Magento 2.4: What’s New and How to Benefit with the Update

The latest Magento 2.4 version released on July 28, 2020, was the first major update in 18 months. For online store merchants and customers, the new revamped Magento edition has brought about a bouquet full of changes, new fixes, and improved security.

In our article, we outline some of the most interesting features that the Magento 2.4 version brings and how the latest enhancements can benefit ecommerce businesses.

Introduction

Online shopping continues to gain traction around the globe. The latest Adobe Digital Economy Index released in July 2020 shows that in the USA alone the first seven months of 2020 have driven $434.5 billion in online spend. Surely, the pandemic that resulted in $93.9 billion extra spent online since March had its impact, but it was not the only reason for online sales growth.

Customers love online shopping on the go for its comfort and opportunity to save time, which is the result of merchants’ strive for delivering the best shopping experiences.

To arm businesses with new opportunities in the current ecommerce landscape and broaden the horizons for the future, Magento’s parent company Adobe has released the new Magento 2.4 full of remarkable features.

The latest Magento 2.4 version impresses with the figures. Some that were revealed in the official release notes include:

• Over 100 fixes to core code;
• 30 security enhancements;
• 98 new features;
• 12 extensions;
• 7 test cycles.

Now let’s see the updates of Magento 2.4 that сan benefit your business.

Magento 2.4 and Its Benefits for Merchants

The Magento development team has invested much effort to deliver an update enabling merchants to create greater shopping experiences.

Below we outline the most significant enhancements brought by Magento 2.4 for merchants, highlighting helpful online shopping industry insights.

1. Refined Order Approval Workflow

The upgraded order approval workflow enables B2B organizations to specify the approval rules for buyers such as order value, the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs), shipping costs, etc.

The benefits of this new feature include:

• Personalized approach based on multiple attributes;
• Accelerated purchasing process through the automated process;
• Email notifications;
• Compatibility with offline payment methods;

Note that it is available for Magento Commerce only.

2. Seller-Assisted Shopping

Another hallmark of the updated Magento 2.4 version allows merchants to provide their customers with the necessary support on a whole new level. The feature enables online store admins to log in as customers from the Magento Admin panel.

It’s all about improving customers’ shopping journey as it enables you to:

• Assist the customers and help fix issues directly from the customers’ accounts;
• Create orders or quotes on customers’ behalf and upon their requests;
• Execute administrative tasks such as setting up the approval rules.

3. In-Store Pickup Option

In this year’s Digital Economy Index, Adobe admits that “Buy Online Pickup in Store” (BOPIS) has become a favorable option for 31% of all online consumers in the USA since March 2020.

The in-store pickup feature empowers customers to select any of the available locations for pickup during the checkout. You may provide additional information about the nearest brick-and-mortar stores, like working hours, special holidays, payment options, and tax-free shopping.

This feature is beneficial both for merchants and customers for:

• No additional shipping costs, which helps to improve conversion;
• Opportunity for up-selling, as customers are likely to make additional in-store purchases.

4. Easier PWA Development

PWA technology continues to gain wider adoption in ecommerce. We made a short recap on the PWA benefits for ecommerce and online retailers in one of our articles.

Magento has released and updated PWA Studio 7.0.0 to make the process of PWA development easier and faster. PWA-based apps help bounce conversion rates through reliable and easy-to-understand user flow on mobile.

The updated PWA Studio contains new features, refactors, and improvements, such as:

• Enhanced Venia storefront look;
• Standalone cart and checkout pages;
• Separate order confirmation page;
• Standard way of working with modal windows.

5. Integration with Adobe Stock

People buy experiences. Magento 2.4 allows online store owners to craft their unique shopping experience and stand out from the competitors through creating content-driven websites.

The upgraded Media Gallery is integrated with Adobe Stock, allowing for a 30 times faster image search and filtering.

The re-developed Media Gallery facilitates web store asset management, making the process time-saving through:

• Quick image refreshing on your website;
• Ability to apply a tag and licensing status.

6. Platform Tech Optimization

Magento is constantly improving its platform following the most sophisticated tech requirements. The updated version 2.4 contains core technical improvements that are worth your attention.

Listed below are only some of them:

• Elasticsearch is now an obligatory search engine and must be installed on your server before going on with Magento 2.4;
• Magento Admin Panel is secured with 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication).  Supported authenticators are Google Authenticator, Duo, Authy, and U2F Keys;
• The latest PHP 7.4 and MySQL 8.0 are also now supported by Magento 2.4.  

You can find other platform tech upgrades in a list of Magento 2.4 tech stack requirements.

7. Performance and Infrastructure

The migration of core Braintree integration to a Vendor Bundled Extension adds to the improved shopping experience as well as all the other upgrades. This update enables payments through Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo, as well as facilitates the use of the existing data stored in a browser for faster transactions.

Other performances and infrastructure improvements include:

• Optimized shopping cart page;
• Automatization options via the new Composer Upgrade Plugin;
• Higher page speed implemented through Redis optimization.

Summing Up

From facilitated web store management to engaging shopping journeys, the new Magento 2.4 version brings whole new opportunities for online stores and their customers alike. With all the updates, Magento 2.4 is the solution that can transform your web store technically and deliver greater customer experience.

If you are questioning yourself on whether to update your web store to Magento 2.4, we can help you clarify the doubts.

In case your website is on Magento 1, we are ready to help migrate it to Magento 2. If you are already a user of Magento 2, we will assist in making all the necessary updates to improve your online store’s performance and leverage growth.

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