Magento Enterprise Edition is the only enterprise-class eCommerce platform that delivers innovative shopping cart software with flexible features to control brand experience for shoppers and fuel success. Magento Enterprise Edition comes with all the functionality, along with the ability to integrate seamlessly with third party applications for online retailers to control the brand experience for shoppers.

Controlling brand experience increases brand awareness and is a strategic functionality of Magento. An online brand represents the intellectual and emotional associations that people make with a company, product or person. Magento takes a strategic approach to brand experience, by compelling shoppers to take productive action through integrated, coordinated planning and execution of every possible interaction that shoppers have with an online store and products. Magento helps online retailers create the kind of experience needed for shoppers with each and every interaction. The more compelling the shopping experience is, the easier it is to build brand loyalty.

With Magento Enterprise Edition online retailers can create:

• A branded look and feel to their online store.
• An authentic voice for communicating with shoppers.
• Options to influence offline buying decisions.

Magento allows retailers maximum flexibility, to control the brand experience touch points of their online store-fronts. A touch point is any place, artifact or interface where people come in contact with a brand. They are every contact points between a customer and supplier and include:

• Product and Packaging.
• Advertising and Marketing.
• Selling Channels.
  • Stores.
  • Catalog.
  • Website.
• Consumer interactions with the company.
• Consumers base offline buying decision on web based information.
  • Online customer interactions is an important element of brand awareness.
  • Control messaging with every customer interaction.
  • React quickly to buyer inputs and maximize brand experience.

Customer Touch Points:

The Magento Enterprise Edition has all the tools needed to control the look and feel of your online store to match with your companies branding style, in terms of:

• Visual Presentation
  • Balance between imagery, text and white space in the website.
  • Representation of functional elements.
  • Colour, font, visual elements and iconography.
• Writing Style that will reflect a unique authentic voice.
• User Experience that improves online and offline buying decisions.
  • From website to local store.
  • From stores, to find product locations on your website.
• Error free delivery to create authenticity.

Thus, Magento through its Enterprise Edition offers seamless branding experiences for shoppers and allows online retailers grow and scale up their online business.

References

Composer in a step-by-step tutorial.

Magento 2 has very specific server requirements that require a lot of server configuration and tweaking, along with setting up Composer (not a default option at many platforms). 

Let me clear up why Composer is really important for Magento 2. Composer is an essential requirement for managing the Magento system, extensions, the involved dependencies, and for declaring libraries for the project.

Before you start, you need to have these things at hand:

1: XAMPP Server installed on your computer with the latest PHP 7.3 or 7.4.

2: Download Magento 2.4.1 along with sample data (You can download Magento 2 from this link)

3:Here are the basic Magento 2.4.1 server requirements:

• Apache Version 2.2 or 2.4
• PHP Version 7.3.x or 7.4.x
• MySQL Version 5.6.x, 5.7.x
• Elasticsearch 7.6.x or higher

Here I will cover the entire process of installing Magento 2 on localhost so that you would not  face any issues in replicating the process:

• Open the XAMPP server and start Apache and MySQL applications.

• Extract Magento 2.4.1 files to your xampp/htdocs folder.
• Check Weather your PHP Extensions are all installed:
• ext-bcmath
• ext-ctype
• ext-curl
• ext-dom
• ext-gd
• ext-hash
• ext-iconv
• ext-intl
• ext-mbstring
• ext-openssl
• ext-pdo_mysql
• ext-simplexml
• ext-soap
• ext-xsl
• ext-zip
• lib-libxml

Install Composer

Download and run Composer-Setup.exe. This will install the latest version and set up your path so that you can “call” Composer from any directory.Click Next, and browse to the path of the PHP in the XAMPP folder.Now click Install to initiate the final step.Launch the Command Prompt and run the Composer command to verify that it has been installed without any issues. After installing the composer, you must enable the extension (php_intl.dll) in the php.ini file. To enable the extension, edit php.ini and uncomment the line “extension=php_intl.dll” and just remove the semicolon “;” from the starting of the line. Next, restart the XAMPP control panel.

Install Elasticsearch for Magento 2.4.1

Elasticsearch is a highly recommended extension for Magento 2.4.1.Download and install the latest version of Elasticsearch from here. Once installed, run the bash file as an administrator.  You can also check the availability of Elasticsearch on port:9200. Type local:9200 in the browser and you will get the details of the installed Elasticsearch extension.

Create a Database for Magento 2.4.1

Access localhost/phpmyadmin, create a database. IMPORTANT Remember the name of the database you would create.

Magento 2.4.1 Installation

First, unzip the downloaded Magento 2.4.1 file to xampp/htdocs/. After this, go to the Magento 2 folder (inside the htdocs folder).Hold the Shift key and right-click, and select “Open command window here”. This will open a command prompt on the location.In the command prompt, execute the command:$ php bin/magento setup:install –base-url=”http://localhost/magento2/” –db-host=”localhost” –db-name=”dbmagento241″ –db-user=”root” –admin-firstname=”admin” –admin-lastname=”admin” –admin-email=”user@example.com” –admin-user=”admin” –admin-password=”admin123″ –language=”en_US” –currency=”USD” –timezone=”America/Chicago” –use-rewrites=”1″ –backend-frontname=”admin” –search-engine=elasticsearch7 –elasticsearch-host=”localhost” –elasticsearch-port=9200Please note: Assign the base URL as per your path, note down the admin username and password and do not the Elasticsearch port.After you give that command please wait for a while to load modules and all required files for Magento 2.4.1. After the installation, you will end up with these results.If you hit the URL, you might won’t see the updated content with sample data on the storefront.For that, you need to run the following commands.

1. php bin/magento indexer:reindex
2. php bin/magento setup:upgrade
3. php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f
4. php bin/magento cache:flush

Now hit the URL (usually, localhost/magento2) or the base URL that you set earlier for the installation.Congratulations! You have now successfully installed Magento 2..4.1 on your localhost. You can now start making your preferred customizations and launch a fully functional ecommerce store right on the local machine.

Problems During Magento 2.4.1 Installation

There is a chance that you might encounter an issue during the Magento 2 installation process. Here are some of the most common ones, along with a solution.  

• Blank Grey Page – Magento Admin Panel

All you have to do is go to the directory path …vendormagentoframeworkViewElementTemplateFileValidator.php In the function isPathInDirectories, add a line.

• $realPath = str_replace(”, ‘/’, $this->fileDriver->getRealPath($path));

Refer to the following image for the point where you need to insert the line:

• If You Get an Authentication Error

If you couldn’t log in to the Magento Admin Panel and encounter an authentication error, simply run the following command in the Composer:

• php bin/magento module:disable Magento_TwoFactorAuth

Learn more about the intricacies of Magento 2.4.1 installation. Get in touch with our Magento developers to optimize your B2B eCommerce website for high-performance.

RabbitMQ Configuration

Want to grasp the nuances of RabbitMQ?If so, you’re at the right place.RabbitMQ can help to transfer tasks into queues and get them processed at a time or as parallel processing through asynchronous messaging, thereby allowing web servers to respond quickly.In this blog, we can learn how to configure RabbitMQ with Magento 2.

What is RabbitMQ?

Magento 2 RabbitMQ works as a message intermediator between sender and receiver. It is an open-source communication broker that provides your applications with a common platform while offering a secure and convenient messaging system.It offers a highly reliable, scalable, and portable messaging system.Magento 2 added asynchronous messaging capabilities with the implementation of RabbitMQ. Message Queuing allows web servers to respond quickly to requests and represent them to a third party for processing rather than perform the task instantaneously. This helps in handling multiple, resource-intensive requests efficiently.Several activities are being performed within a website’s architecture as a customer places an order from the website. These are:

• Generating the order
• Taking payment
• Stock management
• Enabling email and text communications
• Sending/Receiving order data to SAP/CRM/ERP systems

When all these activities are performed in real-time, more time is consumed to complete the order process, which can have a negative impact on business. Here comes RabbitMQ, which can help to transfer most of these tasks into queues and get them processed at a time or as parallel processing through asynchronous messaging, thereby allowing web servers to respond quickly.RabbitMq is a message queue system. It will process at a time or in parallel. If anything goes wrong, it will not directly impact the Magento Instance.

Benefits of RabbitMQ

• Asynchronous Messaging
• Highly Available Queues
• Management UI
• Plugin System

The following diagram illustrates the Message Queue Framework:A publisher is a component that sends messages to an exchange. It knows which exchange to publish to and the format of the messages it sends.An exchange receives messages from publishers and sends them to a queue.A queue is a buffer that stores messages.A consumer receives messages. It knows which queue to consume. It can map the processors of the message to a specific queue.

Connect RabbitMQ to Magento Open Source or Adobe Commerce

Here’s the process to set up RabbitMQ to our Magento instance:STEP -1  Add Queue Configuration Add a queue section in the /app/etc/env.php file so that it is similar to the following:‘queue’ =>array (   ’amqp’ =>   array (     ’host’ => ‘192.XXX.XX.XX’, (This needs to be updated as per your project IP)     ’port’ => ‘15672’, (Port on which RabbitMQ runs. 15672 is default port)     ’user’ =>’test’,     ’password’ => ‘magento’,     ’virtualhost’ => ‘/’   ),),Step 2  Open the terminal and change the directory to your Magento root path.Step 3 Add RabbitMQ userRun the below command to set the RabbitMQ user.Syntax : sudo rabbitmqctl add_user {user_name} {passwd}Sample: sudo rabbitmqctl add_user test magentoStep 4 Set RabbitMQ user RoleRun the below command to set the RabbitMQ user role.Syntax : sudo rabbitmqctl set_user_tags {user_name} administratorSample: sudo rabbitmqctl set_user_tags test administratorStep 5 Set RabbitMQ User Role PermissionsRun the below command to set the RabbitMQ user role permissions.Syntax : sudo rabbitmqctl set_permissions -p / {user_name} “.*” “.*” “.*”Sample: sudo rabbitmqctl set_permissions -p /  test “.*” “.*” “.*”Step 6Then, run bin/Magento setup: upgrade to apply the changes.Step 7 To access the RabbitMQ Admin-Use this URL to access the RabbitMQ AdminSyntax: http://Your_Server_IP:15672/Sample:http://192.XXX.XX.XX:15672/ Enter the Username and Password to log into RabbitMQ Admin.Hurray! You have now connected the Magento instance and the RabbitMQ. You are all set to begin the message queue consumers!

Final Thoughts

Upgrading your eCommerce website with the latest technology definitely requires you to put a lot of thought into the process. Not only should you find the best development services possible but also requires you to grab onto adequate maintenance support. So what if you get both high-grade Magento development services and maintenance support under one roof?In the 15+ years of experience in digital commerce, DCKAP has helped several distributors and manufacturers to digitally transform their B2B ventures. Our diligent team of Magento experts builds and designs result-yielding Magento storefronts. Apart from the maintenance services, our cutting-edge integration solutions connect leading eCommerce platforms like Magento with ERP, CRM, and other applications. But our services just don’t end here. To learn more, feel free to reach out to our team and grow your eCommerce with us.

Adopting new technologies and leveraging them are definitely the needs of the hour in a digital commerce landscape as you cannot be left behind in terms of scalability and growth.

As you are looking for accurate steps to install Magento 2 on MacBook, you have reached the right place. Here’s a complete guide for you on the successful installation of Magento 2. 

Dive in to get a deeper look at the process.

Our easy steps to set up Magento 2.4.1 on Mac operating system 

Check out the exact steps for you to follow:

Web services Requirements

    Apache 2.2 or 2.4

    Nginx 1.x

Database Engine Requirements

    MySQL 5.7

    MariaDB 5.6, 5.7

PHP Requirements

    >= 7.4

Elasticsearch 

    >= 7.7

Composer

    >= 1.x

Step 1: Install MAMP

1. Here we need to download MAMP in our machine. Just click on the link for download MAMP in our machine.
2. Once you successfully downloaded MAMP in your machine, then start the setup step by step.

