Release highlights of 2024

Time to complete page: 10 minutes

A lot of things can happen in a year, and that certainly is true in the world of commercetools. This self-learning module is designed to remind you about the most significant releases that took place in 2024, so that you are up-to-date and ready to take your commercetools Composable Commerce Functional Architect Renewal Exam.

Please note that completing this module is not a mandatory requirement to take the Certification Renewal exam. If you’ve been following the Composable Commerce release notes over the year, you’re likely already aware of many of these changes. If you haven't been following the release notes, or need a refresher about the changes, then this module has everything you need to bring you right up to date!

A full list of 2024 release notes for Composable Commerce can of course be found in the Release Notes section of our documentation.

Prerequisites

As we progress through the module, you may want to try out some of the new features. Creating a new project populated with sample data is a great way to start experimenting in a quick way. You can find information on starting a new project with B2C sample data here.

Prepare an API client and create a bearer token

Not all features covered in this module are accessible via the Merchant Center and can only be demonstrated through the API. To keep those examples as universal as possible, we will use cURL to issue API requests. If you are not familiar with using cURL, we recommend that you take a look at our Accessing with cURL Cheatsheet.

All cURL examples are easily adaptable for use in API testing tools such as Postman, Bruno, etc. At times, cURL responses can be difficult to read due to lots of returned results, so we suggest that you pipe them through jq as mentioned in the cURL Cheatsheet.

Follow the instructions for getting an access token to create an API client for your project, and use cURL to generate a bearer token that authorizes your API requests.

To make sure that you have set up everything correctly, try executing the following cURL command to query the categories available in your Project:

curl --get https://api.{region}.commercetools.com/{projectKey}/categories  \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer {bearerToken}' | jq

Ready? Let’s get started!

Release highlights

Product Catalog

• Product Tailoring: This feature empowers merchants to customize and enhance their Product offerings across various markets, enabling more targeted and market-specific product strategies.
• Product Search API: A new high-performance search API was launched to help merchants build faster and more efficient storefront search experiences. This improvement significantly boosts Product discoverability across Stores, Product Selections, and Standalone Prices, making it easier for customers to find the products they need.
• Enhanced Product Management in the Merchant Center: Managing Products has become more streamlined with new import and export capabilities. Merchants can now import products directly from CSV files and export them to CSV or JSON formats. This functionality also extends to Inventory entries (import/export) and Categories, allowing for smoother data handling and bulk updates.
• Expanded Product Variant view with customizable columns: The Product list page now allows merchants to expand each Product to view detailed information about its variants. Thanks to the redesigned column manager, merchants have full control over what Product Variant information is displayed, allowing for a more personalized and efficient Product management experience.
• Simplified Product Variant duplication: Creating new Product Variants is now quicker and easier. Merchants can duplicate existing variants directly within the Merchant Center, reducing manual work and accelerating the process of expanding Product lines.

Customers

• General availability of the authenticationMode field: As of early 2024, the authenticationMode field on Customer is now generally available. This gives you the flexibility to choose whether customers log in using a password or through external authentication methods. This option is fully integrated into the Merchant Center and is part of the enhanced Customer creation flow, which also allows merchants to specify the customer’s key and locale during setup for a more streamlined process.
• Advanced Customer search functionality: The new Customer search provides a more flexible and efficient way to manage Customer data. Enhanced search filters now allow merchants to search across multiple fields, including Custom Fields, and support partial search queries. This makes it much easier to locate specific Customers, even when only limited information is available. Additionally, Customer data can now be exported directly from the Merchant Center for further use.
• Expanded Customer Groups limit: Organizing Customers has become significantly more scalable with the increase of the default Customer Groups limit from 1,000 to 10,000. This expansion enables you to segment and manage larger customer bases more effectively, supporting more complex marketing and customer engagement strategies.

Pricing and discounts

• Redesigned Discount configuration: In 2024, the Merchant Center’s Discount configuration for Product and Cart Discounts was revamped, offering a more intuitive and streamlined setup process.
• Improved Discount Code management: Discount Codes can now be imported from CSV files or generated directly in the Merchant Center. Generated codes can be exported to CSV or JSON, with the option generating random keys for easier imports.
• New distribution modes for absolute Cart Discounts: Absolute Cart Discounts now offer more flexibility with new distribution modes—merchants can apply discounts evenly, individually, or proportionally across items.
• Buy and Get Discounts replace Multibuy Discounts: Multibuy Cart Discounts have been replaced with more flexible Buy and Get Discounts, allowing for more dynamic and engaging promotional offers.

Carts, Orders, and Shipping Methods

• Enhanced Custom Fields support: Custom Fields can now be viewed and edited directly in the Merchant Center for Order Line Items, Custom Line Items, Transactions, and Quotes, improving order customization and management.
• New taxPortions field for detailed tax breakdown: The new taxPortions field in TaxedItemPrice allows you to view individual tax subrate amounts for Line Items and shipping costs, providing greater tax transparency.
• Improved tax subrate calculations: Tax subrates for Line Items are now calculated consistently with the Cart total price, ensuring accurate and reliable tax computations.
• Advanced Quote management: Quotes can now be searched and filtered in the Merchant Center, with the added ability to control which teams can view or edit Quotes for specific Stores.
• Order Export enhancements: Orders can now be exported directly from the Merchant Center, with the option to include detailed Order information in the exported CSV file.
• Shipping Method controls: Shipping Methods can now be easily activated or deactivated in the Merchant Center, and predicates for them can be created using the new predicate builder, similar to the one used for Cart Discounts.

Message Subscriptions and API Extensions

• New Subscription health status: Subscriptions now include a ManuallySuspended status, allowing merchants to pause subscriptions without needing to delete and recreate them when destination queue issues arise.
• Additional Message types: New Messages have been introduced for Discount Codes, changes to Cart Discounts, and changes to Custom Fields and Types on Order Deliveries, enhancing event tracking and integration.
• Extended API Extensions: API Extensions can now be created for Shopping Lists and Customer Groups, providing more flexibility for customization and automation.

Merchant Center and other updates

• Built-in Checkout application: Checkout is now integrated directly into the Merchant Center and can be accessed from the main menu, between Discounts and Audit Log. Previously, it required manual installation for each Project or Organization.
• Introduction of Custom Views: Custom Views, introduced in 2024, allow you to customize existing Merchant Center Applications for a more tailored experience. More details are covered later in this module.