Magento

Last week, 1500 developers and merchants from 45 countries descended upon the M Resort in Las Vegas for the 2013 Imagine eCommerce conference to network and share their ecommerce ideas, innovations and best practices around the Magento Platform. Here’s a recap of the most memorable moments and takeaways.

Day One

Day One focused on how Magento is driving quality in the marketplace and how developers and technology partners can achieve further ecosystem success. The day concluded with sessions on best practice search engine optimization techniques and a networking “BarCamp” event for developers to learn about a myriad of Magento topics in short, rapid-fire presentations. Among the most popular topic “tracks” were “Developing Magento Apps using the Mobile SDK,” “Previewing Extensibility in Magento 2” and an “Open Forum” with Magento Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Mengerink.

Day Two

Day Two kicked events into high gear, with keynotes from eBay Inc. Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, Magento Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Roy Rubin, Jeff Jordan of Andreessen Horowitz and Magento Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Mengerink.

Roy Rubin was the day’s first main speaker. He addressed Magento’s amazing year of growth for both the platform, as well as for the customers and ecosystem worldwide. He also spoke to the conference theme — “The Art of Commerce” — and inspired the audience by conveying to them that they are the artists, and with the Magento tools available, they have the continued ability to create something powerful and unique.

Rubin was followed by John Donahoe, whose keynote focused on how technology is “obliterating” the lines between online and offline, calling it all “connected commerce.” In this commerce revolution, he said, the individual is at the center and the consumer is in charge. Jeff Jordan, meanwhile, spoke to existing trends in the ecommerce market, like the physical retailer disadvantage and show-rooming 2.0, and Matthew Mengerink closed out the morning keynotes with a discussion on how to push the boundaries of how we think about things and how the commerce of today no longer marries yesterday’s principles.

Afternoon breakout sessions from the technology and business tracks were standing room only, and included topics ranging from “Creating Successful Magento ERP Integrations,” “SEO/SEM Trends for 2013” and “Where, Why, and How of Responsive Web Design.” In particular, Roy Rubin highlighted how Magento is leveraging the power of eBay Inc. to create an even brighter future and that moving forward, “this will translate into more benefits for merchants.”

Day Two concluded with a keynote by Sharon Meers, Magento’s Head of Enterprise Strategy, who took to the stage to share Magento’s tremendous success within the fashion industry. She kicked off the segment with a discussion of how Magento Enterprise Edition has become the platform of choice for many of the world’s most prestigious brands and concluded with a live, fashion runway showdown with 14 models showcasing the latest looks from Magento customers Custo Barcelona, Erin Fetherston, Missguided, Nanette Lepore, Paul Smith, Rebecca Minkoff and Zadig & Voltaire.

Day Three

Jimmy Duvall, Head of Product for Magento, introduced the Magento Enterprise 1.13 release and spoke to how the release was designed to enable large and growing merchants to scale more effectively and support even greater numbers of visitors and buyers to their core eCommerce sites, while streamlining their back-end operations.

PayPal Chief Technology Officer James Barrese also addressed the crowd on Day Three and announced that two new PayPal extensions – “order ahead” and “in-aisle selling” – would immediately be available on Magento Connect.

Closing out the morning session was “Freakanomics” co-author Steven Levitt, who captivated the audience with his anecdotes and stories. His most poignant messages were that people don’t spend enough time thinking about ideas, and that we often overlook even the most obvious ones. Further, he exclaimed that we can make up for the low quantity of ideas by the high quality of ideas. Even one or two breakthrough ideas per year from each of us can help bring about great change, he said.

For more detailed write-ups and recaps of the Magento conference, be sure to check out the Imagine website and stay tuned for more photos and videos from the event.

We’re excited to announce that the newest version of Magento Enterprise Edition– version 1.13 – is now available.

There are thousands of merchants doing many different and innovative things on Magento Enterprise - from revolutionizing how customers buy eyewear to building mobile salesforce automation applications for a global sales team. But there is one thing that Magento Enterprise merchants are ALL doing….GROWING!

As our merchants grow, we need to ensure that Magento continues to grow with them. That’s why we’re excited to announce Magento Enterprise 1.13, the most powerful and scalable version of Magento ever.

