Allow for self-management of standard Icecat subscriptionsQ4

Icecat Vendor Central (PIM)

Hundreds of brand editors use Icecat Vendor Central, our global multi-lingual PIM cloud, to enrich the product data-sheets for their channel partners. Improving usability, efficiency, quality management and workflow is therefore the main focus this year.

– Brand quality product data-sheets with a >50% completeness score automatically upgraded to “Icecat quality”.Q1
– Finalize fully multilingual support for all 50+ languages.Q1-Q4
– Creation of a scraping tool that can be used by any editor.Q1-Q3
– Additional service options for brands.Q1-Q4
– Further upgrades of the Editor Assignment Tracking Tool to increase workflow efficiency.Q1
– Brand editors with local access should have the possibility to add International images and other media assets.Q1
– ETL speed upgrade and include for brand editors.Q2
– Access for third party users to PIM: New “user” quality product data-sheets.Q3-Q4
– Include common Product Story elements in the Reasons-To-Buy section.Q3
– Possibility of creating new image types without developer help.Q3
– Asset hub: Possibility to assign different assets to a group of products based on family, features, and other elements.Q3-Q4
– Editor journal V2 refactoring to improve tracking of changes made by editors.Q4

Open Catalog Interface (APIs)

10 billion product data-sheet requests were supported during 2020 by our pull-APIs. Furthermore, the data is used in more and more industries or Verticals. Therefore, adaptations are needed to improve the efficiency, timeliness, and stability of our APIs.

– Vertical Indexes.Q1
– Tag taxonomy elements with timestamps so that users can filter based on date or user base.Q1-Q4
– Personalized, user-specific nRT XML.Q2
– nRT diary of product updates + taxonomy changes per period.Q3

Icecat Cedemo Toys & Gaming

Cedemo plays a prominent role in both the Toys & Gaming market and in the French ecommerce channel. Most processes between Icecat and Cedemo are now well-aligned. During 2021, we expect to finalize the bridges between Icecat and Cedemo, to seamlessly integrate the platforms in one global PIM ecosystem.

– AFS (depending on Amazon news).Q1-Q4
– Bridge Cedemo to Icecat.Q1
– Performance Improvements.Q1
– Bridge Icecat to Cedemo.Q1-Q2
– Move Cedemo Platform to Icecat infrastructure.Q2-Q3
– Cedemo database to Icecat Master Database.Q3-Q4
– phased out old video games platform.Q1-Q4

Testseek: shoppable reviews

Testseek offers Expert Reviews, User Revies and now also shoppable reviews. A further ambition is to add tooling for creation of user generated reviews.

– New Shoppable reviews product (powered by Testseek and Hatch jointly).Q1
– Align APIs with Icecat APIs.Q1-Q4
– Centralized review portal.Q1-Q3
– Refactoring Expert reviews functionality.Q3
– Mobile/AMP version and other SEO improvements.Q3
– Tool to support User Generate Review creation.Q4

Syndy

The Syndy PIM cloud is used in FMCG and beyond. For local and global accounts functionality improvements are created:

– APRIMO DAM IntegrationQ1
– AKZO API IntegrationQ1
– Global Assortment Feature MVPQ1
– Product Hierarchy/Private LabelQ1-Q2
– Bulk Import for CustomersQ1-Q2
– Product Data ModelQ1-Q4
– Admin improvementQ1-Q4
– Reporting improvementsQ1-Q4
– DAM: Asset MetadataQ2
– DAM: Organisation-wide viewQ2
– Syndy Products API INQ2-Q3
– Source Connectors Mapping toolQ2-Q3
– Single product exportQ2-Q3

Iceshop: Icepim-centered services

The rework of existing services, around Icepim, has a priority. Key points are connectivity to Amazon Seller Central, and rework of the Iceshop Vendor Network.

Release of rewritten Magento Modules (Iceimport and Icecatconnector)Q1- Q2
Document and planning of a new IceImport serviceQ2
IceImport service re-development (Iceshop Vendor Network)Q3
Improvements and new releases of the IcepimQ1-Q4
Export for Amazon Seller CentralQ2
Image service with CDN supportQ3
Complete new informative dashboardQ1
Price groups feature (multiple prices per product)Q1
Completeness score per product (based on the Icecat content)Q3

Tech stack

For security, performance, and functionality reasons, tech stack innovations are continuously applied during 2021.

– Editorial and Taxonomy journal upgradesQ1-Q4
– Icecat Live service refactoring (performance and memory)Q1-Q4
– Adding new functionalities to the Icecat PIM for Cedemo integrationQ1-Q4
– Ceph upgrade to SSD storages that will lead to faster storagesQ1
– Eliminate legacy storages to improve the platform stabilityQ1
– A new tool is needed to replace RedisQ1
– Elastic from 1.6 to 7.1Q1
– Cassandra from 1.6 to 3.1Q1
– Moving rest of architecture to Kubernetes for the efficiency gainQ1
– Improving statistics both PD and LIVEQ1-Q4
– Private index files & personal product referencesQ1-Q4
– Replacement of the exchange server from RabbitMQ to kafkaQ1-Q4
– Backup coverage increase using excess SAN storagesQ2
– Cluster setup for Cedemo – move to hybrid hosting for CedemoQ2
– Planning for remote backupsQ3-Q4

Security

Specificly, related to security, 2FA roll-out, logging, and monitoring are focus points during 2021.

– Apply 2FA for every user in the Icecat PIM Q1
– Enforcing 2FA for all account types via the PIM Q1
– Track and log activities of the PIM usersQ1-Q2
– Continuous monitoring of all group sites including pen testing, and vulnerability scans and fixingQ1-Q4

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Chief Operating Officer at Icecat

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