German e-commerce tools company commercetools GmbH made several announcements at its inaugural Elevate conference today, including a new extended partnership with PayPal Holdings Inc., a new offering for manufacturing and the launch of a new community platform.

The extended partnership between commercetools and PayPal includes the integration of a new feature called Fastlane by PayPal. First launched by PayPal in March, Fastlane is a one-click guest checkout experience designed to speed up the checkout process for consumers, allowing them to complete purchases with a single click without the need to remember usernames or passwords.

For commercetools users, the integration of Fastlane is said to help streamline the checkout process and hence help merchants boost conversion rates and revenue streams while mitigating cart abandonment. By prioritizing seamless transactions, commercetools argues that businesses can elevate the overall customer journey and capitalize on lucrative opportunities in the competitive marketplace.

“At commercetools, we prioritize customer empowerment by offering flexibility in provider and payment method choices, unlike some competitors who restrict consumers by locking them in with more narrow payment options,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Dirk Hoerig. “With PayPal as a leading and trusted authority in commerce, our partnership aims to enhance shopping experiences and enable enterprises to capture greater wallet share.”

Next up was the announcement of a new business-to-business offering called Blueprint for B2B Manufacturing. The new solution is tailored for B2B manufacturers and leverages “comparable commerce” — an approach that emphasizes the use of modular, interchangeable software components to streamline implementation and speed time-to-market for manufacturers.

The final announcement was the launch of commercetools Community, a community platform designed to foster enhanced support, transparent communication and collaboration among customers, prospects and partners. Community provides resources for seamless implementation, networking opportunities and a space for co-creating ideas and exchanging insights.

Commercetools is a venture capital-backed startup that has raised $291 million in funding, according to Tracxn, including a round of $145 million in 2019. Investors include Accel Partners Inc., Insight Partners LLC, BayBG Bayern Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Bayern Kapital, GmbH, High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH and ASTUTIA Ventures GmbH.

Image: commercetools