Focusing on the future in the E-Commerce industry is a complex process. To make the right decision on the next step in business development, you will have to consider many factors such as technology, marketing, sales data analysis, and even new trends in social media. Long-term success of your growth strategy is only possible if it is based on deep knowledge in the areas described above. And by success, we mean not only increased revenue, but also the anticipation and mitigation of risks.
In this edition of updates, we'll focus on news and updates crucial to 2022 strategic planning: upcoming release of Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source, changes for Magento Marketplace and, of course, Magento community updates.
U.S. governors say they will soon introduce a major antitrust bill aimed at Big Tech. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act would prohibit dominant online platforms from engaging in discriminatory behavior. The bill would have profound implications for companies like Amazon, Apple and Google that all operate their own marketplaces for products or information.
These companies have been accused of ranking their products higher than rivals in an effort to generate more profits for themselves. Third-party sellers on Amazon, for example, have suspected that the platform ranks their own similar private label products higher than their own. Travel or local search sites such as Yelp and Tripadvisor have complained that Google unfairly lowers its own links in search results in favor of the preferred placement of its Google Maps tool.
An important release of Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source is coming, 2.4.4. It is crucial because of many things like PHP 8.1 compatibility, framework updates and many other useful updates. With PHP 8.1 compatibility, platforms will unlock the performance power of PHP 8 and its new features, one of the most popular programming languages. Apart from that, don't forget about the security aspect, which is also improved in PHP 8.1 version.
But this version can be challenging because it contains changes that are incompatible with previous versions. And to make this version smoother, the Adobe company announced the beta version program, which lasts for four months starting October 18, 2021
With the 2.4.4 beta program, you will get an idea of where the changes to the codebase are happening and start preparing 3 months before GA (March 8). It is an excellent opportunity for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source based projects to prepare for the platform upgrade in 2022. For more information about the release timeline and the Beta program, read the official article on the DevBlog - BREAKING NEWS: 2.4.4 beta releases are soon published by Stanislav Idolov.
In September, Adobe made available the pre-announcement of subscription functionality on Magento Marketplace. Now we are all witnessing how the ecosystem is changing with more and more Magento extension providers joining this marketplace shift. Amasty, Mageplaza, Aheadwoks, Mirasvit, Mageworx, Meetanshi and MageComp, have announced that they will be moving from a "one-time payment" approach to annual subscriptions starting next year.
This means that at the beginning of February 2022, each extension will come with a 1-year warranty with access to updates and support services. To have this access, customers will need to keep their subscriptions active. However, regardless of subscription status, customers will retain unlimited access to the code base and updates released during the active subscription and the right to use and customize purchased extensions.
The subscription-based business model has already proven its efficiency. We are confident that continued investment in products, R&D, and services will help vendors bring more value to the ecosystem and provide regular functional updates based on the latest development practices and user experience, increased product quality, and guarantees for service consistency.
On October 12, 2021, Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source were improved by new security updates 2.4.3-p1 and 2.3.7-p2. Substantial improvements have been made and look especially good for the upcoming active selling period. Having a stable and secure platform is critical when you're focusing on future growth and stress-free planning.
A list of listings for a variety of products has been introduced.
The payment service and asynchronous ads look very promising!
Here's what Abobe defined:
Later in the fourth quarter, we will introduce payment services for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source in North America. Merchants of all sizes will soon have access to a robust, secure and easily integrated payment solution that can be managed directly by the product administrator. We're also introducing enhancements to Adobe Commerce's checkout and cart functionality that support customers with exponentially larger scale requirements. With the correct configuration and setup, this optional configuration enables asynchronous order processing, greatly increasing order throughput and cart entries.
More details are available in the official article: Adobe Commerce brings multiple security and product updates in Q4 releases.
In September 2021, the Open Letter to the Magento Community was published. This triggered a lot of discussions in the Magento community. And, of course, the future of Magento Open Source was discussed during the Meet Magento Poland 2021 in September.
This tweet is a constructive summary of some of the discussion:
We have collected the selection of materials on this topic to keep you updated and welcome you to join the discussion:
Another construction material and highly recommended by Igor Minyaylo describes the long road of platform evolution from monolithic to modular architecture.
In this material, Igor describes the milestones completed in the process of improving Magento platform architecture. Retrospective understanding of this process is a beneficial experience that can help future planning: knowing the direction of platform changes allows you to focus resources effectively and prepare for upcoming changes.
Material: Visit the Igor's Linkedin article
