As an e-commerce professional, you’re probably well aware the industry moves quickly. While you’re hard at work with your present job, developments and innovations are happening behind the scenes. If you want to stay relevant and competitive with others in your field, it’s critical to stay up to date with changes, upgrades and version rollout for your platform of choice. This is easy when you seek a few key sources.
General ways to keep up with e-commerce platform technology
Stores want to stay cutting-edge to keep up with the ever-changing demands of consumers. As smart phones and mobile devices are released with continuous new models and updated features, shoppers with their fancy new devices will undoubtedly have new demands. Plus, a customized shopping experience is becoming more and more important—and possible—with the evolution of AI. Faster loading speeds, clean layouts, intuitive navigation, video integration, marketing tactics—it all makes a difference and helps stores stay modern. As an e-commerce professional, you’re the talent who makes it all happen. So how can you keep your knowledge and skills as current as possible? Check out the following sources:
- Industry blogs. Bloggers have a knack for reporting current news out to the masses. You might choose a blog produced by your platform, or one maintained by an e-commerce guru. Then, check in regularly to learn what’s going on in with versions and developments.
- Online communities. Your platform may offer a rich community of users, all willing to share information, answer questions and provide assistance. You can also check out social media sites, such as Twitter, as a good place to get and share platform-related information.
- Mailing lists. Get updates and insider information delivered right to your inbox by signing up for a mailing list. Newsletters are a great place to read about updates happening in the industry.
- Meetups and events. Pretty much every industry offers conferences and forums for like-minded professionals to attend seminars, learn and network. Almost always, they feature subject matter experts from the industry talking about what’s new and what’s to come.
Platform-specific information sources
In addition to searching on your own for the above suggestions, following are specific sources of key information for various popular e-commerce platforms:
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud. If you’re familiar with Salesforce, you have a variety of sources to help you stay up-to-date on innovations. You can visit the AppExchange or sign up for the AppExchange newsletter, for timely updates. You can also check out the New Features page online and review the release notes—a living document that’s constantly being updated. Twitter is also a great source for Salesforce updates, as well as attending the Dreamforce annual conference.
- Shopify. Want to stay up to date with the Shopify platform? They offer changelog, which provides notes about recent changes to their API and developer products. You can also follow them on Twitter for timely updates.
- BigCommerce. The BigCommerce Community Guide provides everything you need to stay up-to-date and connect with experts, other BigCommerce professionals and partners. There’s also multiple Twitter pages, including @BigCommerce, @BigCommPartners and @BigCommerceDevs.
- Magento. The Magento News Weekly Roundup will help you stay in-the-know on the “best and most important news, tutorials, interviews and a lot more from the industry.” From this page you can also access tutorials and link to experts for support. Visit @magento on Twitter for timely posts, and visit the Imagine conference to network and learn about all platform developments.
- SAP Commerce Cloud. Where do you go to learn more about SAP Commerce Cloud? The SAP Learning Room, with links to various topics related to SAP products. They also offer a certification program for SAP Commerce Cloud.
- IBM Watson. The IBM website offers a page dedicated to information and updates about Watson. You can take The Watson Foundation Competency to build your experience with Watson, plus earn badges in various specialties. The Watson Blog is a great source of updates, plus you can keep up with Watson News, and even check out Watson webinars.
- Oracle. Oracle Commerce Cloud provides a blog for all news and updates. Oracle Cloud provides tweets to help you stay informed and updated. Oracle Open World is a conference that provides the opportunity to learn more and network.
Get informed and stay relevant!
Staying up-to-date is up to you, and it’s pretty easy with a world of information at your fingertips. A simple Google search can yield additional sources of updates, as can talking to other professionals in your field.
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