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Store launchpads updates

Comprehensive updates and enhancements in B2C Retail and B2B Manufacturing store launchpads.

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After completing this page, you should be able to:

  • Understand the technology stack modernization including Next.js 15.x, Node.js 22, and TypeScript SDK v3 migration.

  • Implement accessibility best practices and utilize Storybook testing tools to meet WCAG standards.

  • Configure discount features, Customer Groups, and dynamic page rules for personalized shopping experiences.

  • Differentiate between B2C and B2B-specific capabilities such as Payment Only mode and Associate Shopping Lists.

Both the Store Launchpad for B2C Retail and the Store Launchpad for B2B Manufacturing received substantial updates throughout 2025. The focus areas included modernizing the technology stack, implementing accessibility improvements, achieving feature parity with core commercetools capabilities, and enhancing overall performance.

Technology stack modernization

Keeping the foundation current was a priority in early 2025, with updates to core technologies across both store launchpads.

  • Next.js and Node.js updates: both launchpads were upgraded to support Next.js version 15.1.2 and Node.js version 22. These upgrades deliver important security patches that address known vulnerabilities, boost performance in server-side rendering and API routes, enhance the developer experience with clearer error messages, and enable access to the latest React capabilities.
  • Later in the year, another round of updates brought Next.js to version 15.2.4 with additional critical security fixes. The development tooling also received attention, with ESLint updated to version 9.22.0, TypeScript to version 5.8.2, and typescript-eslint to version 8.28.0, all contributing to better code quality and language support.
  • Node.js version support plan: to help development teams plan their infrastructure and upgrades with confidence, commercetools introduced a formal Node.js version support plan for Frontend projects and store launchpads. This plan clarifies which Node.js versions receive official support, aligns support timelines with Node.js LTS releases, establishes clear deprecation schedules for aging versions, and provides migration guidance as versions approach end-of-life.
  • Frontend extensions improvements: both store launchpads underwent a significant backend modernization with the migration from the TypeScript SDK's sdk-client-v2 to sdk-client-v3. This transition brings several advantages: more efficient API communication improves performance, access to the latest SDK capabilities enables new features, reduced bundle sizes speed up page loads, enhanced TypeScript type definitions improve developer productivity, and the update aligns with commercetools' long-term SDK strategy.

Accessibility enhancements

Accessibility became a major focus in 2025, with comprehensive improvements across both store launchpads designed to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards and create inclusive shopping experiences.

  • Accessibility best practices: comprehensive accessibility guidelines were both documented and implemented specifically for the store launchpads. These improvements span semantic HTML usage with proper Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) attributes, intuitive keyboard navigation patterns, thoughtful focus management strategies, color contrast ratios that meet accessibility standards, screen reader compatibility throughout the interface, and accessible form design and validation.
  • Storybook accessibility integration: both store launchpads received an accessibility add-on in their respective Storybook instances. This integration provides automated accessibility testing for each component, real-time violations detection during development, checks WCAG compliance at multiple levels (A, AA, AAA), analyzes color contrast ratios, and verifies keyboard navigation.
The accessibility documentation and testing tools are available through each launchpad's Storybook instance—for B2B Manufacturing and B2C Retail.

Discount and pricing features

Achieving feature parity with the broader commercetools platform was a key goal, particularly around discounts and pricing capabilities.

  • Customer Groups support: both launchpads gained support for Customer Groups, enabling you to assign customers to specific groups, deliver group-specific promotions and pricing, implement tiered pricing strategies for different customer segments, and create specialized segments like VIP or wholesale buyers.
  • The B2C launchpad took this further by adding support for multiple Customer Groups, allowing individual customers to belong to more than one group at the same time. This functionality works seamlessly with backend extensions that handle the group assignment mapping.
  • Comprehensive discount types: all major discount types are now fully functional in both launchpads (no UI available for the B2C Retail launchpad). Product Discounts apply automatic price reductions to specific products, Cart Discounts use predicate rules to apply discounts to the entire cart based on conditions, and Discount Codes let customers enter promotional codes to unlock special offers.

Payment and checkout enhancements (B2C)

The B2C Retail launchpad received specialized payment capabilities designed to offer more flexibility in Checkout configurations, allowing you to choose between Complete Checkout mode (the traditional full checkout flow) and Payment Only mode on your store launchpad.

When using Payment Only mode, customers can save their addresses in the My Account area, ensuring convenience for repeat purchases even with the streamlined checkout approach. This is ideal for certain business models or simplified purchasing scenarios.

Dynamic page capabilities

Dynamic pages received significant enhancements that make content personalization more accessible and powerful, in particular:

  • Dynamic page rules and filters: both store launchpads now support dynamic filters on dynamic pages, allowing you to create dynamic page rules directly in the Studio interface. This functionality enables you to define conditions that determine when specific content appears, target content to particular product or product listing pages, build conditions based on product attributes using convenient dropdown selectors, and create personalized banner displays or content sections that adapt to the shopping context.

B2B-specific enhancements

The Store Launchpad for B2B Manufacturing received several updates tailored specifically to business-to-business workflows:

  • Associate Shopping Lists: This feature enables associates to manage shopping lists on behalf of their Business Units. From the Purchase Lists page, associates can view all shopping lists tied to their Business Unit, create new lists for the organization, update existing lists, and delete lists when needed. The specific actions available to each associate depend on their assigned roles and permissions within the Business Unit structure.
  • Configurable checkout redirect: checkout flow management became more flexible with the ability to configure the Thank You page URL directly in the Studio, eliminating the need to modify environment variables. To update this URL, open the Site builder, select the page version you're editing, open the Checkout component, navigate to the Redirect URL after Checkout section, and enter your preferred URL (the default is /thank-you).
Both launchpads later received a related enhancement where the checkout callback URL was moved to project configuration in the Studio, centralizing checkout-related URL management in a more accessible location.

Repository updates

In mid-2025, commercetools deprecated and replaced the store launchpad repositories with new versions:

When you generate a new customer repository from these scaffolds, the resulting code becomes your property and operates independently—it doesn't automatically receive updates from the base scaffold. If you want to stay current with improvements made to the scaffold repositories, you'll need to establish your own process for pulling in those updates, whether through manual review and integration or automated tooling.

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