April 2021 experienced much in the way of eCommerce news and announcements, no more so than Adobe Commerce’s ecosystem. Breaking news to cover this month: Magento Commerce rebranding to Adobe Commerce, Adobe Summit 2021 connected 1,000s of us, Partner ecosystem product expansions centered on improved customer experiences, speeding up the purchase process, and scaling a merchant’s offerings and reach. Let’s check out what Atwix Partners brought us in April!
Today, on April 15th, the world celebrates International Art Day. Being true fans of creative art design, the team at Atwix believes that a great design does more than meets the eye – it communicates the spirit of a company — your company — and likely provides more insight about a business than you might think. Like touch, hearing and smelling. In this way, art is seeing. Creative, personalized art translates you and your organization into a visual language.
The 31st of March is a date of annual celebration to the Atwix Team. On this date we recognize our eCommerce partnership with Magento, an Adobe company. This year we have 10x reasons to toast our collective selves. We have been a partner going back to 2011. Since then everything we aim to accomplish — commercial and community — is tightly interconnected with Magento and the rapidly expanding eCommerce global economy we support. Ten years in, we remain all-in alongside Magento and our greater ecosystem. Cheers! #HappyAnniversaryMagento
In this MageNews issue we reveal: what challenges, good and bad, eCommerce businesses can expect from Cookieless Future; shedding some light on new SEO changes for Google coming in May 2021; Magento PWA Studio news; PhpStorm plugin, and more.
This is Atwix MageNews April 2021 🍃
At Atwix, a primary success driver is developing long, trusted partnerships. You cannot win anything alone. Well, you can, but it will be much more difficult and way more boring.
And let’s face it – Magento is all about the Community and its broad partner ecosystem – so staying current on what’s new and what’s changing is a must. So in addition to MageNews, we’re happy to introduce and produce another monthly write-up about our technology partners. This read will contain some news on product releases, Magento extensions, events of interest and much more. Enjoy March’s partner news!
Everyone wants a fast website. That’s a fact. And if you ask how fast, most likely you will hear a reference to the Google Page Speed Insights. That’s a curious trend that we observe during the past couple of years. But why Google Page Speed Insights? The typical answer is that Google will love your website more if you have a green score. But is that a true? The short answer is no, and, to some extent, yes.
In March 2021 turns a year as we, in Europe and in the US faced a threat of Covid-19 and the first lockdown started. The world has changed since then — new-normal, normal, and the reality of our day-to-day. Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and FaceTime usage skyrocket. It’s no longer weird to have your kitchen in the background of your business call or to pet a dog during a board meeting. We move from a mid-size screen at work, to a small one during lunch and a big one before we go to bed. Services like Apple Fitness+ have been launched in 2020 to fulfill the demand for home-based everything. Our events become virtual… and on, and on, and on. The world has changed one year ago, and probably, to some extent, forever. Have we adapted to the new reality already? Not all. Will we have to? We think — yes. Will we need new tools to do that? Yes. Let’s review the e-reality we are living in and how it’s changing our lives, hopefully, for the better.
This is Atwix MageNews March 2021.
With Magento Community Engineering signed off and now pressing ahead with Magento 2.5, Adobe released Magento Commerce and Open Source 2.4.2. This latest release is powerful. It has numerous security fixes, performance improvements, and additional features. The Atwix team studied up on all the changes and has unpacked into small logical pieces for you. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!
Due to changes in the world economy, more and more (and more!) businesses find themselves going online. Even businesses that were already online are doubling down on their use of eCommerce. In effect, nearly every B2C company requires their own product, service, and professional counseling, which in turn generates B2B demand. In 2019, Forrester has forecasted that US B2B eCommerce will reach $1.8 trillion and account for 17% of all online sales in the US by 2023. Considering 2020 pandemic-related lockdown rules and corresponding changes becoming a new routine, we now expect to reach these numbers much earlier. The world will never be the same, and we have to adapt to the new reality.
Recently many people asked for my opinion on how things were going in the Magento engineering community. While 2020 was not as productive as 2019 for a variety of obvious reasons (like global pandemic), it was still a very cool year when reflecting on the new, powerful features delivered by the community (during a global pandemic). The following summary represents my thoughts on what we have accomplished, as well as useful insights based on the questions I received or observations I have made. Enjoy the read!
12% of 2021 has already passed. As they say, time sure flies. We are now well into the new year, and we are actively learning and applying these lessons as we Zoom through the first quarter. Is it too early to share what we are experiencing? Never! Sharing eCommerce trends and predictions is what we do. Magento is, after all, a dynamic platform built on top of an adaptive ecosystem.
Brands continue to face emerging challenges and are seizing new opportunities born in 2020 — like how to make eCommerce socially rewarding and engaging but also a secure and timely means to a merchant’s delivery to their customer — much like in-person commerce provided pre-pandemic.