The VS X Spring ‘24 Drop has arrived. With Q1 of 2024 almost out, it’s  the perfect opportunity to bring you up to speed on the latest additions to our new eCommerce platform, VS X. 

The introduction of "VS X" marks the debut of our brand new platform, where the "X" signifies a departure from the traditional numerical naming of our previous versions and a complete rethink of what an eCommerce platform should be. "VS X" is not merely an update but an entirely new product, designed from scratch whilst running alongside your existing admin. Built on a cutting-edge multi-tenant architecture, "VS X" offers a fresh, modern and streamlined user experience. VS X features a stunning redesigned interface whilst introducing brand new functionality each quarter, all crafted to simplify and improve your retail and customer service capabilities like never before.

Our VS X Spring ‘24 Drop includes these features that are available right now:

• A new home for all activities in VS X

The home in VS X takes all our market research and expertise to deliver an experience we don’t think exists anywhere else. Built to be a rapid, responsive and performant experience, which is already getting the kind of feedback we want to hear from users, and know how powerful this is as we continue to build VS X. We started from scratch with brand new architecture to completely rethink how retailers should use an eCommerce platform. Intentionally starting with VS X  Insights and Analytics as client performance is always right in the forefront of our minds whilst we’re engineering VS X. Our platform users will start to see how we’ve woven in key performance indicators throughout the platform, helping give a pragmatic snapshot of online performance.

From the home screen,  in addition to Insights and Analytics available now,  users will start to see the rest of VS X functionality arrive in future Drops through 2024 and beyond. 

• Dive deeper into Insights with our Analytics feature

Since we revealed VS X and our first Insights and Analytics screens at VSFest 2023, we’ve continued to enhance its core capabilities. The changes we’ve implemented have been inspired by our planned roadmap enhancements  as well as  early client feedback, which we massively appreciate. In addition to Orders, Comms and Customers users will now find Channels and Inventory screens. Channels includes a new sales by payment method chart and we’ve improved error handling and messaging in the event of charts failing to load. Users will find the whole Analytics section feels slicker and faster due to ongoing optimisation we’re making to the VS X Platform.

• Do you sell age restricted products (vaping, knives or gift sets, kitchenware, alcohol, or pharmaceuticals)? VS Verify is ready for you

We’ve partnered with Verify My Age, industry leaders in advanced customer friendly age verification solutions, to build VS Verify. Baked right into the core of our platform, VS Verify helps you comply with age restricted product sales by ensuring age compliance happens at the checkout - not with a courier - in a fast easy way for customers. At just 50p per uniquely verified customer (you don’t pay again if they return to your store) it’s one of the most comprehensive and competitive age verification solutions, built into an eCommerce platform. 

• New Checkout UI is now available in Beta

We’re excited to announce our brand new checkout UI is available for users keen to level up the shopping experience. Entirely rebuilt, it’s fast, responsive and designed to convert. With a simple one page progress through the checkout, the shopper is at the forefront of the experience. We’ve stripped this checkout back so it is performant. This means it doesn’t yet offer every single feature of our previous checkout, but when there’s a proven case for conversion enhancement by offering a feature, we will add it. 

• Customer relationship management takes off in VS X

We’re thrilled to introduce the first Beta release of a new home for everything Customer related on VS X. Customers now serves as a central hub for Customer Relationship and Service Management features, starting with a major improvement to the user experience. As of March 19th, our clients now have access to Customer Directory, Customer Groups and a brand new, rethought Customer Profile. This customer profile will grow in time to offer a single source of truth for your customers, but today launches with a new  Customer Timeline, Customer Notes & Comments all in one place. We’re rapidly building out functionality to make this area of VS X a CRM powerhouse.

• Make more customers with marketplaces Debenhams,  Secret Sales and TikTok in Beta

Marketplaces provide you with greater opportunities to sell your products across a range of channels to new customers. In addition to existing marketplaces,we’ve introduced TikTok, Debenhams and Secret Sales to our marketplace connectors. These channels are deeply integrated into VS X providing our clients with a single point of management for numerous eCommerce avenues.

What’s coming next?

• Advanced reporting capabilities 

We’ve been working to enhance the platform’s reporting capabilities, with lots currently in Beta. Soon our clients will have access to support for popular standard reports, plus the ability to report custom fields & enriched filters, save report variations and utilise ‘options’ within reports e.g sort columns / export as CSV. All reporting uses the Platform’s new data lake. This database is performance optimised for reporting and BI; allowing data to be run quickly and without detriment to store performance.

• Build better emails with VS Comms

Our next major feature coming soon is our all new VS Comms solution - including a new best in breed newsletter editor, powered by market leader ‘Bee’. The new email editor is used in all newsletters bringing consistency and self-service capabilities to both marketing and transactional newsletters. It’s effortless to use. Just drag and drop rows of content to your email layout and then drag content blocks on to your added rows.  The editor supports a range of content; from text, to images, icons, videos, gifs and more, plus a new product picker allows you to quickly insert specific products, or dynamically add them based on rules you set. Keep your eyes peeled for more information and a sneak peak in the coming months.

There’s so much more to come as we continue to deliver on our VS X vision. It’s engineered by us, built for our clients to be able to thrive online. 

Or if you'd like to speak to the team about re-platforming your store to VS X, get in touch.