3.After the setup is completed, open MAMP and click on preferences and setup the port link

below: apache: 80; Nginx: 80; MySQL: 3306

4. Select Apache from the radio button

Step 2: Install Composer

You can download from the composer website or you can use the command line for composer installation.

php -r “copy(‘https://getcomposer.org/installer’, ‘composer-setup.php’);”

php -r “if (hash_file(‘sha384’, ‘composer-setup.php’) === ‘756890a4488ce9024fc62c56153228907f1545c228516cbf63f885e036d37e9a59d27d63f46af1d4d07ee0f76181c7d3’) { echo ‘Installer verified’; } else { echo ‘Installer corrupt’; unlink(‘composer-setup.php’); } echo PHP_EOL;”

php composer-setup.php

php -r “unlink(‘composer-setup.php’);”

sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Check whether the Composer is installed or not to run this command in terminal.

composer -v

Ouput:

Step 3: Download Magento 2 Setup

Here we are going to download Magento 2 from the official website. Click on the link here. You can select the version from the drop-down and click on the download button.

Step 4: Now copy downloaded file to htdocs folder and extract the folder inside of htdocs.

Path: /Applications/MAMP/htdocs

Step 5: Install Elasticsearch for Magento 2.4.1

Elasticsearch is recommended by Magento 2.4.1. Just click on the link and you can download Elasticsearch in your system. After installing it successfully, you can run the Elasticsearch in your system.

Once you clicked on Open, you can check your terminal. The code will execute. After successfully running the command, you can check localhost and port number 9200.

http://localhost:9200

Step 6: Now we need to create a database. You can use phpmyadmin or command line.

Step 7: Here we going to set up Magento 2.

Run the below command:

/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php7.4.16/bin/php -dmemory_limit=5G /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/magento2/bin/magento setup:install –backend-frontname=”admin”  –db-host=”localhost”  –db-name=”magento”  –db-user=”root”  –db-password=”root”  –language=”en_US”  –currency=”USD”  –base-url=”http://localhost/dckap/”  –admin-user=”admin”  –admin-password=”root@123″  –admin-email=”siddharths@dckap.com”  –admin-firstname=”admin”  –admin-lastname=”user”

In the above command, check your system path and also look for the ID and password for admin. You can select from your end and forget the database ID and password.

Step 8: After successfully running above command, you need to run the below command to set up Magento 2.

sudo php bin/magento setup:upgrade

sudo php bin/magento setup:di:compile

sudo bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f

sudo php bin/magento c:f

rm -r pub/ var/ generated/

sudo chmod -R 0777 var/ generated/ pub/

php bin/magento maintenance:enable

rm -rf var/cache/* var/page_cache/* var/di/* var/generation/* var/view_preprocessed/* generated/* pub/static/*

php -d memory_limit=12G bin/magento setup:upgrade

php -d memory_limit=12G bin/magento setup:di:compile

php -d memory_limit=12G bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f

php bin/magento c:f

php bin/magento c:c

chmod -R 0777 var/ generated/ pub/static

php bin/magento maintenance:disable

Step 9: Now you can ensure the proper functioning of your Magento website.

http://localhost/magento2/

http://localhost/magento2/admin

In admin panel login, you need to put your credentials and you are now all set to go ahead and operate.

Admin Panel

If you want to disable Two Factor Authentication, then run the below command in the terminal inside of the project.

php bin/magento module:disable Magento_TwoFactorAuth

Interested to learn more about setting up Magento 2? Here’s another detailed blog on how to install Magento 2.4.1 on Windows 10. 

Final Thoughts

As a digital commerce ecosystem, DCKAP comes with 15+ years of expertise to aid you in running your eCommerce store with an improved digital presence. Our certified developers and team of experts are just a call away to help you out with your eCommerce needs. Get in touch with us and optimize your website for high performance.

In my earlier days as a nerdy developer, I often found myself trying to do my work in the smartest way. That is, I didn’t concentrate too much on predefined guidelines and absolute quality! However, this quirky ideology of mine changed a couple of years back when I started working with Magento 2.

Given the plethora of technical guidelines and resources available from Magento, the new eCommerce platform was initially quite challenging to learn. Magento is more focused on maintaining high-quality work among its developers as well as providing various means of guidance to the community. Once I started following Magento’s guidelines, I realized that it made things more accessible than ever before. I highly recommend utilizing the following principles in order to achieve the best quality coding in Magento.

This is a beginner’s guide to the SOLID principles, which I came across during my quest to follow the guidelines for good programming. Budding programmers and developers can use the SOLID method described in this article to further improve their Magento coding skills.

What are SOLID Principles?

In object-oriented computer programming, the term SOLID is a mnemonic acronym for five design principles that are intended to make software designs more understandable, flexible, and maintainable.

The SOLID Principles are as follows:

• Single Responsibility Principle (SRP)
• Open/Closed Principle (OCP)
• Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP)
• Interface Segregation Principle (ISP)
• Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)

Why should you practice SOLID Principles?

After learning a thing or two about SOLID and applying the principles to my daily coding work, I found the results to be immensely gratifying. Nowadays, I regularly use these principles to guide my work. Following the SOLID principles allows you to:

• Maintain high coding standards.
• Make code that is scalable and repairable – regardless of the size of change requests.
• Create universally understandable code.

Let’s take an in-depth look at what these principles mean.

Single Responsibility Principle (SRP)

a class should have only a single responsibility

This one is pretty straightforward. A class should only have a single responsibility, and it should not do too many things. A class with multiple responsibilities makes it more complicated to change since it might affect more than one function at once. Meanwhile, a class with just one responsibility can be easily modified. This makes the class much more maintainable.

Examples in Magento 2

MagentoFrameworkEventManager – Responsible for dispatching the events.

MagentoFrameworkDataFormFormKeyValidator – Responsible for validating the form key.

So, the next time you write a class, make it responsible for only one action in order to make your code robust and manageable.

Open/Closed Principle (OCP)

software entities … should be open for extension, but closed for modification

Assume your client approaches you to write the code for calculating the sum of numbers. You write a class (Add) with a method (Calculate) to calculate the sum and give it to the client, who is delighted with your work. Some time later, the same client approaches you to add the multiplication logic.

Now you edit the same class (Changing Add to Operation) and two methods (Add and Multiply) with the respective logic. However, this is not the right approach because your client may then ask you to add subtraction or division, causing you to modify the source code for each request.

As the principle states, for any modifications, a class should be allowed to extend its behavior but not to change its source code. Instead, it’s better write an interface (Operation Interface) with a calculate method, which the classes (Add or Multiply) can implement. When the client approaches you for another operation like division, you can create a new class by implementing the interface.

Examples in Magento 2

To add any router, implement the MagentoFrameworkAppRouterInterface and add the same to the RouterList(in di.xml). Here, no modification has been made to the existing code even though the router is added.

Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP)

Objects in a program should be replaceable with instances of their subtypes without altering the correctness of that program

As per the object-oriented programming, when Class B extends Class A, Class B can be a substitute for Class A. LSP extends the same fundamental principle, with a significant change – Class B SHOULD be a substitute of Class A.

In the case of extending any Magento-native classes, you should follow the same structure. If you intend to remove any method or modify its parameters, then it will result in the violation of this principle. The violation may cause the application to break or produce unexpected results.

Examples in Magento 2

Assume a preference written for overriding the MagentoQuoteModelQuote::addProduct($product, $request, $processMode) method. Creating the class that extends the above, but modifies the addProduct() method by removing the $processMode parameter. This is a complete violation of the principle. So classes which already calls the addProduct() with three parameters will throw an error and cause the application to break.

Interface Segregation Principle (ISP)

Many client-specific interfaces are better than one general-purpose interface

This is another straightforward rule that focuses on splitting the big interfaces into smaller ones. The violation of this principle may force the implementation class to depend on the methods that they don’t use.

Assume there is a standard interface for compiling and rendering. When creating a separate implementation class for the compiler and render, based on SRP, the classes should be intended to use the other methods (in other words, compilers are forced to use rendering methods).

Examples in Magento 2

MagentoFrameworkViewElementBlockInterface – implemented in all the blocks for rendering HTML content.

MagentoFrameworkDataObjectIdentityInterface – may implement in blocks or models for caching purposes.

Assume that the Magento Core Team has combined both and can have only the BlockInterface. However, doing so forces all blocks to have cache methods that they might not use, which violates the principle.

Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)

one should “depend upon abstractions, [not] concretions”

DIP focuses on decoupling modules, stating that:

• High-level modules should not depend on low-level modules. Both should depend on abstractions.

When Class A (high-level) calls Class B (low-level), Class A depends on Class B. But as per this principle, Class A should not depend on Class B; it should depend on abstractions(interfaces).

• Abstractions should not depend on details. Details should depend on abstractions.

Interfaces should not depend upon the implementation class, but the implementation should depend upon the respective interface.

Since the code is decoupled to change the entire implementation class, it’s not necessary to make changes in the high-level class. In order to follow the principle, the high-level module also needs to be altered with the low-level class.

Examples in Magento 2

Refer any native classes where they mostly inject the interfaces into the constructor instead of the implementation class to create the respective objects. Even when using the factory, it is recommended to create the factory for the interface.

Conclusion

These are the five simple and most commonly used design principles in the process of Object Decomposition. Magento strongly encourages its developer community to apply these principles wherever needed. So, the next time you code a new feature or modify an existing one, keep the SOLID principles in mind and apply them to achieve better quality and maintainability in your code.

Leave a comment to add your own input or examples of the SOLID principles, or to write about any other design pattern. Together we can make the community even better.

Are you confused about choosing the right Magento 2 product management tool? Do you want to know how the Magento-PIM solution will boost your business? Then you are in the right place. 

When kickstarting an eCommerce business, every eCommerce retailer, marketer and distributor need to make one biggest decision, i.e, choosing the right platform that ensures long-term growth. Magento undoubtedly is one of the most sought-after eCommerce platforms across the globe. Due to its unparalleled user experience, online stores worldwide have chosen this platform for giving a head start that their brand needed. According to the Hosting Tribunal, Merchants using Magento grow 3 times faster, on average. But Magento needs an excellent product management tool. 

If you’re in eCommerce you know — as a brand grows, the number of products (or services) offered increases. Managing the Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) for thousands of them becomes time-consuming and requires greater investment. If you have fewer products but each of them has hundreds of attributes that define them, categorization becomes difficult.

In such times, it is extremely complicated to manage and maintain an online store if you do not have a proper system in place where you can govern and transfer product data to all channels where your products are listed. Here comes the very importance of Magento-PIM integration. Product management for Magento can be made hassle-free if you have the right PIM tool that brings you quality and consistency of product data across all channels. 

What is a Product Information Management (PIM) tool?

Product Information Management (PIM) is software that centralizes your product data, enables easy management, and helps you distribute it across multiple channels where your products are featured. PIM tool stores the product attributes, attribute groups, family, category, media files, catalog details, and much more.

Every eCommerce manufacturer, distributor, and retailer needs a single place to collect, manage and create a product catalog. Product experience is what makes the customer come closer to your brand. And for delivering a compelling product experience, you need to build a single source of truth. A robust PIM tool integration is the best way to make your data coherent. 

Read More: Top 6 Reasons Why eCommerce Retailers Need A PIM Solution

Why Magento 2 Product Management is Crucial to Leverage Growth?

According to Ventana Research, by 2021, 50% of organizations will use a modern dedicated PIM solution to manage product processes and provide high-quality product experiences. Upkeeping your market reach time is critical in eCommerce. There are multiple channels and devices in the market. Equipping your Magento 2 store with the best tools and delivering consistent product information across the channels can be difficult if you fail to integrate a Magento 2 product management tool. 

