As the world renowned frontrunner of enterprise e-commerce platforms, Hybris is the obvious choice for taking your online business to the next level.
Updated May 22, 2014
As the world renowned frontrunner of enterprise e-commerce platforms, Hybris is the obvious choice for taking your online business to the next level.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
5.0.1
Modules Used
- B2C Storefront
- B2C Mobile Storefront
- B2B Storefront
- WCMS
Overall Satisfaction with Hybris
Razorfish has formed a partnership with Hybris and have adopted the platform as our primary e-commerce offering going forward. My technology division, Razorfish West, led the charge in launching the organization's first implementation for West Marine in February of 2014. Several other Hybris initiatives are in active development throughout the company nation-wide.
- Solid architecture upon the Java Spring framework
- Clear, efficient separation of presentation and data layers
- Easy to setup and maintain local development environment
- UI layer easy to extend, or re-tool to fold in preferred frameworks and utilities.
- CMS Cockpit is slow and inefficient for performing certain kinds of content management and template manipulation tasks. I often defer to the HMC, but this is not a feasible option for our client's content management team.
- The OOTB UI code that ships with v5.0.1 is several years behind industry standard front end technology. v5.1 shows no promise of significant improvements in this arena. Some things I'd like to see: Dropping the Blueprint framework in favor of something Like Bootstrap, Less Framework or AngularJS. Jquery and key dependent plug-ins need to be upgraded and large, over-featured plugins like JQuery UI abandoned. SASS + Compass should replace static CSS. Granule should be dropped in favor of better tools for JS dependency management, code minification, and file concatenation.
- Maintaining independent codebases for Desktop and Mobile views increases UI development hours by a margin of 30-50%. Natively supporting the option to configure a responsive design with a framework such as AngularJS would offer flexibility to serve up content and site chrome targeted at a wider range of device classes than just desktop machines and mobile phones.
- With one solid Hybris implementation live, and another on it's heels in Q3, we've built significant in-house expertise in the platform. As we win more Hybris business, our ability to rapidly implement performant and unique e-commerce solutions for our clients can only improve.
Using Hybris
sales, client engagement, technology leadership, new feature development and testing.
Hybris Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Professional services company
Implemented with a combination of in-house resources and experts contracted through Sceneric that worked both on-site in the Razorfish offices and remotely from Europe. I cannot say enough good things about Sceneric.
Yes - We organized the project into eight 3-week feature development sprints, a stabilization phase where we focused on critical defect resolution, and a UAT phase prior to launching the site.
Development of the sister site is underway and organized in a similar fashion.
Development of the sister site is underway and organized in a similar fashion.
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - With the scope of an initiative like this one being so large, there are always challenges in managing changing business needs of the client, scope creep, unforeseen technical hiccups, and all of the other things that contribute to churn. There was nothing unique to Hybris about the issues we faced.
The only thing I would say in regards to lessons learned specific to my own area of expertise, is that I would have put a great deal more effort prior to starting feature development, into scrutinizing the front end architecture that ships with Hybris to make certain it would scale to accommodate inevitable deviation from original specifications and allow adoption of new tech as it becomes relevant.
The only thing I would say in regards to lessons learned specific to my own area of expertise, is that I would have put a great deal more effort prior to starting feature development, into scrutinizing the front end architecture that ships with Hybris to make certain it would scale to accommodate inevitable deviation from original specifications and allow adoption of new tech as it becomes relevant.
- Steep learning curve for front end developers not already well versed in the Java stack
- Hybris documentation, at the point of project initiation a year ago, was too sparse to be helpful in the training of new members of my team.
- Impex files and the placement of significant portions of presentation layer code within them, was highly problematic for my UI team. One of the major functions of impex files is to store default CMS editable site content, and it was an arduous process to learn best how to troubleshoot and resolve defects for functionality that came from the markup stored within them.
Using Hybris
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Feel confident using Familiar | Requires technical support Cumbersome |
- Via the HMC, bulk modifications to templates, modules, products, etc, were very easy to make
- Editing templates via the CMS cockpit was very intuitive and straightforward.
- The preview and live edit features in the CMS cockpit were incredibly helpful.
- Understanding how Endeca integrated with the product catalog and categorization took some time to wrap my brain around.
- Documentation around category restrictions and other vital configuration details is sparse, requiring a lot of trial and error to learn when and how to apply them.
Yes - The mobile interface should be dropped entirely in favor of responsive design support.
Because the mobile site is an entirely separate codebase, supporting it required my team to author a lot of duplicate functionality with only slight differences between the desktop and mobile implementations.
Because the mobile site is an entirely separate codebase, supporting it required my team to author a lot of duplicate functionality with only slight differences between the desktop and mobile implementations.