OroCommerce remains the B2B e-commerce platform of the future, they prove it again with the latest release: OroCommerce 5. We are happy to discover that also in this release Oro once again responds to requested improvements or features within the community and partners.

Want to know what the most important new features are? Be sure to read on!

• Improved customer experience: lightning-fast responsiveness
  OroCommerce got a big performance boost by revamping storefront assets, especially JavaScript, and improving server response time. Buyers don't get stuck, even with product listings or orders containing hundreds or even thousands of items.

   

• Faster loading high-quality images
  Oro 5 supports the WebP image format by default. JPEG-quality images load in a fraction of the time.

   

• Accessibiltity: fully accessible to all users!
  OroCommerce 5.0 is fully compatible with screen readers and other assistive technology. The storefront and back office comply with WCAG and ADA requirements. Customers as well as employees with visual and/or physical disabilities can take advantage of various assistive elements, such as auto-completion of searches, captions, larger text font and keyboard-optimized navigation.

   

• Downloadable searches and filtered results
  Customers can download their search to an Excel spreadsheet for later viewing or share the file offline with team members. You can control which product features can be exported, as this feature is fully customizable.

• Saved searches and notifications keep customers informed
  Customers can now save their searches and be notified when there are new products or when stock status changes.  It is the easiest way to increase repeat purchases or average order values as well as an easy way to lure back lost customers.

• Manage searches onsite with weighted attributes
  Determine the order of how products are displayed in onsite search results with weighted attributes. Assign importance to attributes such as product description or SKU to prioritize listings in onsite search results. Promote items that sell more often, have higher inventory or achieve higher user reviews.

• RTL language support
  Expand your reach with support for right-to-left (RTL) languages. Full frontend and backend support for RTL languages such as Hebrew, Farsi, Arabic, Pashto and Urdu, ensures that the language and layout look good for a truly local-UX. Buyers can navigate, search and store in their own language, while your staff can perform any back-office function needed in a format they are comfortable using. All of this translates into increased trust, engagement and most importantly, sales.
   

• New productivity tools for your workforce: Microsoft Office 365 integration
  Full integration with Microsoft Office 365! This lets team members spend less time switching between windows, leaving you more time to build customer relationships. Single sign-in makes it easy to sync contacts, calendars, tasks and emails. 
   

Oro continues to rely on PHP as the server-side scripting language. This means that OroCommerce is not vulnerable to Java attacks such as Log4j. In addition, they have updated the entire tech stack for:

Symfony 5.4 LTS
PHP 8.1 security release
PostgreSQL 13 / MySQL 8
ElasticSearch 8
NodeJS 16
Redis 6
MongoDB 4.4

Added to this are the minor improvements, fixes and optimizations listed in the official release notes.

Numerous API improvements.
OroCommerce remains committed to providing best-in-class APIs. With this release, they have enhanced their extensive library of APIs so that you can use OroCommerce to implement headless, composable, or unified eCommerce strategies. They have implemented numerous API enhancements for both back-end and front-end and continue to expand their APIs throughout this year.