When it comes to the Magento 2, many integrations like order Management systems, ERP, or any third-party software come with two-ways synchronization, which means the merchants need to store the data in more than one place. Is this going to work in the long run? Sounds strenuous right! It consumes your employees’ precious time. 

But, in the case of the PIM-Magento 2 integration, you will get a data repository to manage your raw data and improve your site management experience.      

Relevant Reading: 8 Reasons You Need A PIM for Marketing Your B2B eCommerce

Are you still uploading your product information to Magento 2 with a product CSV excel file?. Well, this works if you are bootstrapping eCommerce. But when your business expands, it might be difficult to handle the SKU influx. Manual data handling through piled-up excel files might kill your productivity in the long run. So every expanding Magento store needs a product management solution if your store:

• Struggles with several SKU and digital assets
• Needs to frequently update product catalog
• Data comes from multiple sources
• Engages with more than one marketing channel 
• Wrestles with enterprise silos

All you need to do is find the right Magento 2 product management tool that provides stress-free integration with your Magento store. A Magento 2-PIM integration helps you:

• Manage multiple storefronts with the same product catalog
• Boost your brand reach through stellar product information
• Enhance multilingual functionality to achieve a global reputation 
• Lighten resource load in Magento 2 by unifying data
• Amplifies customer experience by delivering the same experience at every touchpoint. 

Key Features to Look in A Magento 2 Product Management Tool

There are several Magento-PIM solutions in the market. How can you find the right Magento 2 product management tool that eases your product management trouble? Well for that you need to inspect your store requirements. PIM would have certain requisite benefits like product management, attribute, attribute group, family management, and so on. But it doesn’t mean you can choose any PIM solution. 

Every store has unique requirements. What worked for your competitors might not work for you. So, understand your Magento 2 store requirements before you choose a PIM solution. Here are the top 6 features you must look at in a Magento 2 product management tool. 

1. Product Content Management Capability

After a certain time when your business expands and sales increase, no store owner may want to invest precious time searching for files or data. The focus should be on scaling your business and enhancing productivity. Invest your time in providing your customers with a compelling product experience. Improve your product value by curating excellent product content.

Rich product content (emotional, technical, and user-oriented) is a gateway through which customers generate perceptions about your product. A robust Magento 2 product management tool helps to store essential product content like product information identification, marketing content, creatives, marketing content, taxonomy, compliance data, logistics data, pricing data, technical specifications, channel-specific information, and cross-selling information.    

Integrating a Magento 2 product management tool helps to efficiently store data coming from various sources into a single repository, which ultimately helps you improve content quality and quantity.  

Recommended reading: 8 Signs You Should Stop Using Spreadsheets for Product Data in 2021

2. Flexibility to View Data By Channel

A robust PIM gives you a bird’s eye view of channel-specific data. In the traditional approach, it can be a juggling act to manage each channel’s details and specifications efficiently. With the assistance of a PIM, it would be easy for you to deploy a channel-specific spec sheet that provides visibility into all endpoints and allow you to make channel-specific adjustments without any hassles. 

3. Bulk-Data Import & Editing Ability

Ensure your PIM tool helps you reduce import complexities and provide a bulk edit facility to save time. No matter how many channels you need to manage, the bulk edit feature in the product management tool updates the product information across platforms by reducing the complexity of entering data fields one by one. Also, a full-fledged PIM solution with bulk loading and import flexibility will ease your performance in the long run.       

4. Global Scalability

The advancement of technology has made it possible to sell everywhere, anywhere. When you do so, your store must adapt to local languages, so customers will have a connection over your products/services.

Localization is a crucial part of your brand growth if you have a customer base spread across various nations. With Magento-PIM integration, you get terrific localization options using which you can present product data in multiple languages in tandem with the local audience. 

5. Multi-Channel Readiness

For sure, your product will be up for sale on multiple channels because that is how you reach a broader audience.

Time and again, it becomes cumbersome to change the content in every channel listed. So, what can eCommerce store owners do to overcome this? Simple, have a PIM solution.

Wondering how a PIM solution helps you boost multi-channel readiness? Imagine updating & editing each and every channel manually. It’s fine if you only have a limited SKU flow, but what if your store needs to manage hundreds and thousands of data? Would it be easy to update information on all these channels manually? With a multi-channel option in PIM, you can directly send the API to third-party applications, and the work gets done automatically. 

6. Digital Assets Management (DAM) Efficiency

Content and text are the only things we see when we open an online store. Images, videos, product manual documents, etc. are also crucial factors that promote the credibility and engagement of your brand. Many robust PIM solutions have an in-built DAM to store all your digital assets in one place. 75% of Online Shoppers Rely on Product Photos When Deciding on a Potential Purchase.

So, while choosing a PIM solution, make sure it has a digital assets management capability that helps you store, enrich and distribute digital assets across multiple channels. Inspiring digital assets bring the product to life. DCKAP PIM solution provides digital assets management solutions along with product information management.      

Suggested Reading: Why online stores need Digital Asset Management?

7. Marketplace Integration

B2B marketplace (Amazon, Alibaba.com) is a meeting ground of B2B sellers and buyers. One of the crucial things every vendor needs to improve marketplace performance excellent product information. Your product information can convert visitors to potential customers. Today’s marketplace needs constant enhancement of digital experiences, continued technological adaptability, evolving analytics capabilities to improve sales on modern marketplaces. Since PIM provides a single source of truth across every channel, it helps merchants set up consistent product information across marketplaces also. 

How does PIM And Magento 2 Connection Works?

PIM has all your product information and acts as a parent to your online store functioning. Connecting PIM to your Magento 2 online store is easy, thanks to the default PIM Magento 2 connector. Using this, all the products and assets information will be automatically synced between both. 

Got doubts on how the sync happens? There are two options available: Auto-sync as well as Manual Sync option. The name itself implies how the sync happens. You can set it once, and Auto-sync occurs periodically. Or you can sync whenever you wish using the Manual Sync option.

Top 5 Magento 2 Product Management Tools For You!

• DCKAP PIM
• Akeneo
• Pimcore
• Inriver
• Salsify

Enable Magento 2 Product Management Solution to Leverage eCommerce Experience  

Magento platform provides excellent operational efficiency to deliver a compelling digital experience. But to improve native personalization and Product management functionality, you need to integrate the Magento store with the PIM tool. Now easily scale up your Magento store performance through the DCKAP PIM product management tool. DCKAP PIM product management solution is an all-in-one fit to deliver a seamless shopping experience. If you have a store built on Magento and want to create an unforgettable shopping experience for customers, let’s talk! Get in touch with DCKAP PIM, and we will say how our connector will accelerate your business.

Wondering about Magento 2 migration?

The time is now ripe for the perfect platform migration.

With 89% of the businesses already adopting digital transformation strategies, you cannot be left behind in upgrading your eCommerce website with the latest updates and innovations.

Every eCommerce merchant’s goal is to have a site that has a faster load time, improved admin interface, enhanced customer experience, and so on. Magento 2.x can help you achieve that goal. As Magento 1.x reached the End of Life in June 2020, it’s crucial to consider migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2. 

What is holding you back from migrating to Magento 2?

Magento 2.x works much better than Magento 1.x in many ways. High performance that Magento 2 guarantees will enhance your eCommerce website to be more conversion-driven. This blog will walk you through accurate steps to easily migrate your Magento 1.x store to Magento 2.x. Before that, let’s focus on the reasons to migrate to Magento 2.x.

Some key features of Magento 2.x are:

• Improved checkout
• Improved search and SEO features
• Improved product section
• User-friendly approach
• Mobile-optimized experiences

Magento 2.3.x has excellent features, optimizations, and back-end enhancements such as:

• Progressive Web App (PWA)
• Providing support for GraphQL – Alternative solution for REST and SOAP web APIs for front-end development.
• Multi Source Inventory (MSI) – Supports easy management of physical inventory across locations in Magento.
• Declarative DB Schema – Simplifies the installation and upgrade procedures.
• Elasticsearch – Performs swift and advanced searches on products in the catalog. (Learn more about the advantages of using Elasticsearch in Magento 2.)
• PHP 7.2.x Support – Enhances performance and security.
• Page Builder – A Drag and Drop visual content editing tool that allows customizing the appearance of your storefront without writing any code.
• Provides better security enhancements.
• Admin Backend – Import and export improvements.

Still wondering why you should be migrating from Magento 1.x to Magento 2.x? The answer is simple – “You want to stay updated, and not outdated.”

Points to be considered before Magento migration

Before you upgrade from Magento 1.x to Magento 2.x, the following essential aspects should be considered:

• Make a complete backup of your Magento 1.x store’s files, databases, and the folders you need.
• Start data migration from the cloned Magento 1.x store database.
• Examine what has to be removed or maintained from the new Magento 2.x store.
• Make sure that your current custom code, extensions, and themes are compatible with Magento 2.x.

4 Simple Steps to Migrate from Magento 1.9 to 2.3

• Theme Migration
• Extension Migration
• Customization Migration via Code Migration Tool
• Data Migration using Data Migration Tool

Step 1: Theme Migration

• To upgrade from the Magento 1.9.x theme to Magento 2.3.x, you must check if the same Magento 1.9.x theme is available in the Magento 2.x version or not.
• If yes, then you can install the same theme in Magento 2.x. It will simplify the process of the migration and also save your time.
• If not, then you can either get the theme from the Magento Marketplace or create your custom theme.

Step 2: Extension Migration

• To upgrade from the Magento 1.9.x extension to Magento 2.3.x, you have to check if the same Magento 1.9.x extension is available in the Magento 2.3.x version or not.
• If yes, then you can integrate the same extension in Magento 2.3.x.
• If not, then you must convert the Magento 1.9.x coding into Magento 2.3.x or get the required extensions from your Prefered Magento Store or the Marketplace.

Step 3: Customizations/Code Migration

• You can migrate your customizations by using Magento’s Code Migration Tool. It will save your time and work involved in migration.
• However, after following the migration procedure, you will have to manually edit some of the generated files.

Step 4: Data Migration

Before proceeding with the data migration, you must first install the Data Migration Tool from repo.magento.com and configure the Data Migration Tool for the migration. The Data Migration Tool version should be the same as the version of Magento 2.x.

4.1 Check your Magento 2 version by using the following command

php bin/magento --version

4. 2 Installing the Data Migration Tool

composer config repositories.magento composer https://repo.magento.com 
composer require magento/data-migration-tool:

The above command will update the Magento 2.x root composer.json file to add the repository https:/repo.magento.com. Instead of that, you can replace it with the Magento 2.x version that’s required. Let’s consider that the required Magento version is 2.3.2.Hence, the actual command would be:

composer require magento/data-migration-tool:2.3.2

4.3 Configuring the Magento 2 Data Migration Tool

After installing the data migration tool, you must set the configuration for data migration. Inside the data-migration-tool/etc. folder, you could locate three folders with the following names: ce-to-ce, ce-to-ee, ee-to-ee.The folder ce-to-ce contains scripts and configuration files for migrating the data from Magento 1.x CE to Magento 2.x CE, and the folder ee-to-ee contains configuration files and scripts for migrating the data from Magento 1.x EE to Magento 2.x EE. Similarly, there are settings files and scripts in the ce-to-ee folder to migrate the information from Magento 1.x CE to Magento 2.x EE.Now, enter the folder for which you have planned to perform the migration. For example, in the case of data migration from the community edition to the enterprise edition, you need to choose ce-to-ee. Now, navigate to the directory with the Magento 1.x version name. For instance, if you perform the Magento 1.9.0 version migration, you should enter the 1.9.0 folder.Before migrating the settings and data, create a config.xml file in the relevant directory. Let’s say that if you are performing the migration from the Magento 1.x Open Source platform to Magento 2.x Enterprise edition, then navigate to-

/vendor/magento/data-migration-tool/etc/opensource-to-enterprise/ directory and rename config.xml.dist to config.xml.

