What can Crystallize bring to an e-commerce site? How is it different from other CMSs? In this article, we introduce you to the Crystallize CMS, along with its advantages and disadvantages when used for an e-commerce website.
Created by two Norwegian brothers, Brad and Aleksander Farstad, the Crystallize e-commerce CMS meets the requirements of today’s CMSs, namely: being able to manage any type of content, whether text, an image, a video and so on, regardless of the medium used.
What the Crystallize CMS is made of
The Crystallize CMS was designed with the aim of offering users the best possible digital experience. It is therefore simple and fast, but for that reason it does require a little code.
Why is it faster than another e-commerce CMS?
Unlike the CMSs we are used to working with, Crystallize does not offer any ready-made templates. That is an advantage, since it therefore does not need to load a multitude of features you will probably never use. In return, however, it does require a minimum of programming.
GraphQL integration and the PIM solution
The Crystallize e-commerce CMS uses the GraphQL query language in order to associate each property with the value of the products requested in the query.
The PIM (Product Information Management) solution then manages the e-commerce website’s products in order to organise them. PIM takes care of querying the various sources containing catalogue and product information in order to bring them together at back-end level into a single source containing descriptions, price, images and so on.
Example of code output with GraphQL
A headless e-commerce CMS
Crystallize is what is known as a “headless” CMS, because it does not concern itself with what the user is going to see on screen. It simply writes the raw text for the developer, who will then need to bring in React to build the product presentation structure. You can then choose the layout and position of the elements that will present the e-commerce site’s various products.
Topic maps
The Crystallize CMS makes it possible to create topic maps in order to offer users products similar to the one they have searched for. This creates a common thread through the user’s journey towards finding the ideal product.
A CMS that will boost your sales
Fast, practical and effective, Crystallize is designed, on the one hand, to offer users a better experience and, on the other, to allow you to improve your profitability by doing everything possible to help you generate more sales.
A little extra coming soon: forecasts
Crystallize plans to add very shortly an interface that will provide you with some forecasting and data analysis on your sales. You will be able to find your number of sales, your best products, your profit, but also data about your new customers. That way you get an overview of past months and of the current month, and you will be able to adjust your sales strategy to the market with a view to improving your profitability.
The common thread through searches
Who has never compared products to find the one that suits them best, the one that will meet all their expectations? We all do it, which is why, thanks to the topic maps you can set up on your e-commerce site, the user will be offered products similar to their search as well as complementary products. Topic maps will allow you to classify your products into categories in order to organise them into an effective hierarchy. All the user then has to do is move from product to product to discover your online shop.
Effective SEO
On the web, it is important to stand out in order to attract as many people as possible. Once the editorial guidelines, the visual identity and the various strategies are in place, all that remains is to work on your SEO in order to be at the top. Lighter and therefore faster, the Crystallize CMS is popular with the crawlers that index your site — not forgetting that speed is a point Google favours in its ranking.
The Crystallize CMS benefits from a community around it. The CMS’s developers listen closely to that community and react quickly when an issue is reported several times. They aim to develop React packages to address and resolve the problem so that future use is simpler.
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