(SYS-CON Media) - Allurent announced the availability of its Rich Commerce Suite, a set of modular products that enable retailers to easily deliver and maintain great online shopping experiences. The increased availability of Web 2.0 technologies like AJAX has made customer experience - not simply price - the new basis for competition in e-commerce.

"Retailers are seeing that Web 2.0 is here and that the customer experience possibilities that it brings are unbelievable," said Joe Chung (pictured), co-founder and CEO of Allurent. "Early leaders in this market have started to set the standard for online shopping, opening up an innovation gap between them and their competitors who are slow to react. Shoppers will soon come to expect rich, interactive shopping online, and retailers have to move quickly to catch up to early leaders. The Allurent Rich Commerce Suite is designed to help retailers catch and surpass their competition."

Successfully delivering a rich shopping experience is much more than adding a few interactive elements to a website. It requires a holistic approach that considers all aspects of how retailers create, deliver, and maintain great shopping experiences. Allurent's Rich Commerce Suite delivers exactly that.

Each module in the Allurent Rich Commerce Suite consists of world-class consumer interaction features, business tools that give retailers the power to adjust the merchandising and interaction as needed, and industry-leading technology features to support search engine marketing, bookmarking, bandwidth sensing, and other capabilities required to ensure that online stores operate as effectively in practice as they do when retailers imagine them. The suite leverages a retailer's existing e-commerce infrastructure and each module can be configured to match any retailer's unique brand and style. The modules work together and complement each other, so retailers can add them at the right pace for their rich interaction strategy.

Modules included in the first release of the Rich Commerce Suite include:

* Allurent Detail - Allows consumers to easily see merchandise information, view product imagery, and select the specific item attributes they wish to purchase in a concise presentation, increasing products viewed during a shopping session and boosting conversions.
* Allurent Inline Cart - Give customers immediate access to the items in their order and the running total without leaving the shopping process, reducing abandonment.
* Allurent Checkout - Allows customers to complete their transactions without page transitions, reducing abandonment.
* Allurent Display - Enables retailers to create fresh and engaging interactive product displays that link directly to the shopping process, resulting in greater consumer interest and increased sales.
* Allurent Navigation - Provides seamless transitions between different areas of the store to creating a completely pageless shopping experience, improving usability and increasing customer satisfaction.
* Allurent Video - Creates a more emotional response to merchandise with commerce-enabled video displays that allow the consumer to interact with merchandise and buy directly from the video.
* Allurent Match - More effectively merchandises products together - including outfits, collections, and related categories - while allowing consumers to have more control over their own combinations, creating larger transaction sizes and stronger customer loyalty.
* Allurent Comparison - Enables user-controlled product comparisons that allow consumers to more effectively evaluate multiple products, creating greater confidence in their purchases and stronger customer loyalty.
* Allurent Configuration - Allows consumers to create customized products from a variety of options, creating a more enjoyable experience and opportunities for valuable add-on sales.

"With the widespread adoption of broadband access and the availability of new Web technologies, creating rich interactions online is simply one area where retailers cannot afford to compromise on features," said Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group. "These rich interactions will undoubtedly become core features of their site, enabling retailers to rise above the competition and build and sustain their multichannel brand."