Next, open config.xml file and specify the following:

Magento1-Encrypted-Key

In the above code, the database information of Magento 1.x and the relevant database information of Magento 2.x. are mandatory and should be filled in before running it. It is the encryption key of the Magento 1.x store, where you can find it in the /app/etc/local.xml file within the tag.When finished, save the config.xml, and you are done.

4.4 Migrate settings

Use the Data Migration Tool to migrate the settings from Magento 1.x to Magento 2.x.This step is related to reconfiguring your language, currency, shipping, email templates, taxes, and CMS pages on the Magento 2 websites.To begin, navigate to the Magento 2 root directory via SSH terminal and run the below command:

php bin/magento migrate:settings --reset

For example:

php bin/magento migrate:settings --reset 
vendor/magento/data-migration-tool/etc/ce-to-ee/1.9.0/config.xml

Upon successful migration, a message will be displayed.

4.5 Migrate Data

You have to migrate the database assets (e.g., products, categories, customer information, orders, configurations, etc.) from the existing Magento 1.9.x store to the new store. Follow this command:

php bin/magento migration:data --reset

For example:

php bin/magento migrate:data --reset 
vendor/magento/data-migration-tool/etc/ce-to-ee/1.9.0/config.xml

[POSTCTA]

Most common issues faced:

Source documents/fields are not mapped

 This issue occurs when some Magento 1 entities (in most cases, coming from extensions) do not exist in the Magento 2 database. Install the corresponding Magento 2 extensions from the Magento Marketplace or configure the tool to ignore the problematic data.

Class does not exist but is mentioned as an error 

A class from Magento 1 codebase could not be found in the Magento 2 codebase during the EAV migration step. In most scenarios, the missing class might belong to an extension. Install the corresponding Magento 2 extension or ignore the attribute that causes the issue.

Foreign key constraint fails 

There are missing database records in the parent_table, which the field_id of the child_table is pointing to. Delete the records from the child_table, which is causing the issue, or disable the Data Integrity step by modifying the Data Migration Tool’s config.xml.

Duplicates in URL rewrites 

The Target path in a URL rewrite must be specified by a unique pair of Request path + Store ID. Enable the auto_resolve_urlrewrite_duplicates option in the config.xml file.

Flaws in the display of Homepage 

If the home page does not show up correctly, then this issue might have occurred due to the Magento 1.9.x version having a custom layout for the home page. At this point, you will have to create a custom layout in Magento 2.3.x.

Products not appearing in the category 

You need to reindex all the indexers by executing the following command, bin/magento indexer:reindex.

Problems in loading CSS JS files 

For this, you will need to flush your cache and then deploy the static content. In case of any error, refer to Magento’s Troubleshooting page. After the migration has been done, run a test to ensure the proper functioning of Magento 2.x. 

A Seamless Magento 2 Migration – Your One-Stop Solution

Magento migration from version 1.x to 2.x is a necessity for your eCommerce business. With perfect platform migration, equip your eCommerce website with a wide range of functionalities and a faster time to respond. Magento experts at DCKAP provide end-to-end services to ensure spotless Magento migration, promising endless customizations and flexibility. We help you upgrade your online store to the latest version and optimize your website for driving revenue. Our certified Magento experts have the right resources to aid you through seamless development and migration services along with all the much-required eCommerce services and solutions.  

Looking to migrate to Magento 2.x, but don’t know where to start? Get started with the migration process and take your website to a whole new level.

We provide Magento development services for you. Get it done from a certified solutions partner who can do the work for you.

Why Performance Optimization?

Performance plays a key role in the success of eCommerce stores. Conversion rates depend on how fast or slow your website is. Even milliseconds matter.

According to the latest report from Akamai – ‘The state of online retail performance’ –

• Optimal load times for peak conversions range from 1.8 to 2.7 seconds across device types.’
• Just a 100-millisecond delay in load time hurt conversions rates by up to 7%.
• 28% of customers will not return to a slow site.
• The sweet spot for peak conversions is 2.4 seconds.
• Pages that converted were up to 26% faster than those that did not.

The impact of performance on conversions is undisputable.

Performance Analysis

When it comes to performance analysis we usually focus on two parameters:

Time To First Byte (TTFB) and Frontend performance.

TTFB measures how quick the server responds to a browser request. TTFB shows how fast servers execute PHP code. Good TTFB should be under one second.

Frontend Performance shows how fast a browser renders HTML. Before you see images and texts the browser should compose the DOM (Document Object Model). This means that the initial file size of your DOM tree will have a performance cost.

Magento 2 Optimization

According to Magento 2 DIY authored by Khliupko, Viktor – “The approach for optimizing Magento 2 differs from Magento 1 because Magento 2 is faster, less resource hungry and better optimized for high loads than Magento 1.x. Besides, it offers a lot of new performance features out-of-the-box. For instance, you get native support for Varnish, Redis, and Nginx as well as full page caching in M2.

As for the first version of the e-commerce platform, all these features were only available through customizations and extensions.”

There is still a lot that can be done to make your eCommerce as fast as the Magento 2 platform allows. This blog captures some of the popular practices that can be applied for speeding up your eCommerce store.

Optimization Steps

Use Nginx or Litespeed

While the Apache web server is very flexible in its configurations, other web servers are better suited for optimizing memory usage. By replacing Apache with either Nginx or Litespeed, you could speed up the Magento scripts even more.

Caching

Enable all of the available caches from the admin panel System –> Cache Management.

Implement Redis Cache

There are problems while implementing Two Levels Cache Backend(i.e., to use Memcache together with the database).

Redis is an appropriate alternative to resolve this problem. Redis is an open Source, BSD licensed advanced key-value store. It is often referred to as a data structure server since keys can contain strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets.

Redis is an advanced key-value cache which provides top-notch performance. It is considered as one of the superior and most efficient caching mechanisms, particularly for Magento 2.

Implement Varnish Cache

Varnish cache is an open source web application accelerator. Varnish stores (or caches) files in memory; this enables Varnish to reduce the response time and network bandwidth consumption on future, equivalent requests.

The built-in full-page caching (to either the file system or database) is much slower than Varnish.

We strongly recommend you use Varnish (or Redis) in production.

Reduce Server Response Time

We can check the server response time by enabling profiler in admin configuration. This will measure the response time for every block in the specific page and how many times it is loaded from the server. Based on this information, we can identify the specific request that takes more time to respond. Reducing the specific block response time will improve the performance.

To enable this option, navigate to
Admin -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Developer -> Debug -> Enable Profiler

To know more about page response time and the number of times it was requested, you can install DCKAP Profiler for Magento 2. It displays the profiler information at every page level and helps fine-tuning the performance at page level.

Minimize the Number of HTTP Requests

Reducing the HTTP requests as much as possible is critical to improving the page load time of the web page. There are several methods, including using Varnish, that will help reduce HTTP requests and still maintain a high-quality web page.

Merge and Minify (CSS, JS)

CSS and JS file help your frontend look better. However, they are one of the core factors that slow down your site speed.

You can improve the performance of your Magento 2 site by combining, compressing, and caching Javascript and CSS files.

In magento2, we can minify and merge files using admin configuration.

For merging and minifying JS, navigate to

Magento Admin -> Stores -> Configuration ->Advanced -> Developer -> Javascript Settings->Enable Merge javascript, Enable Minify javascript.

For merging and minifying CSS, navigate to
Magento Admin -> Stores -> Configuration ->ADVANCED -> Developer -> CSS Settings->Enable Merge CSS, Enable Minify CSS

Combine Images Using CSS Sprites

By using CSS sprites, a larger number of images can be combined into as few files as possible. It reduces the request overhead and decreases the total number of bytes downloaded by a web page.

Optimize Images

To optimize images, choose an appropriate image file format and compress the images using image compressor.

There are various image compression tools available online such as – Smush.It, jpegtran, OptiPNG, and PNGOUT.

Also, you can get the optimized images from GTmetrix and PageSpeed Insights while checking performance optimization for your site.

Note: You will not be able to check your localhost site performance using the above websites.

Expires Headers or Cache-Control Headers

By using the Expire Headers or Cache-Control Headers, the number of HTTP requests and its size can be condensed to make the web page load faster.

The Expires Header specifies a date after which a resource is invalid. At that point, the browser will once again ask for the resource.

Max-age works much the same way.This setting configures the maximum age that the content may be cached before it must revalidate or re-download the content from the origin server. In essence, this replaces the Expires header for modern browsing and is the basis for determining a piece of content’s freshness.

These features are great because you can configure your web server with a constant value.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

CDN helps reduce the load on the web servers, by serving the static content like images, CSS files or JavaScript files through a network of servers, which may be closely located to your customer’s geographic locations.

Magento 2 provides support for CDN support, media and static content can be loaded from separate subdomains located on different servers of CDN networks.

To configure CDN, navigate to

Magento Admin -> Stores -> Configuration -> GENERAL -> Web -> Base URLs (Secure)
We can insert our CDN url here and improve the store speed.

Coding Standards

Reduce Unwanted Looping

The unwanted looping in the coding logic will increase the loading time of the page. Removal of unwanted looping and server requests will reduce the page speed and loading time.

We can test the existing unwanted loops and other PHP standard recommendation using MEQP(Magento Extension Quality Program) tool. For testing our coding standard using MEQP, please follow this link https://github.com/magento/marketplace-eqp

Reduce DOM Elements

A high number of DOM elements makes the page more complex and increases the size. Consequently, the increase in download time and slower access to JavaScript makes the web page load slower. Investigate the options to reduce the number of DOM elements. There are free tools available like DOM Monster to analyze your page and provide suggestions for improvement.

Remove Commented Lines

We have to remove all the commented lines from the files. Removal of unwanted commented lines will reduce the loading time of the page.

Remove Inline JS and CSS

Always place CSS calls at the top and Java Scripts at the bottom. It helps to increase the progressive rendering in many browsers, thus increasing load speed of the web page.

Enable Production Mode

Switching to production mode improves store responsiveness and prevents long initial page load times that can occur in default mode.
Run the following terminal command to switch to production mode:

bin/magento deploy:mode:set production

Today, shopping, whether online or offline, is all about the experience. The methods mentioned above are the popular ones and, when implemented, will improve Magento 2 performance.

Happy Optimization!!!

References

Have you ever wondered why not many eCommerce websites have an Amazon-like, one-click checkout process? It’s because Amazon has had held the patent for the process for almost ten years now. The only way, for eCommerce companies to stay competitive, was to license the method from Amazon. Nevertheless, things have changed now because the patent has expired and every eCommerce platform is striving hard to facilitate their customers. That said, Magento has made this feature as a standard in its latest release – Magento Version 2.2.2.

What is Instant Purchase?

Magento has defined the feature as Instant Purchase

and this allows the customer to place the order in seconds without going through full checkout process making things much easier and faster. The instance purchase option used previously stored information such as shipping address, payment method, and delivery address. The stored information is retrieved in the event of an instant purchase.  This feature provides a seamless shopping experience.

Instance Purchase takes the form of a button on every product page and when the customers click on it, the system places their order using the default shipping address, billing address and stored payment method. Upon placing the order, the user would receive a pop-up notification from the notification area.

How does it work?

The new Instant Purchase feature provides returning customers with a faster checkout experience by using previously-stored payment credentials and shipping information to skip checkout steps. When a customer selects the “Instant Purchase” button on a product detail page, they are immediately taken to a confirmation page where they can place the order. There’s no need to enter their address, payment information, or shipping preference and everything is taken care by Magento itself.

Steps to activate Instant Purchase

1. Go to the Magento backend.
2. Choose stores → configuration → sales → sales.
3. Select Instant Purchase.
4. Set “yes” in the enabled drop-down list.
5. Finally, click on Save config.

