SXA Storefront FAQ

Current version: 10.2

There are many resources available to help you successfully deploy the Storefront beyond the Sitecore documentation including a developer community, a product support knowledgebase, and a Troubleshooting section. If you do not find the answer you are looking for in this list of frequently-asked questions check out the other resources.

The following tables list common FAQs related to SXA Storefront. Additional FAQs are also available for:

General

Question

Answer

Can the commerce components be used without the Commerce Foundation layer?

No, the commerce components require the Commerce Foundation layer for many reasons not the least of which is that it handles communication between independent components and Sitecore Experience Commerce.

Can I use the commerce components without the SXA Storefront?

Yes, the commerce components and commerce foundation layer can be used without the Storefront to build custom web shops using the Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA).

How do I add a language version to a storefront site?

You add a language version to a storefront site in exactly the same way as for an SXA site. See Add a language version to a storefront site.

How do I generate a list of customers who have purchased a specific products?

See Search contacts and Commerce interactions in the xDB index.

Is it possible to have multiple storefronts in the same Sitecore instance?

Yes, you can host multiple storefronts within the same Sitecore solution. They can be part of the same tenant or separate tenants. The storefront sites can share the same hostname (domain name) using virtual paths or they can have different hostnames associated with them.

With multiple storefronts within the same Sitecore instance, you must configure the environment for each storefront.

Is SXA Storefront Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliant?

No.

What purpose does the Commerce Foundation layer serve?

The Foundation layer contains and exposes shared services and functionality that the commerce components consume such as services for inter-component communication. In addition, it takes care of caching, logging, Inversion of Control (IoC), model provider, base classes, exceptions, pipelines, URL resolving, and generation of catalog URLs, Storefront Context for multi-site support and indirectly access to Commerce Control Panel settings.

What is the purpose of the Storefront site template?

To provide an out-of-the-box storefront template built using the commerce components for SXA that allow organizations to quickly deploy cloud-based storefronts through Azure marketplace. The Storefront is built using Helix guidelines whereby the SXA storefront itself represents the project layer (containing content and themes), the commerce-specific components represent the feature module layer, and the Commerce foundation is a part of the foundation layer. You can use the template as a starting point and tailor it to your needs. Once you create a storefront site using the template, you can add or remove pages as required.

Content Hub

Question

Answer

Which version of the Content Hub is supported by SXA Storefront?

SXA Storefront only supports version 3.2 of the Content Hub.

Note

There is no scaling of DAM images in SXA Storefront.

Index

Question

Answer

Does Sitecore automatically generate a sitemap that includes catalog content?

Yes. To see the sitemap, enter the URL https://<servername>/sitemap.xml and view the page source. For information about sitemaps, see Configure a sitemap.

Installation

Question

Answer

If I customize templates, are my changes retained when upgrading to the next version?

Depends on the templates you use. Templates created for a tenant and used by the sites can be customized. These templates are located under /Sitecore/templates/projects/<tenant>. Templates that are part of the built-in features and foundation must not be touched as any changes might be overwritten when upgrading and the system depends on them and their defined structure.

You should always follow the recommended practices.

Where do I find a list of what is installed with SXA Storefront?

See "SXA Storefront installation packages" in the Installation Guide available from the XC download page.

Payment and security

Question

Answer

Does the checkout support payment?

Yes, payment is provided through third-party payment providers (such as Braintree) and supports various credit card payment options. To allow online payment during checkout, the Storefront site template includes integration with BrainTree. Contact BrainTree to negotiate an agreement and obtain the necessary merchant ID. Developer accounts are available for storefront development and testing, You can create a custom commerce component to integrate the payment provider of your choice.

For additional information, see the Installation Guide available from the XC download page.

For an overview of how to integrate the Braintree payment provider, see Discover Sitecore

Is the SXA storefront PCI compliant?

No. Since a third-party payment provider is used and SXA Storefront is not persisting any personal payment information beyond a token issued by the payment provider, there is no further need for privacy measures normally required to be PCI compliant.

Is HTTPS protocol used to encrypt the communication for sensitive pages?

Yes. All pages on the SXA storefront enforce the use of HTTPS, which has become best practice. 

During development, it might be useful to turn HTTPS mode off, which can be done in the Commerce Control Panel for the individual storefronts.

Can HTTPS protocol be disabled?

Yes, you can disable HTTPS protocol, which can be useful during the development phase of a project.

Storefront development

Question

Answer

Which renderings should I use for site navigation?

You can use the Page Content and Page List renderings instead of the Subcategory Navigation rendering. These renderings support rendering variants and sort alphabetically by default. You can base the Page List rendering on a query that targets child items and renders links to the sub-categories; however, it only works with Sitecore queries and not with ContentSearch queries. As a result, it requires catalog structure in Sitecore content. When using the Page Content rendering, you can execute a ContentSearch query, which works with Catalog Buckets as well.

See Choosing between available renderings.

How do I display the product title and description?

You can show the product title and description on product detail and landing pages using a rendering variant for the standard Page Content SXA component.

How can I generate a more user-friendly URL?

Currently, you can change the Shop or wildcard route in the Commerce Control Panel.

From Sitecore XC 9.1, the URL follows the item structure in content even for catalog items through direct navigation.

Also, beginning in Sitecore XC 9.1, you can use properties in the CatalogLinkProvider class (with the exception of shortenUrls and useDisplayName) defined in the Reference.Storefront.config file.

How do I add the Visited Category Page Event or the Visited Product Page Event to my storefront page? I do not see these renderings in the Toolbox.

In order for product or category visits to be recorded in xDB with detailed information on the category and product respectively, you must add the Visited Product Page rendering or the Visited Category Page rendering to the page. These renderings are not visible on the live storefront but are visible in the Experience Editor.

To add the Visited Category Page Event rendering to a category page for example, in the Content Editor, select the category page (sitecore/Content/<tenant>/<site>/Presentation/Partial Designs/Category Page Content and, on the ribbon, on the Presentation tab, click Details. In the Layout Details dialog box, click MVC Layout and then in the list to the left of the dialog box, click Controls. In the list of controls, click Visited Category Page, and click OK. In the Layout Details dialog box, click OK again.

Note

Do not enable the events from the Optimization tab because custom values on the event will not be included in xDB.

Is there a way to clean up abandoned or empty carts so that the database isn't cluttered with unused information?

SXA Storefront only stores a few simple values such as the cart ID and current language in xDB and no method exists in Marketing Automation (XP) out of the box for cleaning up this list. However, on the Commerce side, you can use the PurgeCartsPolicy to define the threshold (in number of days) when empty or abandoned carts become eligible for deletion.

Is there an API for the Storefront?

Commerce Components are implemented using MVC and as such, the controllers represent the API for the Storefront.

Commerce Connect is the public Commerce API and can be used to integrate web shops with external commerce systems or inject additional logic between the Storefront and the Commerce Engine.

Marketing Automation

Question

Answer

What is the purpose of the Top level commerce campaign goal that I see in the Commerce marketing automation plan?

The Top level Commerce Campaign goal is not used.

Why do I see two abandoned cart marketing automation plans?

The Cart Abandonment campaign is not used in Commerce. Commerce marketing automation campaigns adhere to the following naming convention: shopName+" "+templateName. For example, Storefront Abandoned Cart.

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