Welcome to MageNews June!
The Magento community was busy this past month. Nothing new there! The Atwix team combed through the activity and selected some of the best content across the Magento ecosystem and eCommerce landscape. Grab yourself a coffee (or tea) and enjoy this month’s entry.
Content
- [Merchant] Facebook Shops
- [Merchant] The Forrester Wave
- [Merchant] Magento 1 End Of Life
- [Marketing] Google Core Updates
- [Community] Adobe Partner Program
- [Community] Magento Association Co-Op
- [Community] MerchDocs Update
- [Community] Online Kyiv Magento Meetup
- [Technical] Global Custom Layout Updates
- [Technical] GraphQl Coverage
- Upcoming Events
- Want more?
Merchant
Facebook Shops
Facebook is pushing the concept of social commerce to the next level with its announcement of Facebook Shops. Facebook Shops is an accessible way for small and mid-sized businesses to set up a single online store for their customers to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This entry point is going to create a seamless shopping experience for businesses and their customers across Facebook owned assets. Facebook Shops will support:
– managing catalog
– products discovery through stories, videos and live shopping from them
– AI-based personalization and AR capabilities
– handling shipping, logistic and sending transactional messages
– loyalty program
– customer assistance by answering questions via WhatsApp, Instagram Direct or Facebook Messenger
Facebook Shops intends to become a new sales channel for B2C brands. Beyond B2C, Facebook envisions facilitating consumer-to-consumer models, as well, in helping grow a new generation of entrepreneurs who natively understand the power of their social network.
Today we're introducing Facebook Shops, which will make it easy for businesses to set up a single online store on both @facebookapp and @instagram, and soon @messenger and @WhatsApp too pic.twitter.com/bBloRGBFzP
— Facebook (@Facebook) May 19, 2020
More Info:
– [Facebook] Introducing Facebook Shops: Helping Small Businesses Sell Online
– [Shopify] Shopify partners with Facebook to help businesses launch branded Facebook Shops
– [PracticalCommerce] Facebook Shops Are an Ecommerce Game Changer
The Forrester Wave
Forrester recognized Adobe/Magento as a leading platform for B2C and B2B businesses in the recent The Forrester Wave report.
Adobe was one of 13 vendors listed in the B2B Wave and one of 10 vendors listed in the B2C Wave. Both reports evaluated Strategy, Current Offering, and Market Presence.
Forrester highlighted these key features of Magento platform:
– active, loyal, highly capable development ecosystem
– strong global partner ecosystem
– rich out-of-the-box feature set
– PWA Studio to lower cost of creating progressive storefronts
– integrations with Adobe creative tools
We're proud to be named a leader in The Forrester Wave: B2C and B2B Commerce Suites! 🎉 Check out both reports here: https://t.co/rWaO1LfxYy
— Adobe Commerce (@AdobeCommerce) May 19, 2020
More Info:
– [Adobe] Adobe Named a LEADER in The Forrester Wave™: B2C and B2B Commerce Suites
– [Adobe] The Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites, Q2 2020
– [Adobe] The Forrester Wave™: B2B Commerce Suites, Q2 2020
Magento 1 End Of Life
Adobe is going to support Magento 1 through June 30th. In essence, this means that Magento will stop creating official security patches and updates for Magento 1 after that date. As a consequence, merchants who chose to stay on the outdated platform are solely responsible for meeting PCI DSS requirements, mitigating data breaches, and emerging security incidents.
We are committed to our #Magento 1 merchants through June 2020, ensuring their sites are secure and compliant. Learn how https://t.co/FLauq1sQ09 pic.twitter.com/bdJNpLFHvO
— Adobe Commerce (@AdobeCommerce) September 6, 2018
Not only will the platform become out of date, but PHP 7.2, which Magento 1 currently supports, will reach end-of-support in November 2020.
