In recent times, the B2B sector is seeing a massive change in its adoption of digital transformation. And as per the numbers, this shift is not going to subside soon. With B2B eCommerce in the US all set to hit $1.8 trillion in 2023, digital transformation is definitely the buzzword that shies from ebbing away.
The expanding B2B buyer demographic and their expectations of a shopping experience similar to that of B2C eCommerce put forth the need to leverage your online storefront to meet the growing demands for you to gain brand recognition. Hosting your eCommerce website on the best platform is the best way to hit the mark with your potential customers.
Magento 2.4.2 comes with upgraded features to back B2B capabilities. The latest version accounts for performance improvements and security fixes among additional significant platform improvements. Giving room for over 280 fixes to core code, 30+ security enhancements, enhanced GraphQL, and 290 Github issues resolution, the release aims to expand the horizons of the online shopping experience.
Read on to know more about the upgraded features.
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Magento 2.4.2 Features To Look Out For
Enhanced B2B capabilities for purchase approvals and headless commerce
The new facelift that comes with Magento 2.4.2 backs online payments, bringing forth an enhanced purchase approval experience, which was previously restricted to just offline payments. You can now easily accept purchasing policies irrespective of the payment methods. Your buyers can also make use of the same approval process for all their orders.The online payment option will be provided at the check-out in addition to the onscreen reminders and email notifications signaling to include the payment details. The latest version also comes with new GraphQL APIs such as Company Credit and Requisition List that will ultimately support headless commerce implementations for B2B eCommerce websites.
Improved storefront performance and content management
The new Media Gallery, which was introduced in Magento 2.4, now comes up with Image Optimization. So, when you enable it, a fully web-optimized version of the product image will be displayed in place of the high-resolution image that is stored in the Media gallery. Such a generation of smaller image files without making changes to the original image will sustain the performance of your eCommerce website.The Media Gallery backs Access Control List in the Admin. You can now define user permissions for accessing Media Gallery and control actions. This will allow designers and digital agencies to access Magento instance and oversee any asset in the system directly eliminating the need for you to expose your data.Further, with the updates in the Page Builder, you can preview the content for both desktop and mobile views. Since migrating content to Page Builder and customizing Page Builder CSS are no longer tedious tasks, considerably minimize developer effort for their successful completion. As over 52% of B2B buyers are dissatisfied with the lack of information displayed on the websites, make sure to leverage the enhanced content management feature to gain competitive advantage.
Faster time to market and lower cost of ownership with PWA Studio
PWA Studio provides for multi-currency and multi-language support enabling you to launch international sites as top-tier PWAs smoothly and at a faster pace. The latest updates in PWA Studio bring up new Venia components that cover ‘My Account’ to speed up launches. Along with it comes extensibility and performance enhancements that can significantly deliver an enhanced experience for the developer and your customers. In addition to different performance optimizations and bug fixes, the extensibility framework has been improved for supporting code changes via extensions. This latest release of PWA Studio brings with it initial components for ‘My Account’ related features that include:
- Order History
- Wishlist
- Address Book
- Saved Payments
Realize faster time-to-value with In-Product Guidance
Magento 2.4.2 unleashes In-Product Guidance. Providing a personalized, proactive, and scalable In-Product experience facilitates all users to interact efficiently with crucial product features and value paths. Such experiences will quicken time to value and help your customers in their buying journey.Easily utilize these in-product experiences to let your customers know more about new features and onboard them real quick. In-product Guidance is made accessible only to those operating on Magento 2.4.2 and it calls for users to be opted-in to Admin User Tracking.
Platform quality and performance
The latest version provides for enhancements relating to platform quality and performance that would add to your developer’s ease as well. It provides space for VBE improvements, some of which are mentioned below:
- Braintree provides Buy Now Pay Later functionality
- Dotdigital offers transactional SMS messages
- Vertex will provide support for shipping in and out of global regions
Improved API performance and Admin response time back eCommerce websites with larger catalogs, making it easier to deal with multi-store implementations that have complex catalogs. Remote storage solutions come with AWS S3 support, ultimately leading to infrastructure optimization. Magento 2.4.2 has resolved 280+ functional quality issues, including those from Magento 2.4.1.
Upgrade Compatibility Tool
At present in Alpha, the Upgrade Compatibility Tool will ensure better transparency in the upgrade process. This Command-Line Interface tool examines a Magento instance against a specific version by assessing each and every non-Magento module that is installed on it.The Upgrade Compatibility Tool looks into any potential problems that are required to be fixed in your custom code prior to upgrading to Magento’s newer version. The tool presents a clear report of warnings and errors that are to be addressed before you take off to the newer version.Not only does it work perfectly between any two Magento Commerce 2.x versions, but it also presents an estimated complexity score related to the upgrade process. In the current Alpha release, it can validate Magento PHP APIs and the GraphQL schema to get hold of any potential issues and you can effectively analyze the compatibility of customizations.
What forms the next big step?
Aiming for digital transformation is one of the most crucial steps for your business. Your decision forms the foundation, being the first rung in your eCommerce ladder. What lies ahead is your choice of the eCommerce development community. With numerous choices ahead, it may not be as easy as you think. Here are some basic key points that you can search for:
- Concrete experience
- Impressive portfolio
- Thorough expertise
- Great communication
- Precise idea about the implementation process
Why DCKAP?
Over the 15 years since its inception, DCKAP has proven time and again in providing the best services to curate eCommerce websites, backed by its history of successful implementations. Complying with the web standards, our skilled resources deliver re-platforming and migration services with zero data loss.A trusted Magento partner, our Magento developers align the online storefronts to drive quality. The development phase of the Magento store puts across third-party integrations and custom functions in addition to the advanced UI/UX services. From Magento upgrade services, customized theme design, user-responsive design to SEO services, our certified Magento experts design and develop your eCommerce website with utmost perfection. Be ready to host your website with the best-in-class design and witness the upsurge in sales.
Get in touch with us to know more!
