Big things await for eCommerce businesses with Magento 2.3 release!

While so far Magento has been ruling the world of eCommerce, the anticipated release of the next major version 2.3 sooner will make things even better for the retail merchants.

Even though the release date has not been finalised till now, everyone, from the Magento community members to the developers and merchants are looking ahead to the round of fresh features that 2.3 version will roll out for eCommerce stores.

Like very earlier version upgrade, Magento 2.3 will uncover some exciting features that will open up new opportunities for the sellers to enhance their customer experiences and back-end efficiency. Magento programmers in Australia while advocating the release note of the new version said it will bring features that will directly fuel up UI, UX and performance. For instance, it introduces a friendly page builder and then there’s a feature of Asynchronous API.

So, we all know that Magento is going to get bigger with this major release easing the tasks of both Magento developers and e-tailers.  Without a further fuss, this blog post highlights the new features of Magento 2.3.0 and how they would amplify the eCommerce presence for retailers in 2019.

Magento 2.3 Features & Everything You Should Know

Super-friendly Page Builder

Magento 2.3 empowers the users of the platform, that is, eCommerce merchants to create engaging and customised pages themselves with Page Builder, an intuitive, easy drag and drop interface. It is built based on the revised Bluetooth CMS extension, bought much prior by Magento and brings forth a tool to let merchants take full control of the content on the pages.

While this user-friendly Page Builder will be generally available in the Magento Commerce, it needs to be bought from the marketplace in case of the open-source version.

Multi-source Inventory

The ever-growing number of merchants using Magento have been expecting some quirk improvements on how they sell, stock up and deliver products. The all-new feature Multi-source Inventory (MSI) this time meets up to their expectations and will help them brilliantly to increase their operational efficiency in inventory management. With it, merchants can altogether manage the inventories hoarded in different locations from a sole admin.

PWA Studio

With the influence of Smartphones catching up with eCommerce, more than a half of buyers come through mobile devices. To be fair, the percentage would nearly reach 85 or 90% by 2019. Fortunately, Magento 2.3 is deliberately developed to address this increasing rage of mobile shopping with the PWA Studio.

Video Source: Magento

To support the earlier evolved concept of PWA (Progressive Web Apps) that deliver applications with superior mobile experiences, Magento releases PWA Studio as a toolkit in the 2.3 version. It will allow the Magento developers to create Progressive Web Apps providing app-like experiences to customers using the platform. So, users will no longer require installing the application.

While PWA Studio helps to deliver mobile commerce sites that are fast, reliable and all way integrated to give comprehensive experiences, they have an upper hand in SEO aspect and can improve the conversions, page performances too. Furthermore, PWAs in Magento are created with features like offline support and will be regularly updated with refreshing features, by being an initiative of the open-source version.

Asynchronous APIs

Differing much from the usual Web APIs, Asynchronous APIs which enable better control to users with the ability to make a request or bulk requests.  Unlike in the former case where the users after making a request to the Web Service have to wait for the response, they do not need to in the latter. Subsequently, a separate status API gets available to check upon the request’s progress.

Bonus Features

Magento 2.3.0 is further coupled with some more updates and enhancements which are poised to make the journey of merchants bit smoother. Here are they.

GraphQL: It is a query language and flexible storefront API integrated into the ecosystem of the new Magento version. Owing to this feature, the Magento programmers will be able to query data elements from APIs in one request.

Magento Shipping:  Its an added support providing new fulfilment options along with global availability.

Security tools: Merchants could better secure their online store and restrict unauthorised access by switching to 2.3 version with features like ReCAPTCHA and TFA (Two-factor Authentication).

Declarative Schema: There’s a new approach called Declarative Database Schema, with which developers can define database structures or the changes in XML files, rather than defining them with scripts installation.

Wrapping Things Up!

With all new tools, Magento 2.3.0 is here to make online merchandising easier than before with seamless management of back-end operations. For years, Magento and its huge community consistently aim at advancing the platform as eCommerce merchants grow and evolve. This time again Magento 2.3 is the inevitable outcome of their efforts and unlike the earlier versions,  this release pack brings out refreshing features and impactful improvements. So, how it will ignite the growth of online merchants in 2019 or how will help the Magento experts to meet up their client’s expectations is yet to be seen.  

Do you own a Magento store and want it to be upgraded to the latest version? Feel free to join hands with PHPProgrammers, a leading eCommerce development company in Australia that is specialised in Magento and other front-running platforms to provide fascinating stores to merchants to augment their online presence.

Holidays are approaching! Are you ready for the holiday fever?

You need to equip your eCommerce store to deal with the great shopping binge that gets into the heads of customers during that time of the year.

Nothing pushes away a buyer faster than a bad online experience during that time. Magento is no doubt the biggest platform of reliable eCommerce development and there is a round of tricks that you can apply with it to equip your eCommerce store for this holiday season.

Festive times are the busiest period for the retailers and a solid eCommerce strategy can increase up their earnings by manifold. Magento developers community have come with distinctive strategies to boost your Christmas, New Year or Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales. We, at PHPProgrammers, a time-worn Magento development services provider have compiled them here for your convenience. But above all, what is necessary to get your Magento store fully prepared for the seasonal peaks is the complete understanding of the customers and what can fascinate them to buy more.

