Warning signs you might need an eCommerce platform upgrade

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eCommerce platform upgrade

Unfortunately, warning signs for an eCommerce platform upgrade will not wave a bright red flag over the roof of your online store, with a say, “Upgrade me!” This is where a merchant needs to keep a hawkeye on all major things that communally contribute to the success or failure of their eCommerce site. Here we have compiled a list of 3 warning signs that you should seriously consider as the necessary fixes as follows:

Multichannel Integration Issues
Nowadays, customers prefer an eCommerce store which offers a smooth experience across all touch points like online, offline, mobile, etc. If you are running an older eCommerce platform based website, you may face multichannel integration issues when trying to implement multichannel integration. Since your older eCommerce platform will not comply with newer applications or systems, so it would be better to switch to a newer eCommerce platform to better serve your customers.

Your eCommerce Store’s Ranking is Not Increasing
Your eCommerce store’s ranking is lacking or not increasing, the eCommerce platform upgrade would be beneficial. You know, eCommerce platforms like Magento is a quite easy bet for most small to medium–sized eCommerce businesses to optimize their websites, offering a more organized URLs structure, enhancing your website’s loading speed and resulting in improved store ranking in search engines.

Chunky Checkout Procedure
Always keep in mind that your consumers have less patience when it comes to your site’s checkout process. They don’t know much about your site’s functionality. Thus, you need to cope up with their expectations, shopping method preferences, patience, and device of choice. If your eCommerce store’s checkout procedure is chunky and non-standard or is not easy to understand by your consumers, you need to look for an upgrade.

Is upgrading a Pain for You?
While upgrading your eCommerce website, there are many puzzle pieces which make this upgrading a pain for you. These puzzle pieces include your current theme, extensions and even your eCommerce platform itself. Upgrading each of these parts will help you in avoiding downtimes and customer frustration. We at Envision Ecommerce have a chunk of certified developers and eCommerce Solution Specialists who can make this upgrading a pretty straight forward for you.

How to add a new checkout step and sample file in Magento 2

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Magento new checkout step

How to add a new checkout step and sample file in Magento 2: As you know, Magento 2 is the next breakthrough of Magento after the introduction of Magento 1. In this article, we will guide you how to add a new checkout step and sample file in Magento 2 that you maybe do not know.

The default Magento 2 Checkout includes two steps:

  • Shipping Information
  • Review and Payments Information

If you want to add a custom checkout step, I need to implement as a UI component.

Today, I will describe how to create the front-end part of the component, implementing a Magento checkout step and how to add it to the checkout flow.

How to add a new checkout step and sample file in Magento 2

Step 1: Create module

Step 2: Create file

“app\code\Namespace\Module_Name\view\frontend\web\js\view\new-step.js” with content:

[sourcecode language=”plain”]
define(
[
‘ko’,
‘uiComponent’,
‘underscore’,
‘Magento_Checkout/js/model/step-navigator’
],
function (
ko,
Component,
_,
stepNavigator
) {
‘use strict’;
/**
*
* mystep – is the name of the component’s .html template,
* your_module_dir – is the name of the your module directory.
*
*/
return Component.extend({
defaults: {
template: ‘your_module_dir/mystep’
},
//add here your logic to display step,
isVisible: ko.observable(true),
/**
*
* @returns {*}
*/
initialize: function () {
this._super();
// register your step
stepNavigator.registerStep(
//step code will be used as step content id in the component template
‘step_code’,
//step alias
null,
//step title value
‘Step Title’,
//observable property with logic when display step or hide step
this.isVisible,</code>
<code>
_.bind(this.navigate, this),
/**
* sort order value
* ‘sort order value’ &lt; 10: step displays before shipping step;
* 10 &lt; ‘sort order value’ &lt; 20 : step displays between shipping and payment step * ‘sort order value’ &gt; 20 : step displays after payment step
*/
15
);
return this;
},
/**
* The navigate() method is responsible for navigation between checkout step
* during checkout. You can add custom logic, for example some conditions
* for switching to your custom step
*/
navigate: function () {
},
/**
* @returns void
*/
navigateToNextStep: function () {
stepNavigator.next();
}
});
}
);
[/sourcecode]

Step 3: Create the file

“app\code\Namespace\Module_Name\view\frontend\web\template\mystep.html”

[sourcecode language=”plain”]
<!–The ‘step_code’ value from the .js file should be used–>

<li id="step_code" data-bind="fadeVisible: isVisible">

<div class="step-title" data-bind="i18n: ‘Step Title’" data-role="title"></div>

<div id="checkout-step-title" class="step-content" data-role="content">

<form data-bind="submit: navigateToNextStep" novalidate="novalidate">

<div class="actions-toolbar">

<div class="primary">
<button data-role="opc-continue" type="submit" class="button action continue primary">
<span><!– ko i18n: ‘Next’–><!– /ko –></span>
</button>
</div>