Steps at the customer’s side

1. The customer should create an account with default shipping and billing address.
2. During the very first purchase, customers would want to save their credit card information by clicking the “Save for later use” checkbox.
3. The payment method saved can be viewed, or deleted, in the Stored payment methods section.
4. The Instant Purchase button will be enabled in product detail page.
5. Clicking on the Instant Purchase button will open up a pop of menu with already stored shipping and billing address, payment method, and shipping method. Clicking on Ok should place the order easily.
6. Hence the order is placed right from the product detail page itself.

Hope the above process was useful.  

250,000 Online Stores prefer to use Magento as their eCommerce platform. Implement your eCommerce store with our Magento services. Get in touch.

Upgrading your Magento eCommerce Store to Magento 2 can be quite a challenging task. With each website implementing an array of Plugins, ensuring an error-free shopping experience after the upgrade, is paramount. 

The upgrade testing can be split across three environments, namely QA, Staging, and Live servers, to have a structured testing process. 

Read on to know more about the complete Magento testing checklist and upgrade to Magento 2 without any bottlenecks.

Magento Testing Checklist – Key Points To Be Considered After Magento 2 Upgrade

Prepare a comprehensive test checklist which should cover the overall features of the website along with:

• Front-end functionalities
• Business scenarios specific to the site
• Magento admin
• Third-party Integrations
• Verification of automated regression scripts and updates

Checklist For Testing After Magento 2 Upgrade

Front-end

Make the test scenarios up to date with the site’s latest functionality.Do Sanity testing of the complete website to identify broken links and functionalities.After upgrading to Magento 2, check the end user’s workflows to ensure that the user experience isn’t affected:1. Access the site2. Add Product to the bag3. Check shopping bag4. Edit the item5. Update the quantity6. Update shopping bag7. Go to checkout8. Test the different checkout flows

• • Guest Checkout
  • Checkout as an already existing, registered user
  • Checkout as a new user
  • Place an order with different payment methods available on the site (Credit card, PayPal, Gift card, etc.,)

9. Check the tax calculation.10.Check the shipping methods and shipping amount.11. After placing the order, verify if the invoice has been created.12. The next step of invoicing is shipments.13. After shipment, check the RMA process. A return/exchanges credit memo should be created.14. Order cancellation scenario – When the product is out of stock or due to any unavoidable reasons. Another scenario is the user calling customer support and canceling the order.15. Check the transaction mails for  the below actions:

• • User registration
  • Forgot password
  • Order confirmation
  • Shipment creation
  • In case of RMA return/exchange, a credit memo will be created.
  • In case of cancellation scenarios, a credit memo will be created and the amount will be refunded.
  • Wishlist

16. Check the CMS pages/blocks17. Email Subscription18. Contact Us19. Compatibility Testing (Device/Browser)20. Regression Testing

[POSTCTA]

Business scenarios specific to the site

1. Check the customization features specific to the site. For example, the sale promotion strategy differs from one site to other. It should work seamlessly exactly like it was with Magento 1.
2. Sale promotion rules should be defined.
3. URL of Catalog, product pages should match M1 site.
4. Verify SEO metadata, canonical tags, and description by checking view page source.

Admin

1. Admin URL should be obfuscated. This is as per the Magento EQP standard.2. Check the import processes.

• Product
• Inventory
• Tax

3. Reports

Third-party integrations

Check the third-party integrations that handle functions like:

• ERP
• Product feeds
• Tracking Pixels
• Custom modules

Verification Of Automated Regression Scripts And Updates

Upgrading will impact automation scripts, sorun the scripts. Based on the results, update the scripts. Re-run the scripts and share the results with stakeholders.In a few instances, we have noted that having a dedicated testing team for the upgrade helps to find defects invisible to the developers. A Magento Upgrade should upgrade the overall experience of the customer.

Upgrade To Magento 2 Without A Glitch!

As you have already gone through the checklist by now, ensure an error-free and smooth upgrade to Magento 2. With top-end Magento services and the latest technologies, DCKAP curates and develops profitable eCommerce websites along with complete maintenance support.With our testing solution, gauge your project’s success through our centralized hub to track and measure your operations and implementations. Our certified Magento experts are here to help you in bringing forth a result-driven online storefront that promises eCommerce growth.

Upgrade to Magento 2 to leverage its latest improvements and enhanced functionalities to your eCommerce store. Migrate to Magento 2 Now!

[POSTCTA_FORM]

As Magento enhances its features day to day, as a developer or a user, we are supposed to learn more about its new features. And because of that, we need to change our implementation technique for each version as per their standard.

Here is one such implementation issue that I have faced, and I would like to share it with someone who is looking for it.

In Magento 2, we were almost familiar with Page Builder, and most of us using that for CMS Page customization on our projects. Which makes most of our customization on theme-related works less. 

When we are using “Product” content on your page, which is under Add Content. Which is used to list the set of products on the Custom page or a specific section. 

Based on my need, I need to change the no of products per row. By default, it was 5.

In the Category page or search page of Magento 2, the no of products per row is controlled by CSS. Where us in Page Builder found it hard to change it. After some diagnosis, we found it can be achieved via theme.

Here we explained how we achieved it. Hope it helps you.

Create a view.xml under the mentioned below path.

app/design/frontend/<yourpackage>/<yourtheme>/etc/view.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<view xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Config/etc/view.xsd">
   <vars module="Magento_PageBuilder">
       <var name="breakpoints">
           <var name="desktop">
               <var name="conditions">
                   <var name="min-width">1024px</var>
               </var>
               <var name="options">
                   <var name="products">
                       <var name="default">
                           <var name="slidesToShow">4</var>
                       </var>
                   </var>
               </var>
           </var>
           <var name="tablet">
               <var name="conditions">
                   <var name="max-width">1024px</var>
                   <var name="min-width">768px</var>
               </var>
               <var name="options">
                   <var name="products">
                       <var name="default">
                           <var name="slidesToShow">3</var>
                       </var>
                       <var name="continuous">
                           <var name="slidesToShow">3</var>
                       </var>
                   </var>
               </var>
           </var>
           <var name="mobile">
               <var name="conditions">
                   <var name="max-width">767px</var>
                   <var name="min-width">640px</var>
               </var>
               <var name="options">
                   <var name="products">
                       <var name="default">
                           <var name="slidesToShow">2</var>
                       </var>
                   </var>
               </var>
           </var>
           <var name="mobile-small">
               <var name="conditions">
                   <var name="max-width">640px</var>
               </var>
               <var name="options">
                   <var name="products">
                       <var name="default">
                           <var name="slidesToShow">1</var>
                           <var name="slidesToScroll">1</var>
                       </var>
                       <var name="continuous">
                           <var name="slidesToShow">1</var>
                           <var name="slidesToScroll">1</var>
                       </var>
                   </var>
               </var>
           </var>
       </var>
   </vars>
</view>

In the above example, we have shared the conditions for various devices like Desktop, Tablet, Mobile, and Smaller mobiles. 

We can also change the max-width based on our theme condition. Based on each condition we can set the no of products per row.

Happy Coding!

Over 250,000 online stores rely on this powerful CMS to run their online business, and merchants using Magento have experienced growth three times faster, on average. Premier brands like Ford, Omega Watches, Bvlgari, Canon, Nike, Coca-cola, Swatch, Vizio, and many more, trusted Magento as their perfect choice for online business.

Choose the right Magento Development Service for your eCommerce store. A Magento development company with skilled Magento developers will give you endless opportunities to build the perfect store that aligns with your business requirements.

We are here for all your requirements. Get in touch with our experts for more information.

Now is the right time for Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration. Make the shift now and stay ahead.

It’s been around three years since Magento 2’s inception, and it’s not uncommon to see Magento restricting support to older versions of its eCommerce platform. A couple of days ago we received a revised document of Magento Software Support Commitments, and it’s indeed a heads up to customers running Magento 1 on their stores. This article provides an update on Magento 1 support and why it is high time for merchants to migrate to Magento 2.

Support Extended

Though time and again Magento insists customers to migrate to the latest versions, many Magento 1 customers are still out there running in good shape. Taking this into account, Magento has extended the software support, yet again, to ensure that those customers staying in Magento 1 have enough time and confidence to upgrade to Magento 2. The latest update states:

Magento Commerce 1

Magento Open Source 1

Now that support is extended, why upgrade?

All good software platforms continue to evolve based on the changing business needs. Magento 1 is a successful eCommerce platform. Magento 2 is the next natural step in the evolution. It has been designed to overcome some of the key challenges in Magento 1.

Merchants are embracing Magento 2 and if you are looking to stay at the top of your game, now is the time to do the upgrade.

Here are  some compelling reasons for migration:

1. Take advantage of the advanced feature list of Magento 2
2. Longer the delay, more you’ll miss out.
3. Magento 2 is growing exponentially
4. PHP 5.6 end-of-life
5. Sooner or later the support for Magento 1 may become more or less non-existent

Feature-rich Magento 2

Magento has come a long way since the beginning, and they have got some great new features especially for B2B merchants. The latest versions of Magento have a modern technology stack that supports better performance and scalability. That said, Magento has completely overhauled its recent platform to support high performance, scalability along with insightful analytics.

Longer the delay, more you’ll miss out

Business opportunity costs play the main role in running a successful business, and this highly depends on how you’re catching up with the competitors and current market trend. Magento Commerce 2 provides the right capabilities to accelerate conversion, growth, and operational efficiency. The longer merchants delay upgrading to Magento Commerce 2, the more they are potentially missing out on significant opportunity to accelerate the growth trajectory of their business.

Magento 2 is growing exponentially

Stats also show that Magento 2’s popularity and usage has increased and continues growing, meaning more merchants have seen success in migrating to the latest version.

PHP 5.6 end-of-life

Official support from Magento to PHP 5.6 ends on Dec 31, 2018. Thus, Magento has advised its Magento 1 users to upgrade to PHP 7.2 version for appropriate software support through June 2020. To avoid technical complexities, it’s rather advisable to migrate to the latest versions of Magento at the earliest time possible. Hope this blog post turned out to be useful, and should you have any further queries or any assistance regarding Migrating to Magento 2, feel free to drop us a line.

Holding the power to decide the destiny of your eCommerce sales, SEO becomes the core of your eCommerce website. With the SEO driving in 14.6% of the conversion rates, the industry-standard status that it enjoys in generating leads can never be underplayed. As Forbes recognizes improving the search engine ranking as one of the most powerful marketing plans of action, the visibility of your eCommerce website depends on how optimized your search engine strategies are.  

But why is that so?

• SEO increases your reach, letting customers find you.
• With your eCommerce website ranking high, chances of profitability will soar. 
• With the right eCommerce platform, it becomes an investment that has long-lasting benefits. 

Your choice of the eCommerce platform also becomes the major deciding factor in improving the visibility. While all eCommerce platforms strive to ensure that your eCommerce website ranks well, what makes Magento stand out from the rest? With the in-built Magento SEO features to enhance your search engine ranking, Magento sets the bar high in developing an SEO-friendly online storefront. Let’s see how- 

Five SEO Improvement Tactics in Magento 2

1. XML Sitemap

Magento 2 comes with great improvements with respect to the XML sitemap. The new version enables you to individually customize website pages, products, categories, and CMS depending on their priority. The sitemap can be sent to search engines through a very simple process. With Magento 2, you can easily add images, sitemap index, and also focus on parameters. Once you enable the sitemap, a file named sitemap.xml will be developed by Magento, which will be saved in your specified location. Unlike the HTML sitemap that focuses more on the users, the XML sitemap is imperative as it is readily accessible to web crawlers. Make sure to optimize the sitemap by delivering information on the latest updates, frequency of updates, and relevance of web pages. A proper sitemap ensures that the crawlers do not overlook any of your webpages. Moreover, Magento also provides a tool to generate the XML sitemap. By default, Magento 2 has various updated XML sitemap features to boost ranking.By leveraging the sitemap, search engines will get a precise idea about your website’s structure. This will, in turn, enable search engines to identify your web pages that must have been missed while indexing. 