Magento best practices to scale up sales this holiday

Targeting Holiday emails that convert

While most eCommerce merchants prepared for the long holidays by thinking that deals and offers will be great, they often ignore the power to create an engaging and conversion focused emails.

Generate emails that can actually convert your potential customers with quirk measures.

• Spread a unique content: It is the season where none of the eCommerce companies leaves a chance to promote them with brilliant offers or discounts. So, what will make customers come to you? Obviously, something unique and out-of-the-box will push them to your site. So, target your emails by showcasing all the differentiators of your store. They may be price guarantees, freebies, complimentary gift wrapping, cashback and price guarantees.

• Incentivise with right stuff:  Offering a free item or a discount coupon will no doubt excite your customers but such incentives hit rightly on the minds of buyers when the offers are related to their current purchases. Be it a free gift, or an in-store discount, place them on products that will complement or supplement their last purchase.

• Recommendations: Holidays are hugely marked as gifting seasons with a major trend of self-gifting setting in among the buyers. Use your store’s email feature to send gift recommendations and encourage self-gifting. Send recommendations for products based on their purchase experiences evaluated from their orders history.

Triumph over  your competitors

You need to be proactive to reap the most of holiday season spree and rival the competitors’ strategies. Magento revealed that going mobile and having alternative payment systems will help an eCommerce company take over other giant companies.

However, if you concentrate on providing the mobile experience, make sure to make the mStore’s speed faster, facilitate seamless UX, and multiple payment options. Mobile-centric deals are reckoned to increase conversions only when it is supported with great UX.

However, you need to keep these in mind to promote holiday sales with mobile targeting.

• Timing is really important. While BI statistics have revealed that most buying activities take place between 10 PM and 11 PM on Black Friday and between 9 PM and 11 PM on Cyber Monday, try to target your promotions on the hours.
• Zero percent financing promotions like active social media promotions result in more increase in eCommerce sales.
• Customers acquired during Black Friday or Cyber Mondays, have a lower LTV or lifetime value. This is because online buyers are most opportunistic who look for seasonal spree or advantages to buy their wishlist-ed items.

Prepare your loyalty scheme to re-engage customers

Magento community this season rolled out for the retailers a month-by-month plan for initiating loyalty program.

Call back the customers who haven’t visited your site for long and discover the most valuable and consistent shoppers to target your loyalty programs. Specifically in eCommerce, connecting with the existing customers is more profitable than acquiring new customers during the peak seasons.

The best way to run a loyalty campaign for your Magento-built store in this Christmas holidays is to include this three-step program.

• Step One: Engage the ‘at-risk’ customers

‘At-risk’ consumers are the ones who haven’t purchased from the store a while and so holidays are the perfect time to bring them back.  Personalised notifications, messages or emails is pretty effective as that make them realise that you value them as individual customers even when they are the former purchasers.

• Step Two: Engaging the biggest Advocates

During peak sales time, the biggest influence that an eCommerce company can create on the buyers is through word-of-mouth promotions especially social proofs. They help in driving conversion of the new buyers. However,  for that, you need to encourage the biggest advocates of your shop, i.e. regular or repetitive buyers whose average order values are high. Incentivise them at the checkout point with rewards or bonus points to leave positive constructive reviews.

• Step Three: Engaging the most loyal ones

A customer who joins a loyalty program is 47% more likely to make a second purchase than a customer who doesn’t. So, re-engaging your customers who hold membership in your loyalty scheme will help you close more sales. Targeted emails with points reminders, available rewards or redeem offers are some of the ways to secure repetitive purchases from your loyal customers during holidays.

Here is this one extra step to retain and increase the LTV (Life Time Value) of the newly acquired customers who gave business during holidays but to apply later.  Offering them membership to your store’s loyalty program after a month or two.

While bad ordering or checkout experience can be a major fallback for your store, cross-check with these five facts to ensure your customers have the smoothest experience in those rush hours.

• Does your order management strategy have omnichannel fulfilment facilities?
• Does your order system is backed by multiple selling channels?
• Is your order management equipped to provide you with an accurate picture of your stocks or inventory across all the sales channel?
• Do the customers have the flexibility to choose from more than one fulfilment and payment option?
• Do your store have return back facility?

The Final Tale: Avoid Making These Grave Mistakes

Seasonal promotions are sensitive and one mistake can break your business! Even in the worst case, do not fall prey of these mistakes while prepping up your Magento store.

• Subject lines should not be plain and boasting discounts always! Instead, put catchy banners with lines that evoke a sense of urgency in the buyers like, “Offer Lasts Till Midnight”.
• Sticking with the age-old website design and templates
• Forgetting to invest on mobile responsiveness
• Neglecting SEO aspects to focus only on the marketing

Hope this guide will get you close to the dream of making your business most profitable in this holiday season! No more staying a just a reactive spectator in the market during the festivities but try in your own way with Magento strategies to reward your customers.

As the holidays are nearing, no more staying back but get in touch with PHPProgrammers, an eminent company for Magento development in Sydney, having a team of dedicated Magento developers with sheer expertise in website development, website upgradation, features integrations, website redevelopment, and version migration. In short, a one-stop solution to sky-rocket your sales overnight.

Get in touch with our team today to power your Magento store before time runs out!