Key performance and scalability enhancements of Magento 1.13:

	Optimized Indexing We’ve optimized the Magento Enterprise indexing process to enable significantly faster indexing with limited to no impact to the customer’s shopping experience. This will make it easier for you to add and update products more frequently while ensuring your URLs, promotions, navigational menus and product search tools are always completely up to date, while never slowing down the performance of your online store. The introduction of incremental indexing reduces the need to perform a full re-index and most indexing operations are now automated - saving you and your staff time and energy to focus on revenue-generating activities.
	Improved Caching The full page caching capabilities in Magento Enterprise help ensure that high volume pages load quickly. We’ve improved our caching to enable even greater performance by invalidating only relevant pages making it easier to cache content without affecting site performance for your customers. Improved caching performance also drastically reduces server load enabling your to store to support even larger traffic volumes while conducting back end operations.
	Speedier Checkout Flow 1.13 showcases tremendous improvements in further speeding up the checkout process by reducing page load times for browsing and placing orders. Faster checkout can significantly improve your customers’ shopping experience and customer satisfaction.
	Enhanced Tax Calculations Algorithms This latest version of Magento Enterprise Edition improves tax calculation algorithms eliminating potential rounding offsets that can be displayed on buyer facing screens. This release also provides additional support for Canadian tax requirements.
	Functional Improvements We’ve also made approximately 350 functional improvements in key areas including in the web store and shopping cart, admin order creation, import and export functionality, web API components and payment methods.

When it comes to Magento’s ability to scale, Enterprise Edition 1.13 is the most dramatic step forward in this history of our platform, and we’re confident 1.13 will support you through your next level of success in whatever innovative way you utilize Magento.

You can get all the details about Magento Enterprise Edition 1.13 here

Ready to take your business to the next level? Contact us and we’ll help you get started.

If you’re already a Magento Enterprise customer, you can immediately access the new 1.13 release in the My Account section of the Magento website.

We hope you enjoy these new capabilities and we look forward to helping you achieve even greater eCommerce success.

We’re proud to announce the finalists for the Magento Most Innovative Enterprise Site of 2012 award. All Magento Gold and Silver Solution Partners were invited to submit entries on behalf of clients whose sites went live during 2012. The finalists were chosen from a wide range of submissions, representing the best examples of “The Art of Commerce” in action. The submissions were evaluated by a cross-functional team of Magento experts, and judging criteria included design, user experience, integrations, customizations, and achievement of specific business goals.

Here are the finalists for the Most Innovative Magento Enterprise Site of 2012:

	Delicious Karma, submitted by Magento Silver Solution Partner Rocket Web Blending the artisanal-foods community with a passionate online community of food lovers, Delicious Karma, aimed to bring “Farm to Table” to life by enabling customers to learn, discover, and buy hard-to-find gourmet foods. After evaluating multiple platforms, Magento was selected for its flexibility, scalability, and feature set. The rewards functionality, private-sale functionality and a CMS creation of a web-based dashboard for users were combined with deep social-media integration to create a cutting-edge business model that has driven the acquisition of thousands of new users and a 40% repeat-purchase rate. According to founder, Jim Ritchie, “Magento has enabled us to build something not previously possible.”
	Erno Laszlo, submitted by Magento Gold Solution Partner Pod1 Erno Laszlo is a leading manufacturer and retailer of scientifically-created beauty products, based on the formulas of Dr. Erno Laszlo, dermatologist to the Hollywood stars of the 1950s. The company turned to Magento for a site that showcases their products while delivering dermatological expertise, enabling customer and expert interaction, and reaching a new, younger audience. Key to their soaring customer engagement and 40% improvement in site-visit duration are a unique product finder, the bundling feature and an integrated content management system that includes recommendation videos of expert opinions and customer testimonials.
	Heath Ceramics, submitted by Magento Gold Solution Partner AOE Media Heath Ceramics is a manufacturer and retailer of ceramic tableware and tile with a legacy of producing functional, unique products since 1948. Heath leveraged Magento’s flexible content management system to create a new online store that would provide visual appeal, manage complex customer experiences and deliver scalability and tight integration. Unique full-category sorting, a convenient virtual gift registry and a CMS tool integrated to manage video, brand communication, and how-to and design guides were essential in generating considerable online growth for Heath, including a 30% increase in revenue their first full year on Magento. Catherine Bailey, Owner of Heath, beams, “Our customer experience captures the beauty, richness and depth of our products.”

Congratulations to our three finalists and thanks to all the partners and customers who submitted entries for the 2012 award. We were delighted to see so many examples of “The Art of Commerce” built from the freedom and flexibility of Magento. Check back Wednesday, April 10 for our announcement of the winner of Magento Most Innovative Enterprise Site of 2012.

Magento U Launches Certification for Front End Developers

In late 2011, we created Magento Developer Certification to help experienced Magento developers differentiate themselves from their competition. This certification helped developers market their expertise to the growing number of Magento merchants and partners, and it increased their value and income. In one year, more than 1,400 developers have earned Magento Developer or Magento Developer Plus Certification, and we have seen a growing demand for certifying other sets of skills.

To meet this demand, the Magento U team is excited to announce the launch of Magento Front End Developer Certification (FEDC). This latest addition to the Magento Certification Portfolio verifies that professional front-end developers have the skills and experience to implement user interface-related changes on Magento Enterprise Edition and Magento Community Edition websites. We look forward to helping you earn this important credential and join the elite group of Magento-certified developers. Don’t just tell your clients you are good; prove it with official certification from Magento.