2. Product Fields Auto-Generation Template

You cannot undermine the effect of meta title and meta description as it is the primary link between your eCommerce website and search engines. In this regard, one of the major additions in Magento 2 is the introduction of the Product Fields Auto-Generation Template. This feature facilitates you to develop metadata templates for product pages.The feature is a significant addition because optimal metadata throws light on the relevance of your product pages to the search engines. Product Fields Auto-Generation Template comes in handy especially when you have to manage an eCommerce website with a large amount of content as it lets you add templates for product metadata at a global level. This functionality also helps you to add custom meta value in bulk without much effort. With Product Fields Auto-Generation Template, you can create samples for keywords, meta titles, and descriptions for each product in your online storefront. 

3. Rich Snippet

The inclusion of Rich Snippet in Magento 2 is a noteworthy addition. A brief description will be automatically included in every product page. This structured data facilitates search engines to understand the information provided in your web pages. Moreover, it helps the search engines to display additional information in organic searches like price, stock availability, logo, ratings, and many more.  With Rich Snippet as a default feature in Magento 2, you need not have to work on it additionally. It presents structured markup data in Google search results. With Rich Snippet, customers will know what they will find in your eCommerce website, thus improving the on-page behavioral data like CTR and bounce rates. Hence, despite Rich Snippet not being a direct SEO tool, it can indirectly improve your website ranking.  Additionally, Rich Snippets make your page more indexable, while providing more precise and clear metadata. Relevant targeted traffic will be directed to your eCommerce website ensuring higher user engagements. With this increased dwell time, search engines analyze the relevance of your online storefront and it will move your eCommerce website a position up.

4. Canonical Meta Tag

If you have numerous URLs that direct to one particular content, then chances are high for some search engines to penalize your website. But with canonical meta tags enabled by Magento 2, you will be able to inform the search engines to index a specific page in case multiple URLs direct to the same or identical content. Hence, a canonical meta tag can save your eCommerce website from duplicate contents that could have backfired your SEO ranking.By giving links to your preferred URL, search engines can track them down and provide a higher rank. You can use canonical meta tags for category filters, multi-store, product pages, etc. while having an upper hand in informing about link equity. In its absence, your eCommerce website will be perceived as not providing any unique content and this can be reflected in SERPs as well. By using canonical meta tags, you avoid the risk of web crawlers missing out unique content that should appear in search results. Through canonical tags, search engines will provide ranking value, identifying the page as the source URL. Canonical meta tags ensure to generate traffic to your desired web page by showing a standard resource. 

5. URL Rewrite Tool

Magento 2 incorporates the URL Rewrite tool with which you can change the URL of a CMS, product, or category page. By using this tool, any link that directs the customers to the previous URL will now be redirected to the new address. Through this tool, you can change highly complicated URLs to decipherable ones that can be better understood by the search engines and site visitors. You can now optimize the URL by making it short and rich with keywords. With the URL Rewrite tool, you can make the new URL more adaptable to the search engines especially when you are new to eCommerce. Additionally, Magento settings give you the privilege to use top-level product URLs instead of including any subcategory hierarchy in the URL. In this way, you can avoid any potential duplication issues.  Using the URL Rewrite tool, you can edit URLs and lessen the chance for indexation bloat. It also transforms user experience as customers can easily search for the products. Studies show that SEO- friendly URLs can project a sense of relevance for your eCommerce website. 

Checklist to Enhance SEO for Your Magento Store

Along with the functionalities of Magento 2, you also need to take care of other factors that would help you boost the search engine ranking. So, do grab a look at the following checklist-

SSL Certificate

Procuring a Secure Software Layer (SSL) Certificate is necessary as Google uses it as a yardstick to measure the trustworthiness of your eCommerce website. Without this security measure, website ranking can be affected as Google started providing a ranking boost to secured websites from the year 2014. So, if your competitor incorporates an SSL Certificate despite other factors being on par with that of your eCommerce website, it is highly likely that you will rank lower. SSL Certificate will not only make the site secure, but the browser will also display padlock as a trust indicator in the address bar. 

Set Up Google Analytics

You can easily track the outcome of your Magento SEO strategy by adding the tracking code of Google Analytics into your eCommerce website. Through the tracking code, you can regularly keep an eye on your website performance. You will get an idea of marketing insights like top-performing pages and mobile traffic. Setting up Google Search Console can also aid you in understanding online traffic while improving your presence in the organic searches. In this way, you can easily redeem the errors that can affect the search engine rankings. Apart from Google Analytics, there are also Magento website developers who can help you develop an SEO-friendly Magento online storefront. 

Product Image Labels

Optimizing product images is very crucial to improve visibility and relevance. Never forget to add alt-tags that would describe your images. Since search engines are unequipped to read images, it is the alt texts that bridge this communication gap. But there are certain things that you have to consider-

1. Make sure that you don’t use keywords excessively in alt-texts.
2. While adding filenames for images, ensure that they are informative and easy to decipher.
3. Keep them short and precise.
4. In the case of a specific product, never forget to include the product name and the product ID.

Backlinking

Backlinking is one of the three most important ranking factors of Google, the other two being the content and search query relevancy. As the web crawlers follow the links, they will understand the connection between web pages, blogs, and other content displayed on your eCommerce website. There are several reasons why backlinking is important.

1. Generating high-standard backlinks also vouches for the quality of your content. 
2. They help web crawlers to identify new web pages. If your eCommerce website generates relevant backlinks, then chances are high for your web page to rank higher.
3. By generating backlinks, your website credibility is enhanced letting search engines direct traffic to your online storefront.

After choosing the perfect eCommerce platform, the next step is to find the right Magento website developer to build an online storefront just the way you want it.

Why DCKAP?

With over 15 years of experience, DCKAP is equipped with the right expertise to optimize your eCommerce website. Being the Magento solution partner, we have in-house developers who would work with you to make your dream online store a reality. Our determination to toil for the successful completion of projects has gained us happy and content clients. With the perfect solutions, we, at DCKAP, offer to provide you with a fully optimized SEO-friendly online storefront that will guarantee you immense growth and reputation in the world of eCommerce. 

Overwhelmed with the ever-changing dynamics of eCommerce? With revenue from B2B eCommerce all set to hit $1.2 trillion in 2021, these evolving trends are not going to abate soon. Keeping your Magento store ready to emerge a winner from this whirlpool of eCommerce trends is unquestioningly the need of the hour. To hit the right chord with your customers, digging deep into the innovations not only becomes your necessity but also becomes your anchor for scalability. 

As vital as ever, catching up with the emerging advancements is also a matter of visibility and brand reputation. So before you march on, here are two basic thoughts to ponder over-

• What exactly are those Magento eCommerce development trends that you have to deal with?
• How will Magento 2 equip you with the survival tactics?

To reach the answers, do read on..

Watch Out For the Five Magento eCommerce Development Trends

#1 Live Streaming

Live streaming is the recent head-turner in the marketing strategies. Thriving on the impact of audiovisuals, Magento 2 is incorporating the new trend to demonstrate your product through live broadcast on your website or social media. The reason for this shift is mainly the COVID-19 crisis that has pushed the need for sustaining your interaction with your customers. With video marketing increasing traffic for 87% of the eCommerce websites, adding live videos to your Magento store will direct more attention and engagement as audiovisuals bring in more clarity to what you offer. You can direct potential customers from social media platforms to your eCommerce website. By communicating in real-time, customers feel a sense of inclusivity since their queries can be heard and answered. Since live streaming has higher viewer retention rates, the medium can be used for spreading brand awareness, announcements, and important messages. By 2021, video traffic is expected to reach 80% of the total consumer internet traffic, making it detrimental to ignore its influence among your customers. 

#2 Personalization

With Forbes stating that 91% of the customers favor recommendations and offers, personalization becomes the key for customer retention. The in-built features of Magento 2 eases customer segmentation and personalization. With the innovative technologies of Chatbot and AI, your Magento store can offer products based on the preferences of your customers.Providing sales announcements, discount codes, and messages can be better executed through personalized sales. Keeping up with this trend is easier through your Magento store as its customer segmentation feature helps you to build dynamic segments for your customer base by assessing their purchase behavior. Displaying personalized content like shopping cart price rules, banners, and related products can further strengthen your customer base. Securing online and offline data in real time to develop comprehensive customer profiles is facilitated through omnichannel personalization across all touchpoints. You can allow customers to resume their shopping expedition from where they had left off. The technological advancement of AI enables this trend of eCommerce personalization to gain strongholds with customers’ increasing need for dynamic pricing as their shopping history can be easily accessed. This also increases scope for retargeting solutions, leading to the generation of customer-preferred ads.

#3 Push Notifications

With the push notifications enjoying a 90% higher opening rate, you cannot undermine the power push notifications have in attracting your customers to your eCommerce website. Notifying your customers about your offers, discounts, and promotions becomes easier by sending out simple push notifications.You can also constantly provide timely updates, securing a good communication with your customer base. To keep up with the current trend, Magento 2 offers various push notification extensions that can sustain your visibility. Dealing with cart abandonment is one of the challenging eCommerce areas. With push notifications flying in, customers are constantly reminded about them, pulling them back to your online store.  Another reason to follow this trend is the space for direct interaction that it offers. You can communicate with your customers even when they are not on your website, and they don’t even need to open their mailbox to see your message. So there is no chance of your message being missed. This is especially beneficial if you are offering any limited period offers. Moreover, personalizing the content for push notifications shows an increase in open rates by 4 times. Not only is push notification cost-effective, it also eases customer engagement since they are more likely to read short and crisp messages than long emails.

#4 Voice Search

Voice-enabled searches take eCommerce a step forward in easing the shopping experience. With The Union Journal pointing out that revenue generated from voice commerce sales is expected to reach $40 billion by 2022, this new eCommerce trend is here to stay. So you cannot shut your eyes from leveraging your content for voice search.  As per the guidelines of Google, textual content should be incorporated for voice search content so that they can appear in knowledge graphs and rich snippets. Classifying products with voice activation is necessary to delve into voice search. To implement the right search strategy, you need to start treating search queries as conversations.Since voice search mostly deals with answering the customer’s search questions, developing your content that strikes a conversational style is highly recommended. Keeping in mind this linguistic pattern, using long tail keywords can be of help. Along with keywords, you can also use trigger words in such cases.Maintaining a well-structured FAQ page becomes effective for voice searches. You can efficiently list out all the probable questions that your customer may ask. Thus, through the voice search, when a customer asks a search query that is even slightly related to the ones in your FAQ page, chances are high for your page to be tracked down by the search engine. 

#5 Chatbot

Coupled with Artificial Intelligence, chatbots are grabbing the eyeballs. By solving customer’s queries, chatbots can also influence their purchasing decisions giving an insight on discount codes. Additionally, with the advancements in AI, chatbots can predict future purchases of your customers as they can assess the shopping behavior by accessing purchase history. Apart from the voice and text, chatbots also display good quality product images, tutorial videos, relevant web pages, and blogs. The APIs also enable machines to interact with your customers through Natural Language Processing. Upselling or cross-selling becomes more concrete as chatbots store the order history, also facilitating product recommendations. By integrating chatbots with your eCommerce website, placing the order can be done efficiently from the messenger itself, taking customer service to a whole new level.  Since 83% of your customers require assistance to carry forward their purchase, what more do you need to provide them with than an ever-friendly chatbot! If your customers have any problems in finding adequate information, chatbots can solve all the issues. They can even go a step further by asking questions to the customers to understand the speed breaks in their shopping spree. 

