Customer Management and Personalization
Customer concepts
Understand customer accounts, customer groups, and how groups drive pricing (group prices, shared catalogs in B2B) and tax classes. Know the difference between guests and registered customers and how each interacts with checkout, wish lists, and order history. Customer attributes extend the customer entity, and address books support multiple shipping/billing addresses. Be clear on customer segments, which let you target promotions and content to defined groups based on attributes like past orders or cart contents.
Personalization mechanics
Personalization in Adobe Commerce includes dynamic blocks, related product rules, customer segments, and content staging. Dynamic blocks display content conditioned on customer segment or cart conditions. Related product rules and up-sell/cross-sell configuration shape recommendations. Know that personalization often depends on segments being refreshed - segments are not always real-time and may require a cron-driven rebuild.
Traps to watch for
A common trap is assuming customer groups and segments are the same: groups are for pricing/tax, segments are for targeting content and promotions. Another is expecting segments to update instantly - they can be stale until the segment refresh runs. Also distinguish guest checkout behavior from logged-in behavior for wish lists and saved carts.
Worked example
A merchant wants VIP customers (those with lifetime spend above a threshold) to see a special banner. Rule of thumb: create a customer segment based on order history, build a dynamic block tied to that segment, and confirm the segment refresh schedule so the banner actually updates. Setting a customer group alone will not target content - groups affect pricing, segments drive personalization.