Icecat Service Roadmap 2023

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Icecat Service Roadmap 2023

Icecat continues to improve its services by adding new functionalities in 2023. In this post, you can see a summary of the planned developments in the Icecat Service Roadmap 2023.

Icecat Portal

The Icecat portal attracts tens of billions of visits annually. Improving usability, functionality, SEO and the stats dashboard are, therefore, critical points.

– SEO improvementsQ1-Q4
– Monitor and improve searchQ1-Q4
– Download generic data of distributor feedsQ3-Q4
– Migration to Pipedrive (DONE)Q2
– Allow users to upload SLA product listsQ3-Q4

Icecat Vendor Central (PIM)

Hundreds of brand editors use Icecat Vendor Central, our global multilingual PIM cloud, to enrich the product data sheets for their channel partners. Therefore, improving usability, efficiency, quality management, and workflow is the main focus also for 2023.

– Brand-authorized reseller logic updateQ1-Q4
– New search UI for brand managers in the PIMQ2-Q4
– Fully multilingual PIMQ2-Q4
– New Copy product functionalityQ1-Q4
– “Invite your reseller” button for brand managers (DONE)Q1-Q2
– Upgrades of the Editor Assignment Tracking Tool to increase workflow efficiencyQ4-
– ETL speed upgrade and include it in brand editor viewQ4
– Possibility to assign more than one country to a userQ4
– Supporting new generation of variantsQ4-
– Supporting taxonomy-specific assets (DONE) Q2-Q3
– Sub-user supportQ4-
– Access for third-party users to PIM: New “user” quality product datasheetsQ4-
– Editor journal V2 refactoring to improve tracking of changes made by editorsQ4-

Icecat Open Catalog Interface (APIs)

Up to fifteen billion product datasheet requests were supported during 2022 by our pull APIs. Furthermore, the data is used in more and more industries or Verticals. Therefore, adaptations are needed to improve our APIs’ efficiency, timeliness, and stability.

– User Media API upgrade (DONE)Q1-Q2
– Personalized index filesQ1-Q4
– Soft limitations on Datasheet downloadsQ4
– Open Icecat distribution limitation on subscribed verticalsQ4
– Explanatory text should be available via categoryfeaturelistQ4-
– nRT diary of product updates + taxonomy changes per period.Q4-

Open-source Icecat addons

– Pimcore Addon V4 – Upgrade to 10.5 and unlock full Icecat users (DONE)Q1
– Magento2 Extension V2- Unlock full Icecat users and enrich products for specific Brands (DONE)Q2
– Pimcore Addon POC – Analysis and feasibility check to enrich product content in the brand/retailer-specific taxonomy (DONE)Q3
– Explore possible Icecat partnerships with open-source PIMs and e-commerce platformsQ3-Q4
– Open-source software licensing of open-source Icecat addons/extensionsQ1-Q4
– Research open-source AI frameworks and models for generating marketing text for Icecat’s Product Data Sheets.Q3-Q4

Icecat Product Reviews

Icecat offers Expert Reviews, User Reviews, and Shoppable Reviews. We list below the summary of the most important developments.

– Icecat product import logic update (DONE)Q1
– Align APIs with Icecat APIs (LIVE)Q1-Q4
– Switch to internal crawling tools (DONE)Q1-Q3
– Transfer client-facing services (XML API, Live API) to a cloud-based IaaS providerQ3-Q4
– Testseek and Icecat.com integrationQ1 – Q4
– Statistics and insights reportingQ3
– UGC functionality MVPQ4

Icecat Brand dashboard and reporting

In 2023 it is a critical project to publish more analytics on our front office on the Brand Dashboard and to include more of our reporting in this graphical interface behind a brand login.

– Documenting the Reporting APIQ4
– Statistics API-outQ4
– Expand the Brand Dashboard further with insightsQ1-Q4
– Track more interactions with product assetsQ1-Q4
– To include all LIVE events in the standardized report. This includes, for example, video and 3D usage, content interactions, and scrollingQ4-
– Rework logical/tech user filteringQ4-
– Possibly exclude users with an empty value for “Business type”Q4

Icecat Syndy

The Syndy PIM cloud is used in FMCG and beyond as a corporate PIM and syndication platform. Following improvements are planned for 2023:

– Digital Asset Management (DAM) improvements (DONE)Q1
– Template restrictions (DONE) Q1
– Development of dashboard and reporting upgradesQ1-Q3
– Retailer environment redesign (DONE) Q1-Q2
– GS1 integration (DONE) Q2-Q3
– Merge Hexagon and Syndy platformsQ4-
– Admin improvementQ4-
– Global Assortment Feature (DONE) Q1-Q4
– Icecat integration improvementsQ1-Q4
– Infrastructure optimizationQ1-Q4
– Set up DEV/PO communication platformQ1-Q4

Icecat Hexagon

Executing our One PIM strategy by providing local B2C marketplace integrations and merging internal infrastructures into one seamless environment.