Take the Plunge With Magento 2

To reap the benefits of all the current and potential trends, you need to host your online storefront on the perfect eCommerce platform. With these in-built features of Magento 2, your eCommerce website can always be on the radar:

1. Marketing Tools  

The marketing menu of the admin panel in Magento 2 can put your marketing strategies to work efficiently by overseeing communication, user-generated content, and promotions. You can work on cart and catalog price rules simultaneously, offering discounts once the specified conditions are met. With the Magento Commerce edition, you can optimize your customer base by offering private sales and catalog events. They allow you to carry out limited-time sales, while also limiting sales to a particular group of members, increasing the scope for personalized sales. Magento 2 lets you customize emails and notifications that can be sent from your eCommerce website. The marketing feature of Magento 2 facilitates curating promotions depending on customer’s preferences, location, gender, browsing history, and many more. You can also create newsletter templates for any of your requirements and the Newsletter Queue option manages its sending to different customers. Through the drag-and-drop feature of Magento, you can either manually or automatically categorize and arrange best-selling products and new arrivals. Additionally, Magento 2 gives you the provision of deciding whether only the registered customers can post reviews or you want to extend it to guest customers as well. 

2. Responsive Web Design

The responsive web design enables frictionless access to your eCommerce store across various devices ranging from desktops to mobile devices. Enabled by CSS and JavaScript, Magento Blank and Luma themes adopt mobile-first approach, improving your SEO ranking as Google pays more attention to mobile site version. Since Magento 2 is designed specifically catering to responsiveness, the UI will easily adapt to any device. Going by the mobile-first approach, its themes are suited for all sizes and resolutions. Not only do these themes enhance responsiveness, they also include mobile-specific features. As your Magento store uses the same URL in all devices, SEO ranking will improve when your customers share your eCommerce website. This feature also makes it easier for the search engines to crawl, index, and organize your web content. Since 57% of customers are unlikely to recommend an online store that is not mobile-friendly, you cannot let go of a responsive web design. With reduced development costs, responsive web designing becomes more feasible while attaining greater versatility than maintaining a separate website version accessible to mobile users. The standardized testing methodologies adopted by responsive design also facilitates timely glance into the optimal functioning of the layout across all channels. 

3. Innovative Technology

The commerce edition of Magento 2 offers product recommendations powered by Adobe Sensei that employs machine learning technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI). You can now display automated and intelligent product recommendations on your website. Unlike the traditional searching process that uses the keywords, AI includes context-based search. Through NLP, meaning of the keywords can be understood better, thereby showing only relevant and accurate search results to customers. By analyzing the demographics and shopping history, AI creates predictive models. Magento 2 employs them to understand the target base to develop better marketing strategies.Powered by AI, the image recognition algorithm enables visual search, which is more convenient to customers shopping from mobile devices. Using this feature, the customer can easily upload an image into the search bar and after identifying it, your eCommerce website will be equipped to display similar or related products within no time.The predefined scripts employed by AI aids in responding to customer grievances or any purchase-related problems in a much quicker pace. Apart from customer services, AI and machine learning enabled by Magento 2 strengthens the security of your eCommerce website by linking machine learning and security standards. Through behavioral analysis of AI, the system can spot false positives so that you can act upon them. 

4. Elasticsearch 

With the increasing convenience and dynamic trends the customers are exposed to, they expect a smooth journey across your online storefront. Magento 2.4 employs the server-based tool, Elasticsearch 7.6, as its default catalog search engine that facilitates full-text search at a faster rate. This quick speed is brought about by the indexing service that favors contextual search. A few of the features that Magento 2 offers through Elasticsearch are:

• Search autocomplete
• Favors searches in multiple languages 
• Supports synonyms
• Stop words detection

By sorting dates and numbers at an enhanced pace, Elasticsearch 7.6 proves to be faster than its previous versions. Furthermore, your customers will not face any disturbance when Elasticsearch re-indexes. It can be effectively run on any system and in clusters that have numerous nodes. Maintaining your online storefront to be on point with the Magento eCommerce development trends can be your lifesaver in a highly competitive market. Look for the right eCommerce website development agency that can help you curate your perfect Magento storefront.

With DCKAP, Experience the Best Magento Development Services 

DCKAP is equipped with 15+ years of experience in the eCommerce spectrum, helping us set the bar high with our seamless Magento development services. Innovation that meets quality- that’s the exact goal driving our in-house Magento developers to build your online storefront in the perfect platform that exceeds your expectations. Our expertise in the field will help you in providing a top-notch shopping experience to your customers, ensuring conversion rates that are guaranteed to be on a rise. Being the Magento solutions partner, our consistent work results in timely completion of projects that prepares our clients to adapt to any emerging trends or innovations in this fast-paced world of eCommerce. With our Magento services, brace yourselves to scale high.

Get the custom developed Magento extensions built for your businesses from our store. Visit Now.

Magento 2 is a powerful and leading eCommerce platform which provides eCommerce merchants with a cart system that’s flexible. The eCommerce platform has seen enormous growth in recent years due to its robust features. 

Magento extensions help in adding custom features and functionalities for enhancing your online store, thus leading to an increase in customers along with an increase in eCommerce revenue. In this blog, we have listed the best extensions that are compatible with Magento 2.3.

Order Processing

• Quick Order
• Tax Exemption
• Advanced Sample Order

Credit points and Promotions

• Reward Points
• Special Promotions

Customer Management

• Ajax Login
• Customer Attribute Manager

Search

• Algolia Search
• Ajax Search for Magento 2

Order Processing

Today, every customer wishes to purchase more products with less time. Enabling a customer to purchase more by spending lesser time is very tricky. But, the extensions mentioned below will do the trick.

1. Quick Order

Are you tired of navigating to every web page to order your product? Don’t worry; the quick order extension will help in saving your valuable time. At any point, a user visits an online store, he/she will attempt to look for the particular items, thus requesting the items rapidly, without exploring the pages to discover the items. The Quick Order request is an extension that will encourage the buyer with the use of placing an order in a jiffy, along with providing a great UI experience. 

Highlights:

• Buyers can look for and request the items by using the quick order request popup, without having to waste time by exploring different pages.
• Using this popup, customers can order simple and configurable products.
• Various items can be effectively included using dynamic columns in the popup, where customers can also proceed to the checkout page from the popup itself.
• B2B customers can add multiple products quickly by specifying the SKU and the quantity of the products from a text area in the popup.
• The admin can change the number of rows to be displayed in the popup, which is used to order the products.
• The admin can change the separator for the SKU and quantity from the backend settings.
• The admin can also change the number of characters needed for the product’s auto-suggest to work in the popup.
• Smoothen the procedure of mass product requests by using CSV file import.

Vendor: DCKAP

2. Tax Exemption

The Tax Exemption extension is used to give tax exempt advantages to qualified customers. For getting approval, customers can upload their tax exemption certificates from the “my account” section. Once the admin reviews and approves the request, customers can receive the tax-exempt option on the checkout page. The admin can additionally set the expiration for the tax exemption from the “customer account” section.

Highlights:

• The tax exemption can be enabled/disabled at any time from the Magento backend.
• Have the ability to set an expiration date for the tax exemption.
• Once the tax exemption date expires, the customer would not be able to get the tax exemption on the checkout page. This can automatically be controlled.
• When the customer uploads the tax exemption certificate, the administrator will be notified via email.
• Once the admin approves the tax exemption, the customer will get a notification via email.
• The admin can configure the email address that will receive all the tax exemption request emails.
• The admin can also manage the tax exemption customer details on a separate menu and send the notification email to the customer about the certificate expiration details.

Vendor:

DCKAP

3. Advanced Sample Orders

Do you have a fear of product quality? Through the Advanced Sample Order extension, customers can order samples before making a bulk purchase of the original product. Here, the sample order gets processed as a regular order and provides analytical information.

Highlights:

• Ordering the samples has been based on specific products and customer groups so that the admin can restrict the ordering of samples.
• It provides an additional feature to set a price for both original and sample orders.
• Different prices can be given to samples at a fixed price or a percentage of the regular price — for example, 200% of the original price. Fixed prices will not be applicable to a configurable, grouped, and downloadable product, as the prices are dynamic as per user selections.
• You can purchase both samples and normal orders in a single request.
• You can also give samples for free, based on the price settings of the samples.
• The sample products can be easily identified in any order, both in front-end and back-end.
• It works only for Single, Configurable, Grouped, and Bundle Products.

Vendor:

DCKAP

Credit points and Promotions

Promotions are one of the key factors for gaining more customers. This helps in increasing the number of store visitors and effectively boost up sales. The extensions mentioned below will help with the promotions and motivate the customers to purchase more and more.

1. Reward Points + Referral program

Customers can now purchase using their reward points rather than paying money. The concept of reward points encourages customers to make use of their credit points for their purchases. Reward Points Programs allow customers to earn points on every purchase, where they can redeem these points on their next purchase. An expiration date for the reward points can also be set.

Highlights:

• Design an effective loyalty program.
• Reward customers for every profitable action.
• Gamify the shopping experience by using a tiered loyalty program.
• Motivate existing customers to refer their friends and family.
• Integrate your store with other systems via API.

Vendor:

Mirasvit

2. Special Promotions

Special customization on cart price rules will take your site to a whole new level. Offering free products, gifts, and discounts will send an invite that lures the customers to visit your site regularly for more offers. 

Highlights:

• Apply discounts for both the original and special prices.
• The promotion rules are also created based on the customer and order attributes.
• Display all types of promotions on the frontend so that the user can easily select and use them based on their necessity.
• The edit option will also be available for coupons.
• These advance promotions will provide extraordinary service to customers.

Vendor: MageDelight

Customer Management

Customers play a vital role in the success of an eCommerce store. The unique data of each customer is managed using customer attributes. Customer attributes are the key to customer management. The extensions mentioned below help in managing the customers and their information in Magento 2.     

1. Customer Attribute Manager

Customer attributes help merchants to maintain the unique data of every customer. Customer attributes produce information that is required to support the order, fulfillment, and customer management processes. This will be very useful during the checkout process. 

Highlights: 

• Admin can create custom attributes in the Magento backend without any limitation.
• These attributes will help in getting adequate information from customers during registration.
• Easy to send and retrieve the data from the customer account.

Vendor: DCKAP

2. Ajax Login

With Ajax Login, users can register and login in an easy and faster way. The users can log in through a pop-up window without having to refresh the current page, and it also helps in retrieving forgotten passwords by not having to refresh the current page. Ajax Login reduces the loading time of the end client. It removes URL redirection and provides a simple approach for customers to log into their accounts. For instance, if you need to sign in with a default Magento installation, tapping the “sign in” top link will load another new page (the login page). With Ajax Login, tapping the “sign in” top link will display a popup that the users can log in without having to reload another page. 

Highlights: 

• It gives the best user experience instead of having to wait for the page to load.
• It increases the probability of the user login action.

Vendor:

DCKAP

Search

Generally, shoppers visit an eCommerce site without having a clear idea of what they are looking for. So, they use the search engine to search for the product they desire. If the search results are quickly found, the purchase rate will seemingly tend to get high.

1. Algolia Search

Algolia is the speediest and most reliable search experience for Magento. Algolia Instant Search allows you to easily replace your current Magento search with an autocomplete and instant search results page that updates the products and categories in real-time. The results show up instantly as the user types with no delay, hence leading to what the customers are exactly looking for.

Highlights: 

• The results are shown automatically as the user types, and the immediate search results are updated in real-time with products and categories for a site.
• In order to provide a fast and appropriate search, the Algolia search engine uses a way through a process called indexing.
• Be able to auto-complete search results on an instant search page.
• Customer engagement will be increased for your store.