If you are asking yourself how to deal with Magento 1 End-of-Life if you are still a Magento 1 merchant, we highly recommend evaluating the consequences surrounding end-of-support. The security risks are more than real, as Magento is a popular eCommerce platform.
It’s well understood that hackers will want to explore new security vulnerabilities. Another reason is that it may well become a problem to prolong PCI compliance after Magento 1 EoL.
Learn more about risks in our extended article.
Magento 1 merchants will eventually need to migrate to another supported eCommerce platform. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here. A merchant will need to revisit their business, processes, and eCommerce expectations in choosing their next platform.
For those Magento 1 merchants who are thinking about Magento 2 migration, service integrators offer great and swift migration packs. For example, Atwix offers three Magento Express Packages to support merchants of all sizes and with varying business demands.
For those who need more time to decide where to go, there are great initiatives from the Magento ecosystem like:
– MageOne – a paid 3rd-party security patch vendor
– Sansec – an eCommerce security scanning tool for mitigating MageCart-like attacks
– Nexcess – Safe Harbor Program
– OpenMage LTS – a community-driven fork of Magento 1 CE
– and other heroes that are working with Magento 1 merchants post-EoL
Nothing lasts forever, and the Magento 1 era moves closer and closer towards its end. It is our hope and core belief that with the help of the Magento ecosystem, Magento 1 merchants will flip what might appear as a big time challenges into new possibilities for their businesses and, by extension, their customers.
More Info:
– [Atwix] Magento 1 End Of Life & Migration to Magento 2
– [Nexcess] Magento 1 End of Life: What You Need to Know
– [Github] OpenMage LTS
– [PayPal] Magento 1 End of Life Announcement
– [Nexcess] Safe Harbor Program
– [Magento Association] The End Is Here
– [Magento Association] Magento 1 Post-EOL Resources
– [Atwix] MageNews April 2020 – Is Your Business Impacted? We Are Here To Help
Marketing
Google Core Updates
Google released a planned quarterly update. The core updates usually include significant, broad changes to the search algorithms and systems. They help Google show relevant, authoritative, quality content to searchers. If you received negative experiences with the update, check out the following recommendations from the Google Webmaster team.
Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the May 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020
More Info:
– [Google Webmaster Blog] What webmasters should know about Google’s core updates
– [Google] Search Quality Rating Program
– [MHC] What is E-A-T?
Community
Adobe Roadmap Acceleration Initiative
Adobe announced a new program to help small and mid-sized agencies going through uncertain times. The program’s aim is to help keep agencies afloat by funding idle developers. Adobe will use the development resources to help develop the roadmap features, documentation, improvements, and test coverage.
The goal is to let developers keep their jobs and agencies to not furlough their employees amidst the global economic downturn – and Adobe will benefit from an accelerated timeline.
If you are interested in this program, reach out to your Magento Partner Manager for details.
"It's a classic win-win-win." Adobe is providing funding to help our partners avoid layoffs by putting their talented engineers to work on Magento features. Workers work, roadmaps come to life, and customer win, too. https://t.co/6RFLUtmdR5
— Adobe Commerce (@AdobeCommerce) May 18, 2020
More Info:
– [Magento Blog] Supporting Our Solution Partners and Developers During These Unprecedented Times
– [CIO] New Adobe Program Aims to Benefit Magento Partners and Developers in Unprecedented Times
Magento Association Co-Op
Magento Association launched a new website and Commerce Co-Op – a community content hub. Check it out. There are many articles from the community rockstars:
– My Journey to Get Magento Certified by Alessandro Ronchi
– Best Practices for Magento 2 Programming by Mark Shust
– How to Maximize Working Remotely by Alex Lunkov
– Tips for Managing Your Magento Store During the COVID-19 Crisis by John Hughes
– Helping Magento Merchants by Doug O’Dwyer
Our new website is here! Check out the new look as well as Commerce Co-Op (a new hub for Magento community content). Be sure to subscribe for updates. This is only the beginning of what we’re going to build together. https://t.co/kkLS8cIJXr #magento #magentoassociation pic.twitter.com/LHZTvLui4S
— Magento Association (@MagentoAssoc) May 11, 2020
Another important update from Magento Association is the Magento Association Connect event, which recently took place online. Over 1300 people attended the event making it the largest community-driven Magento conference in its history.
