Insights

BlueSky Commerce and HCL Commerce co-developed “Ruby”

You may be hearing some buzz lately about “Ruby” – the new HCL Commerce React-based starter store. Ruby is a production-ready starter storefront, available for HCL Commerce clients, starting in summer 2023. HCL and BlueSky came together to co-develop this new storefront with enhanced SEO, performance, flexibility, and maintainability as some of the critical areas of focus. 

“This is a unique project that is somewhat unprecedented. HCL worked directly with BlueSky Commerce to co-develop a new React starter store that is based specifically on customer-identified needs.”

– Aaron Pickrell, Sr. Offering Manager, HCL Commerce 

So, why did HCL and BlueSky develop this new Ruby store? We wanted to build an actual starter store again, something functional and SEO-friendly that reduces time to market for clients. The existing HCL React-based stores (Sapphire and Emerald) are reference points and can be leveraged but are not proper starting points. Ruby is a production-ready functioning starter store and a great place for clients to start. 

HCL and Bluesky built the Ruby store to be modern, sustainable, and composable. The following were HCL and BlueSky’s critical areas of focus throughout development: 

• SEO – Ruby combines React single-page applications with server-side rendering to address Google’s most recent announcement that they will no longer be indexing client-side sites. Most React stores are client-side only, and search engines like Google aren’t able to index the site content easily. Ruby does not have this issue.
• Performance – Fast site performance is crucial for SEO optimization and overall user experience. Ruby has been optimized for front-end performance to reduce page content refreshes and back-end performance to reduce API calls.
• Flexibility – Vendor lock-in is a real challenge for eCommerce businesses. Ruby allows you to quickly turn on and off third-party solutions for things like PIM, ratings and reviews, etc., without much effort. The flexibility to easily swap out third-party solutions is a critical differentiator for the Ruby starter store.
• Maintainability – Separation of base HCL code and customer-specific extensions facilitates the implementation of custom enhancements while allowing for easy upgrades of the HCL base code for bug fixes and out-of-the-box enhancements.

If you want to learn more about Ruby from the experts in-person, reach out to to reserve your spot to join us at the HCL Commerce user group meeting in Raleigh, NC on May 16, 2023.