Magento is one of the best e-commerce platforms on the internet. Most popular e-commerce stores are using it. A studyrevealed that about 20,559 websites are using Magento 2 Since the release of Magento 2, some notable upgrades have been released, such as Magento 2.1, 2.2., 2.2.1 and 2.2.2.  

Magento 2.2.3 was released in February 2018. The latest is Magento 2.2.4 which was released in May 2018. The newly released upgrade is full of excellent features with enhancements of some specific earlier features.

Magento 2.2.4 has excellent features that offer powerful functionalities to help you manage, optimize and grow your online retail business. It also helps to improve your online customer’s shopping experience.

If you are considering an upgrade, now is the time to do it to benefit much more. In fact, Magento recommends all merchants to upgrade to Magento commerce 2.2.4 in order to make use of the functional repairs and improved performance that the upgrade offers.

In this article, we will look at both the new and improved features in Magento 2.2.4 that can help you improve your conversions and sales in your online retail store.

1. New payment methods

The average cart abandonment rates in 2017 are about 78%. One reason customers abandoned their shopping carts on retails stores is “not enough payment methods”. However, the newly released Magento 2.2.4 solved this problem. It comes with additional two payment methods to help online retailers reduce cart abandonment rates. Having the right payment systems can build a customer‘s trust and loyalty and thus drive conversions. They two payment methods are:

Amazon pay and Klarna payments.

Amazon Pay is a payment method used by Amazon account holders. Magento included it in the new version to make it possible for customers who have Amazon accounts to make payments easily on Magento. They will use their payment, billing and shipping information as it is on their Amazon account. Thus, it will reduce the detail that is required to be entered on the checkout page. The payment is processed by Amazon, thus lending credibility to merchants.  This makes it easier to check out faster and easier. The payment system is also secure as Amazon has advanced fraud protection. It is quicker to use, and it adds more protection of customer data. This enables merchants to increase conversions and sales.

Klarna payment is a Swedish payment company. This payment method helps merchants to offer their customer’s payment options such as Pay now, Pay later or Pay by installment for their purchases. This means that customers can make purchases and pay now, pay later or pay installmentally. When the customer chooses the Pay now option, they can easily use their debit card or bank transfer to make payments. The Pay later option allows them to make purchases and make payment within 30 days after delivery.  The Pay on installment option is paying gradually for the purchased products.  However, it attracts a reasonable interest.

These options give customers the opportunity to make purchases even when the money is not readily available. This builds trust, encourage repeat visit, and it leads to more conversions.

2. The inclusion of Vertex cloud

Vertex is a cloud-based solution that helps you to automate your sales, use tax compliance and also produce a signature ready pdf for your monthly income. It is integrated into Magento 2.2.4 to help simplify and automate sales tax calculation process.

Vertex has the following features:

  • It automates tax calculations & returns
  • It calculates sales and uses tax
  • It manages exception certifications
  • It generates returns

Vertex makes it possible for customers to get exact tax amount in the shopping cart so they adjust the cart as required before checking out. This helps to decrease cart abandonment rates.

3. Enhanced DotMailer

There is an improvement to the DotMailer feature in Magento 2. In Magento 2.2.4, merchants can use the newly improved dotmailer to create their own transactional email templates. Other things you can do with it are:

  • Set transactional email at store level
  • Delete validation for CSV files during cron jobs
  • Generate abandoned cart report
  • Orchestrate custom transactional email designs
  • Sync subscriber's sales files and data

4. Fixes and improvements to Magento shipping

The Magento 2.2.4 version has an expanded shipping system. It helps merchants to offer different shipping options, set up fulfillment automation rules and handle returns all from the back-end. This improves customer shopping experience. The followings are the improvement to the Magento shipping:

  • It can integrate with Magento order management
  • It has basic reporting
  • It has improved interface for shipping experience rules
  • It has FedEx pre-negotiated rates
  • It has ad hoc returns support for shipments sent by FedEx, USPS, Australia Post, UK Mail and DHL Express.

5. Performance improvements

Magento commerce 2.2.4 provides improved performance to help merchants simplify product use and advance product performance. They are:

  • Expandable admin global search feature which is translatable and considers the ACL settings for users
  • Automatic checker to carry out the short array syntax rule reinforced in the current code.
  • CyberSource payment system designed for multi-shipping checkout and payment processes.
  • Faster image loading and enhanced search performance

Conclusion

As you can see from the new features and several improvements above, Magento 2.2.4 comes with a lot of fascinating features that can take your online retail store to another level. 

Therefore, we recommend that you upgrade your current Magento or any other e-commerce platform to the current Magento 2.2.4 to enjoy these amazing features. You can send us an email on info@pronkoconsulting.com message or call +353 85 85 32 401.