</div>

</form>

</div>

</li>

[/sourcecode]

Step 4: Create the file

“app\code\Namespace\Module_Name\view\frontend\layout\checkout_index_index.xml”

[sourcecode language=”plain”]
<page xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" layout="1column" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
<body>
<referenceBlock name="checkout.root">
<arguments>
<argument name="jsLayout" xsi:type="array">
<item name="components" xsi:type="array">
<item name="checkout" xsi:type="array">
<item name="children" xsi:type="array">
<item name="steps" xsi:type="array">
<item name="children" xsi:type="array">
<!– The new step you add –>
<item name="my-new-step" xsi:type="array">
<item name="component" xsi:type="string">Magento_Your_Module_Name/js/view/my-step-view</item>
<!–To display step content before shipping step "sortOrder" value should be < 1–>
<!–To display step content between shipping step and payment step 1 < "sortOrder" < 2 –>
<!–To display step content after payment step "sortOrder" > 2 –>
<item name="sortOrder" xsi:type="string">2</item>
<item name="children" xsi:type="array">
<!–add here child component declaration for your step–>
</item>
</item>
</item>
</item>
</item>
</item>
</item>
</argument>
</arguments>
</referenceBlock>
</body>
</page>
[/sourcecode]

Now, please run command: php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy and check your checkout page. for any issue review on this post.

The Five Secrets About Magento 2 Only A Handful Of People Know

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Five Secrets About Magento 2
As we all know, the selection of eCommerce platforms in the market is innumerable. Either company launch new e-commerce venture or want to expand existing store. In both way affirming a right Magento platform could lead to the decision for the future of business as they need a system to handle their growth. Let’s check out the feature of Magento 2 a leading member of the e-commerce platforms community.
Overview
Magento has a magnificent history of enabling many e-commerce players to operate successfully. There are two versions of Magento, i.e. Community and Enterprise. Community edition could be the best choice for new players to start their venture with minimum dimes Whereas Enterprise edition is most suitable for established ventures. There is another way to handle growth by a small-medium retailer, is to customize community edition as per requirement. Now Magento 2 enters, it gives the opportunity to control its operations. Let dive into its key aspects
Performance and Scalability Improvements
Magento 2 upgraded its architecture to provide seamless performance and scalability with best available technologies. it includes Full page caching, OPcache, New Relic, HHVM at server side and Modularized LESS, Varnish, SEO optimised pages, static content caching on frontend side. Magento 2 have new indexer have been improved to speed up the query performance. Full page cache now available out of the box. Magento 2 introduced separate databases for order processing and frontend rendering. In Magento 2 Varnish supported by default to help reduce server load and speed up the page load, and is responsible for caching common requests.
Great search options
Magento 2 comes with the vast search feature like Quick Search where product search can be done by product name, description and even product attribute too. This allows the search to be more relevant and precise. Magento 2 have advanced search too which allows shopper to choose attributes or specifications and the search commences based on these relevant inputs
Streamlined Checkout process
Checkout process should be very smooth for high conversion and repeat business. Magento 2 full fill this requirement very efficiently. It has the new Guest checkout, where shopper need not create an account at the time of checkout. It saves address in guest mode too, so shopper return in future he need not enter their address again. Magento 2 removes credit card type from payment information, now it automatically detects based on input number. After checkout shopper can create their account based on information provided during checkout. All these features improve checkout experiences and which reduces cart abandonment rate.
Improved security features
Magento 2 equipped with latest security parameters i.e better password management, random admin URI and flexible file system ownership & permission. Magento 2 has strengthened the hashing algorithms (SHA-256) used in password management. A hash algorithm could elaborate the system strengths against possible data compromises. Exposer of the file system to the unauthorized entity can put data at risk, it may be knowingly or unknowingly but it put the whole system on a threat. To encounter this issue Magento 2 comes with suggestive file permissions to prevent issues related to unauthorized people or processes doing potentially harmful things to the system.
Full Page Caching:
Improved Backend: Magento 2 have several improvements in backend interface over Magento 1. It has simplified navigation with discreet design and little less orange, which makes it more professional and useful. Magento 2 has a robust grid system with lazy-load and inline edit features. The grid also has a powerful filter, which allows customizing and displays filter breadcrumbs for every filtering criterion.The new admin panel is fully responsive and touch-friendly navigation. Magento 2 admin has improved its product management.
Reporting & Analytics
Ease to integrate