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This feature is supported for: Aspenware Cloud customers only. |
Aspenware Cloud 3.0 offers the new Commerce Site Navigation feature to all Aspenware Cloud customers. Features of the new site navigation include:
New and improved UX wayfinding to navigate shopping categories, link to the marketing website, access shopping carts, and log in/create an account.
External linking categories to enable seamless navigation to other shopping pages
Focused categories that appear on desktop navigation
A 3.7% increase in purchase rate for mobile users with the new header (per A/B testing results).
A slightly modified version of this site navigation will be available to all customers in the coming months.
New Feature Quick Comparison - Standard Navigation vs. Commerce Site Navigation
The following table offers a quick glimpse into the differences between how navigation features are realized currently in Commerce and contrast them with Commerce Site Navigation.
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Feature
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Standard Header
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Commerce Site Navigation
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Shop Header
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Free-form, customized to each resort that:
Often does not include shop elements (cart, categories, login status).
Includes a logo linked to the resort marketing site.
Contains shop navigation in separate, centered shop..navigation located in the center of the screen and standard.
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Single commerce navigation header that:
Enables navigating shopping categories, cart, and back to the marketing site.
Includes data on customer cart count and authentication status.
Is available and required for all Aspenware Cloud customers.
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Externally Linking Categories
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Not available
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Navigation and add-to-cart from a category that exists on another site (typically the resort’s marketing site).
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Focused Categories
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All categories display in Category dropdown (unless hidden). All categories must be set to “Include in top menu” for the category to work.
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Up to four categories can now be flagged as focused header categories that will appear in a header when viewing the shop from a desktop. If more than four categories are configured as focused header categories, the shop will append a More… link as a fifth option, and selecting this will open the sidebar navigation, where the complete set of categories can be viewed (inclusive of focused header categories).
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Add-to-Cart Notification
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When a customer adds a product variant to their cart, a mini cart slides out to signify a successful add.
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When a customer adds a product variant to their cart an add-to-cart notice will now appear. This cart notice will appear below the cart icon on a desktop view, and on mobile, it will fill the screen.
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Category Breadcrumbs
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Parent category name is listed in the “I’m looking for” area of the “centered shop nav.”
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Breadcrumbs are visible when a guest is viewing a category and shows which category they are viewling.
New Features
Commerce Site Navigation Header
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Guests will use Commerce Site Navigation is the primary method to navigate between shopping categories, their cart, link to log in/out of the shop (via Identity), and, for logged-in guests, access their My Account page.
Category List
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Customer and Cart
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If a logged-in customer clears their cookies or browsing info, their cart will remain unchanged. However, if a customer is not logged in, their cart is associated with a guest customer and a first-party cookie, so clearing their cookies or browsing info also resets the cart.
HINT: First-party cookies, according to clearcode.com, are “cookies (that) are created by the host domain – the domain the user is visiting. These types of cookies are generally considered good; they help provide a better user experience and keep the session open. This basically means the browser is able to remember key pieces of information, such as which items you add to shopping carts.”
Additionally, if a customer is logged in, they will see a new personalized link to their shop My Account page within their menu sidebar that includes their contact picture, if an image is uploaded. They will also see the option to log out.
Externally Linking Categories
A category in the Category List can be configured as an Externally Linking Category and is configured in Aspenware Commerce Admin. These categories exist on another site (typically the resort’s marketing site).
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Focused Header Categories (Desktop Only)
Up to four categories can now be flagged as focused header categories that will appear in the header when viewing the shop from a desktop. If more than four categories are configured as focused header categories, the shop will append a More… link as a fifth option, and selecting this will open the sidebar navigation, where the complete set of categories can be viewed (inclusive of focused header categories).
Add-to-Cart Notice
When a customer adds a product variant to their cart in a shop using Commerce Site Navigation, rather than the mini cart sliding out to signify a successful add, an add-to-cart notice will now appear below the cart icon on a desktop view, and on mobile it will fill the screen. This cart notice includes information about the product variant that was just added to the cart, including the product’s name, the attribute values of the added variant, and the product variant’s price. It also includes summary information about the customer’s cart, including the cart subtotal and the total number of items in the cart. The customer can choose to clear out of this notice, proceed to their cart, or proceed to checkout from the notice.
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Breadcrumbs on Category and Product Pages
When a guest views a category on any device or a product page on a desktop, breadcrumbs are now visible. Because the parent category name is no longer listed in the “I’m looking for” area of the “centered shop nav,” which has been replaced by Commerce Site Navigation, this breadcrumb shows the guest which category they are viewing.
If a guest is on a category page without child categories (subcategories), the breadcrumb is not clickable but lists the name of the category.
If a guest is on a child category (subcategory) page, the breadcrumb is formatted [Parent Category]/ [Child Category]. The parent category is clickable and links to the parent category, and the child category is not clickable.