– Phasing out old video games platform (DONE) Q1
– Purchasing Process ImprovementQ3
– Automatic sourcing improvementQ4
– Infrastructure Improvement (DONE)Q1-Q3
– Bridge improvementQ2-Q4
– Icecat and Hexagon platforms IntegrationQ4-
– Hexagon API V3 (DONE)Q3
– General platform improvementsQ3-Q4
– Channel management improvementsQ4
– Image-specific improvementsQ4
– Import and export specific improvementsQ4
– Merge Hexagon and Syndy platformsQ4-

Iceshop

Focus on providing B2B e-commerce clients best-in-class solutions, including platform integrations, high-volume product information management and supply-chain management.

Release Amazon Connector service for Seller accounts (DONE) Q1
Implement Product stories in Icepim (DONE) Q1
Icepim Icecat import and UI improvements (speed and GTIN control)Q1
Change and improve Logs display and management in Icepim (DONE)Q1-Q2
Icepim menu improvements (DONE)Q1-Q3
Create Image server and improved image resizing functionality (DONE)Q1-Q3
Improve Icepim performance, stability, usabilityQ1-Q4
Release Amazon Connector service for Vendor accounts (DONE) Q4
Migrate Shopify connector’s customers from REST to GraphQL (when applicable) (DONE) Q1-Q4
Shopify connector performance, stability, usability updates (DONE) Q1-Q4
Change Category Export and add bullet points for Magento connector (DONE) Q1-Q2
Magento connector performance, stability, usability updatesQ1-Q4
Salesforce connector performance, stability, usability updates (DONE) Q1-Q4
Iceimport performance, stability, usability updates (DONE) Q1-Q4
Iceorder performance, stability, usability updatesQ1-Q4
Customer portal: Elastic search implementation for productsQ1-Q2
Customer portal: Order create/edit functionalityQ1-Q2
Re-design portal interface with new order system interfaceQ2-Q4

Icecat Product enrichment (PET) and Mapping and transformation tools

In 2023 we will continue further development of the Product enrichment tool and we want to introduce the Mapping and transformation tool.

Refactoring existing projects to product story v2.0 (DONE)Q1
Upgrades of WYSIWYG editor (DONE)Q1-Q2
AMAZON A+ syndication via PET (DONE)Q1-Q2
Google Manufacturing Center syndication via PETQ1-Q2
Product story Analytics release (DONE)Q1-Q2
PET performance, stability, and usability updates (DONE)Q1-Q4
Data mapping and transformation tool development and releaseQ1-Q4
New statistics with new metrics, fully in-house solution (DONE)Q2-Q3
New asset type – snippet or story in story solution(DONE)Q2-Q3
Support of videos in hotspots (DONE)Q2-Q3
ar/3d support, pre-defined module with responsiveness (QR code vs laptop experience) (DONE)Q2-Q3
Testseek review switch on-off module with new design, refactoring into 2.0 version (DONE)Q2-Q3
UGC module with new design, refactoring into 2.0 version (DONE)Q2-Q3
UGC/Testseek live API (DONE)Q2-Q3
Refactoring Lego autoimport into story 2.0 (DONE)Q2-Q3
Typification of stories ( in-house variant solution with back-up logic) (DONE)Q2-Q3
Standard/Premium/Amazon (DONE)Q2-Q3

Icecat main tech stack

For security, performance, and functionality reasons, tech stack innovations are continuously applied during 2023

Redis-cluster cache migrationQ1-Q3
Downloads Stats upgrade –  ClickHouseQ1-Q3
Cassandra version upgrade – v2 to v4 (DONE)Q1-Q3
Editorial Journal upgradeQ4-
MySQL 8 (DONE)Q2
Removing legacy from perl to PHPQ1-Q4

Icecat Security

In 2023 we will focus on the following security points:

2FA for users (Google Auth + email)Q2-Q4

Icecat Websites

In 2023 we will focus on the following developments:

Iceclog – Blog:

Update existing Iceclog with outdated content (DONE)Q1
Re-launch Iceclog designQ2
Implement AI ChatbotQ2
Add multilingual optionQ3
Add CDN networkQ3

Icecat.com:

Enrich pages with contentQ1-Q2
Add multilingual optionQ3-Q4

Icury

The Icury is still a research project. The main goal in this direction for 2023 is to investigate zero transaction cost distributed ledger technologies (DLT).

Read further: Icecat,

Chief Operating Officer at Icecat

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