With everything going on in the world, it can sometimes be hard to see the glass as half full versus half empty. But the reality is that there are new opportunities that come with dramatic changes to the economy and the way our businesses operate. In eCommerce specifically, the landscape has seen many shifts over the last six months, including more omnichannel solutions than ever before with curbside pickup options increasing exponentially. And like the great businessman Warren Buffet once said, “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” Meaning, how we react and build today can be the structure for our future in this industry.

Magento Commerce has taken this mantra seriously: helping to ensure that the needs of the current eCommerce business are met within the structure of their newest update, Magento 2.4. Here is a brief breakdown of the significant changes:

In-store Pickup¹

The In-Store Pickup module in Inventory Management now has default enhancements to include the option for curbside pickup and notification to the buyer that the order is ready for pickup. If you have several locations where the product is available, the customer can select that during checkout.
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Unique Purchase Workflow Rules

B2B sellers are always searching to automate where they can, keeping the customer interaction simple and saving human capital. This new feature with Magento Commerce allows sellers to specify specific rules and workflows for each buyer, automating approval based on value, order size, etc. The journey for business buyers keeps getting better and better.
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Image Asset Management¹

Magento 2 already made huge strides with asset management of the media gallery, and Magento 2.4 takes it further, making it easier to track and use images. The simple yet effective change shows you if an image has already been used and where so that you are careful not to overuse and duplicate photos. Additionally, you can now search images by attribute, but be sure to add the attributes for your own images to take advantage of this option. Finally, they have further integrated Adobe Stock for a simple and quick way to bring stock photos into your asset library.
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Other new releases:

  • Seller-assisted shopping: customer service and sales reps can now log in as customers to set up orders and troubleshoot as the customer.
  • PWA enhancements¹: The newest release of PWA Studio makes headless development faster than ever before.
  • Admin 2FA¹: two-factor authentication is now required for each admin user, increasing security for all. ‍

¹ – Feature is available for Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source‍

Get in touch today to discuss upgrading your Magento site.