Vendor:

Magento Marketplace

2. Ajax Search for Magento 2

This search has been developed with Ajax functionality. The search results will show up in the popup box after the user has typed the first character in the search box. The Ajax Search extension helps in increasing the conversion rate for your eCommerce business.

Highlights: 

• Auto Suggestion for the typed letters in the search box.
• It Supports up to 10,000 SKUs 
• Support for multiple languages.

Vendor: Mageplaza

The Magento extensions/modules mentioned above will help in bringing out the best of your eCommerce store. We have come to the end of this blog, and we hope that this blog was helpful to you. If you have any queries, please feel free to leave a comment down below.

This blog will give you detailed notes on creating Magento 2 popup using knockout JS and extending components.

Before we begin, I would like to explain why we use Knockout JS and showing the popup by extending JS components. 

In Magento, most of the code is written in Knockout JS to show dynamic changes in the front end. So knowing how to use Knockout JS to add a popup is extremely useful when the page is filled with koJS code. In such files, you can simply follow this blog. This blog also gives you an idea of how to extend JS components in Magento.

Follow the steps below to create a popup in Magento.

1. Create module
2. Create a frontend page
3. Extend the popup JS component using Knockout JS

By the time you’re done reading this blog, you’ll know how to use the popup efficiently.

Note: If you are already working on a module and know where to add your popup and just searching for the code, kindly skip to step 3

Related read: How to install Magento 2 on your MacBook

Creating A Module 

Step 1: Create a module.

Create a Vendor/Module Folder. This is your root module folder. In our case the Vendor is DCKAP and the Module is PopUP

a)    Create a module.xml file

path: Vendor/Module/etc/module.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Module/etc/module.xsd">
   <module name="DCKAP_PopUp" setup_version="1.0.0">
   </module>
</config>

b)    Create a registration.php file

path: Vendor/Module/registration.php

<?php
/**
* Copyright © Magento, Inc. All rights reserved.
* See COPYING.txt for license details.
*/
use Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar;
ComponentRegistrar::register(ComponentRegistrar::MODULE, 'DCKAP_PopUp', __DIR__);

Now run 

php bin/magento setup:upgrade

php bin/magento module:status DCKAP_PopUp

If you see that the status is enabled, then you have successfully created the module. Next, we’ll cover how to create an HTML page in which a popup needs to be shown.

Creating a frontend page

This blog will give you detailed notes on creating a popup in Magento 2 using Knockout JS and extending components.

Note: This page is the second part of a continuous blog. 

Previous step                                    Next step

Step 2: Create a frontend page.

This is where we are going to write our code to show the popup by extending the JS. Anyway, that is our next step for now we will create a frontend page.

Follow the steps below.

a)    Create your routes.xml file 

path: Vendor/Module/etc/frontend/routes.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--
/**
* Copyright © Magento, Inc. All rights reserved.a
* See COPYING.txt for license details.
*/
-->
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:App/etc/routes.xsd">
   <router id="standard">
       <route id="popup" frontName="popup">
           <module name="DCKAP_PopUp" />
       </route>
   </router>
</config>

The frontName is the path to your webpage. It is always recommended to keep it as same as the module name.

b)     create the controller file

            path: Vendor/Module/Controller/Home/Index.php

<?php
/**
*
* @package magento2
* @author DCKAP Technologies
* @license https://opensource.org/licenses/OSL-3.0 Open Software License v. 3.0 (OSL-3.0)
* @link https://www.codilar.com/
*/
namespace DCKAP\PopUp\Controller\Home;
 
use Magento\Framework\App\Action\Action;
use Magento\Framework\App\Action\Context;
use Magento\Framework\App\ResponseInterface;
use Magento\Framework\View\Result\PageFactory;
 
class Index extends Action {
   /**
    * @var PageFactory
    */
   private $pageFactory;
 
   /**
    * Index constructor.
    * @param Context $context
    * @param PageFactory $pageFactory
    */
   public function __construct(
       Context $context,
       PageFactory $pageFactory
   )
   {
       parent::__construct($context);
       $this->pageFactory = $pageFactory;
   }
 
   /**
    * Execute action based on request and return result
    *
    * Note: Request will be added as operation argument in future
    *
    * @return \Magento\Framework\Controller\ResultInterface|ResponseInterface
    * @throws \Magento\Framework\Exception\NotFoundException
    */
   public function execute()
   {
       $page = $this->pageFactory->create();
       return $page;
   }
}

Here you are writing your controller code inside the Controller/Home directory. It says that your controller name is Home. This is very very important when we have to write the layout file for our web page. The naming convention depends on it we will know about it in the next step.

        c)    Create your template file 

path: Vendor/Module/view/frontend/templates/index.phtml

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" dir="ltr">
 <head>
   <meta charset="utf-8">
   <title>Hello World </title>
 </head>
 <body>
 <h1 class="login-link">Knockout Js PopUp Template</h1>
   <div id="knockout-example" data-bind="scope:'ko-script'">
     <!-- ko template: getTemplate() --><!-- /ko -->
   </div>
 </body>
</html>
 
<script type="text/x-magento-init">
{
"*":{
     "Magento_Ui/js/core/app":
     {
       "components":
       {
         "ko-script":
         {
           "component": "DCKAP_PopUp/js/myscript"
         }
       }
     }
   }
}
</script>

Note that we’ve used script code. This code is useful to extend the js component. When we write the myscript in the js folder you will have a js file which is extended using the  <!– ko template: getTemplate() –><!– /ko –> . This is where we are writing the code using Knockout JS.

d)    Create your layout file 

path: Vendor/Module/view/frontend/layout/popup_home_index.php

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
   <body>
       <referenceContainer name="content">
           <block class="DCKAP\PopUp\Block\Index" name="popup" template="DCKAP_PopUp::index.phtml" />
       </referenceContainer>
   </body>
</page>

You can easily guess the naming syntax of the layout file. Your layout file must be written in the following format  frontname_controllername_templatename.phtml 

Where frontname is what we write in the routes.xml

We are almost finished with our steps and the next page is the final step. Kindly go to the next page.

Extending JS components and Knockout JS

This blog will give you detailed notes on creating a popup in Magento 2 using Knockout JS and extending components.

Note: This page is the third and final part of a continuous blog. 

Previous step                                   

a)    Create your javascript file 

path: Vendor/Module/view/frontend/web/js/myscript.js

define(['jquery', 'uiComponent', 'ko','Magento_Ui/js/modal/confirm'], function ($, Component, ko,confirmation) {
 'use strict';
 return Component.extend({
   defaults: {
   template: 'DCKAP_PopUp/knockout-template'
   },
   initialize: function () {
   this._super();
   },
   confirmButton: function(){
     confirmation({
       title: $.mage.__('Knockout confirmation Popup'),
       content: $.mage.__('Are you sure you wanna do this?'),
       actions: {
           confirm: function(){},
           cancel: function(){},
           always: function(){}
       }
     });
   },
 })
});

The above code initializes the html template which will be returned by this myscript.js   

The final file we have to create is the Knockout-template file

b)    Create your web/template file 

path: Vendor/Module/view/frontend/web/template/knockout-template.html

<div class="component-class">
   <div data-bind="text: 'This is knockout JS Template'"></div>
   <button data-bind="click: confirmButton" type="button" id="confirm">KO PopUp Button</button>
</div>

All we have to do now is run the following commands, stretch a little bit and see the output on the screen

php bin/magento setup:di:compile

php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f

php bin/magento c:c

php bin/magento c:f

find the output at  your/store/url/popup/home/index/

If you already have your module and know where to add the popup then you can simply write the script code in index.phtml ( available in the second part) and follow from there. 

• If you have any doubts about this blog, kindly comment below. I will try to clarify them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For further reading about the confirmation popup : 

https://developer.adobe.com/commerce/frontend-core/javascript/jquery-widgets/confirm/

About extending components in Magento using JS:

https://developer.adobe.com/commerce/frontend-core/javascript/custom/

Adobe Commerce (previously Magento) allows you to configure multiple websites for a single installation.

For convenience, Adobe Commerce offers features that let you create multiple stores and manage them from the backend. But the challenge is whether you want to utilize Adobe Commerce for many stores, multiple domains, or multiple stores on a single domain.

This Blog helps you to set the possible ways to set up subfolders and subdomains i.e multi-website setup in your local system.

For Example:

You can manage this as a subfolder

 Website A     Store A    Store View A  => http://localhost/magento/

 Website B     Store B    Store View B  => http://localhost/magento/dckap

                               OR

You must have 2 different domains to setup multi-websites. like- www.b2c.com & test.b2b.com

Website A     Store A    Store View A  => http://b2c.magento.com/

 Website B     Store B    Store View B  => http://b2c.magento.com/

Method 1: Create a subfolder in localhost

After creating your new website/store/store view

Step 1: Create the folder in Magento root folder with the name of the created website code(mine is dckap), copy and paste the index.php and .htaccess from the root folder to the created folder.

To get the website code – In the Admin, click Stores > All Stores(get the website code)

Step 2: Modify the index.php as follows

<?php

/**

 * Public alias for the application entry point

 *

 * Copyright © Magento, Inc. All rights reserved.

 * See COPYING.txt for license details.

 */

use Magento\Framework\App\Bootstrap;

try {

require __DIR__ . ‘/../../app/bootstrap.php’;

} catch (\Exception $e) {

echo <<<HTML

<div style=”font:12px/1.35em arial, helvetica, sans-serif;”>

<div style=”margin:0 0 25px 0; border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;”>

     <h3 style=”margin:0;font-size:1.7em;font-weight:normal;text-transform:none;text-align:left;color:#2f2f2f;”>

     Autoload error</h3>

</div>

<p>{$e->getMessage()}</p>

</div>

HTML;

http_response_code(500);

exit(1);

}

$params = $_SERVER;

$params[\Magento\Store\Model\StoreManager::PARAM_RUN_CODE] = ‘dckap’; //Website code as same in admin panel

$params[\Magento\Store\Model\StoreManager::PARAM_RUN_TYPE] = ‘website’;

$bootstrap = \Magento\Framework\App\Bootstrap::create(BP, $params);

/** @var \Magento\Framework\App\Http $app */

$app = $bootstrap->createApplication(‘Magento\Framework\App\Http’);

$bootstrap->run($app);

Step 3: Do the below configuration in the admin dashboard

In the Admin, click Stores > Settings > Configuration > General > Web(Select the website scope)

Step 4: Now access the website in browser

 Website 1: http://localhost/magento/

 Website 2: http://localhost/magento/dckap/

Method 2: Create a subdomain in localhost

Step 1: Open the folder virtual host cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/

Step 2: Create a file with .conf type to setup the virtual host

sudo touch magentoinstance.conf

Step 3 : Open and write the below code and save

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName b2c.magento.com

DocumentRoot /var/www/html/magento/pub

   <Directory “/var/www/html/magento/pub”>

  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

  AllowOverride All

         Order allow,deny

         Allow from All

</Directory>

 SetEnv MAGE_RUN_CODE base

  SetEnv MAGE_RUN_TYPE website

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName b2b.magento.com

DocumentRoot /var/www/html/magento/pub

   <Directory “/var/www/html/magento/pub”>

  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

  AllowOverride All

         Order allow,deny

         Allow from All

</Directory>

 SetEnv MAGE_RUN_CODE dckap

  SetEnv MAGE_RUN_TYPE website

</VirtualHost>

Note: base,dckap refers to the website code 

Step 4: Open the host sudo nano /etc/hosts and write the below code and save

127.0.0.1 b2c.magento.com

127.0.0.1 b2b.magento.com

Step 5: sudo a2ensite magentoinstance.conf

Step 6: sudo service apache2 restart

Step 7: Change Base url in core_config_data table and cache clean

Step 8: Now Access the site in frontend

http://b2c.magento.com/

http://b2b.magento.com/

Related read: How to create a Magento 2 Popup By Extending JS components & Knockout JS