This must be the most epically dressed #Magento – or *conference* – panel ever! How does #Magento ecosystem thrive without offline events w/ @wsakaren @jhuskisson @TadhgBowe @BenMarks @tinktaylor @sherrierohde @tomislavbilic #MAConnect pic.twitter.com/uD6o1irJwG
— Slava Kravchuk (@slkra) May 28, 2020
Magento Association has truly started to connect and shape the Magento ecosystem. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this – become a Magento Association member!
More Info:
– [Magento Association] Homepage
– [Magento Association] Events
– [Magento Association] Commerce Co-Op
– [Atwix] MA Connect and the future of Magento events
MerchDocs Update
Merchant Documentation got a new look! The duplicated content across the platform versions and editions was unified. This improves UX and searchability.
We are making your life (and ours) better, more efficient, and more helpful….
— Magento DevDocs (@MagentoDevDocs) May 29, 2020
We now have a NEW unified #userguide for #Merchant #Documentation!
Get all the good, juicy news here: https://t.co/oKLxmnGRYt
More Info:
– [Magento DevBlog] Unified User Guide for Magento 2.3
Online Kyiv Magento Meetup Recordings
We secured recordings of Online Kyiv Magento Meetup sessions. The event was organized by Atwix for Ukrainian and Russian-speaking Magento community. We were glad to see all 250+ attendees. Check them out:
– Semi-PWA store on Magento Commerce Cloud [RU] by Yaroslav Rogoza
– PhpStorm Plugin Development Workshop [UA] by Vitalii Boiko
– Something Architecture [RU] by Igor Miniailo
– Magento maintainer: about decision making, work with community and other things [RU] by Alexander Shkurko
– Asynchronous Magento [RU] by Oleksandr Lyzun
– Emergency Plan: How quickly adapt to changes in eCommerce [RU] by Yaroslava Upatova
More Info:
– [Atwix] Kyiv Magento Online Meetup May 2020 – Playlist
Technical
GraphQl Coverage
Magento moved a little bit closer to the full GraphQl coverage. Atwix engineers together with the Magento Architects team worked hard on bringing remaining endpoints for B2C features like:
– wishlist
– gift card
– gift wrapping
– product reviews
– customer password reset
– newsletter subscription
We’re looking forward to seeing these features included in the upcoming Magento 2.4 release.
More Info:
– [Github] Add GraphQL mutations for Reset password for MyAccount
– [Github] Adding Product Reviews GraphQl support
– [Github] Added GiftWrappingGraphQl module
– [Github] Adding Wishlist GraphQl coverage
Global Custom Layout Updates
Since version 2.3.4, Magento removed layout update fields from the Magento Admin for security purposes. The following module helps apply global layout updates in a handy way:
NEW: https://t.co/W5S1uIGOWI#Magento 2.3.4 made it much more difficult to set layout updates from Magento admin.
— willem wigman (@willemwigman) May 11, 2020
With this module, you can use global selectable layout files, instead of writing one for each product/category/page!
More Info:
– [Github] integer-net/magento2-global-custom-layout – Module for Magento 2 that allows you to add global layout update files to be selected from admin
– [Atwix] MageNews Feb 2020 – Magento 2.3.4 Security Enhancements
Upcoming Events
– Jun 17th – MM20UK, Online
– Jul 22-23th – Adobe Expirience Makers Live, Online
Want more?
July promises to be just as busy, and the new MageNews issue is just around the corner – subscribe to our blog.
See you in a month!
Other Digests:
– Atwix MageNews – May 2020
– Atwix MageNews – April 2020