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If a guest is on a product page in desktop view, then the breadcrumb is formatted [Parent Category]/ [Child category], and both the parent category and child category are clickable, linking to the appropriate categories.
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NOTE: Product page breadcrumbs only appear on desktop. The mobile experience of navigating back to the category will continue to use the focused header that displays “< [Category Name]” in the upper left corner of the screen. |
Additional Enhancements
In addition to the new navigation and category elements, there are several additional enhancements that come with the header.
Improved Admin access
If an Admin guest is logged in, then, within their sidebar, they will see a new Admin link to the Admin area.
Improved Access to the resort’s marketing site
Main logo
Sidebar navigation Main Site text
Sidebar navigation “mini logo” (Optional)
Minor theme changes
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Integrated in place of the previous custom header (more details above)
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Modernized cart icon and count appearance
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Removed the “I’m looking for” banner, replacing it with the new navigation. The previous banner included shop categories and links to sign in/, my account, and the cart.
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Increased content area width for category pages (desktop only)
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Inventory Scarcity Indicators enable resorts to display scarcity color-coding on the inline calendar based on a predefined threshold that is specific to a particular product. Therefore, thresholds can vary which is helpful for things like lessons which have a much smaller threshold than lift tickets.
Feature Overview
Research shows that creating a sense of urgency for inventoried products is a motivation for guests to purchase, and is proven to drive more revenue and boost conversions. Color coding low inventory dates offers the messaging that creates that sense of urgency.
One resort ran an A/B test on its lesson products for the 2023/24 season, splitting traffic 50/50, with 50% of the traffic seeing today’s calendar which only shows dates that are sold out, and 50% of traffic seeing a calendar that color-coded dates running low on inventory as yellow to drive urgency. In this test, the color-coded experience won with a 4.4% increase in lesson purchases compared to today, and $110k more in-test revenue.
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NOTE: This feature requires additional configuration from Aspenware. Reach out to your Aspenware Service Agent to enable this feature if you are an Aspenware Cloud customer. |
Displaying Urgency Indicators
To enable resorts to capitalize on the opportunity to offer scarcity messaging, the Inventory Scarcity Indicators feature is offered on the calendar appearing on the Inline calendar on the product detail page . This feature enables the following functionality:
Display the same low inventory color-coding that is available on the full dynamic pricing calendar today across both the large dynamic pricing calendar and the inline calendar displayed on the product detail page.
Offer low inventory color-coding that is available today across more product types, with the introduction of calendar templates that enables the assignment of specific thresholds to specific products.
If a selected date is below the store-wide inventory threshold, display the number left on that date on the PDP. This feature can be used to educate guests booking multiple quantities of spots left, for example, a person booking for a party of 4 will now know there are only 2 spots left before adding to cart and can call to get help or choose an alternate date.
Allow unique low inventory thresholds that determine the display of color coding for a specific product or group of products rather than a singular, store-wide threshold.
Display messaging above the calendar of specific products to explain to guests what to do if a date they are interested is sold out or nearing selling out.
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Feature Quick Comparison - Aspenware Commerce vs. Cloud
The following table offers a quick glimpse into the differences between how inventory urgency features are realized currently in Commerce and contrast them with Aspenware Cloud.
Feature | Aspenware Commerce | Aspenware Cloud |
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Threshold to determine low inventory | Store-wide low inventory threshold that applies to all products that use the dyanmic pricing calendar and have inventory. For non-Cloud implementations, the store determines a product is “low-inventory” if it drops below a store-wide inventory number. This store-wide inventory threshold is not always an accurate low inventory barometer across distinct product types, for example, a ticket may be considered low if a date only has 100 left, while a lesson may be considered low when it has less than 10 left. | Enables the same low inventory color-coding that is available today across more product types, with the introduction of calendar templates, which allows low inventory thresholds, which determine the number left at which to display color coding on dates. This is triggered by a unique threshold that only applies to a group of assigned products. |
Display Low Inventory Dates on the Inline PDP Calendar | Not supported | The Inline Calendar on the PDP will display low inventory dates as color coded if the product is configured to display inventory urgency. |
Display a Date Selection Description above Calendar | Not supported | Enables displaying a description that can appear above the Inline calendar of assigned products on the PDP. This can be used to explain to users what to do in the event the date they are interested is sold out or doesn’t have enough spots for their desired party size. |
Considerations
Only the Large Pricing Calendar and the Inline Calendar on the PDP is able to display Inventory Scarcity Indicators, the standard Drop-Down calendar and Radio Button Dates are not able to display Inventory Scarcity yet.
In this first release, only the inline calendar is using the new Calendar Templates threshold. This means that if a product is set to use both the Large Pricing Calendar and the Inventory Scarcity Indicators on the Inline Calendar on the PDP, the color coding thresholds could be different, causing different days to be color coded across the screens. The Large Pricing Calendar will be updated to be able to read from the Calendar Templates threshold in a future release.
Displaying # left on the PDP is not set to be displayed based on the calendar template threshold yet.
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