Learn more about the Magento Front End Developer Certification.

ECG Launches Business Analysis Service to Reduce Cost and Increase Speed of Complex Magento Deployments

Magento’s in-house consulting services organization, Expert Consulting Group (ECG), is excited to announce its new Business Analysis service! This service is aimed at Merchants and Solution Partners who are planning a complex Magento deployment and need to be familiar with the deep, native Magento functionality. ECG’s familiarity with Magento’s specific capabilities and workflows, how Magento interacts with other systems, and eCommerce best practices will help ensure the optimal level of customization and quick time to market.

ECG business analysts will provide on-site analysis and expert consulting to guide organizations in crafting functional and system integration requirements for customization that extends beyond Magento Enterprise Edition’s native functionality. Key benefits for merchants and solution partners that utilize this service include:

• Reduced deployment costs and faster implementation
• Alignment of business needs with native Magento capabilities
• Ability to leverage the full functionality of Magento as applicable
• Access to Magento functional and eCommerce best practices
• Detailed project lifecycle documentation & methodology

To learn more about this new service, contact the ECG team at consulting@magento.com, or request a quote at magento.com/consulting/request-quote.

Magento is proud to announce AdRoll, one of the most widely-adopted retargeting platforms, as a Silver Industry Partner and a Silver sponsor of this year’s Imagine eCommerce conference.

AdRoll helps businesses of all sizes re-engage potential customers who’ve already expressed interest in a brand with precise display ads across the web and on Facebook with Facebook Exchange (FBX). With their LiquidAds dynamic ad product, AdRoll takes personalization to the next level - enabling advertisers to retarget visitors with ads featuring the exact products they were recently browsing and recommended products for that specific person. AdRoll makes sophisticated advertising technology that previously required extensive integration and large budgets easy-to-use and cost-effective.

AdRoll’s extension will allow Magento users to:

• Easily create an AdRoll account, place the necessary SmartPixel on their site and set up conversion tracking to measure advertising success in minutes
• Seamlessly import a site’s product information without the need for a feed or any integration work
• Produce stunning LiquidAds with the products users last viewed with no extra technical legwork or financial commitment.

In the ever-changing world of ad tech, it’s become clear that retargeting is a critical part of a marketer’s toolkit and will only continue to grow in importance over the next few years.

Check out AdRoll's Integration on Magento Connect Today!

Since its inception in 1867, Harper’s BAZAAR magazine has been at the forefront of what the luxury-loving woman wants. And with its recently launched content-to-commerce site, ShopBAZAAR.com, the magazine makes the elegant jump into the future of fashion publishing – taking the magazine’s content and selling it online.

Hand-curating garments and accessories for the site is a natural extension for BAZAAR’s editors but the site’s unique needs called for an innovative Solution Partner who would fully immerse itself into the magazine’s luxury lifestyle-seeking customer profile. They found that partner in Something Digital who, after considering other platforms, implemented Magento Enterprise.

Something Digital created a fashion-forward shopping experience – all items in the magazine that are available on ShopBAZAAR are flagged with a special icon and stamped with a Digimarc watermark code. By taking a picture of an item with their smartphones, readers will be sent directly to the item’s page on ShopBAZAAR. The site is optimized for tablets as well as smartphones, helping fulfill one of ShopBAZAAR’s goals - to be a brand you read about and a brand you shop.

With its steadily increasing traffic, expanding media sales and exclusive partnerships with other luxury retailers, ShopBAZAAR’s success opens the doors for sister publications in the Hearst publishing family to make the foray into content-to-commerce.

View customer success story

Thousands of companies – including many of the world’s biggest brands – are using Magento Enterprise to grow their online businesses. Wondering how Magento Enterprise can help your business?

Have a Magento success story you’d like to share? Contact success@magento.com.

We are committed to raising the quality and usability of Magento Connect to make it the world’s best eCommerce extension marketplace. To do this, we want to make it easier for merchants to choose extensions that fit their needs, while making it easier for developers to use the power of the Magneto Community to promote their extensions. With more than 6000 extensions in the marketplace, it is critical that we stay focused on improving Connect to provide a superior experience for our merchants, partners, and developers.

Following are the key changes we have made in 2013, and we are just starting!

Extension De-listings

We are removing the outdated extensions on Connect. These are extensions that have not been used recently or have not kept up with the recent releases of our product. By removing these extensions, we are ensuring that the Connect marketplace highlights recent and relevant extensions.

New Ratings & Reviews System

We launched our new Ratings & Reviews system in February, which allows merchants and developers to quickly evaluate and confidently purchase extensions. The new system also enables developers to differentiate their extensions through better support and clear reviews.

New Theme Subcategories

We are introducing 16 new subcategories for Magento Themes, which will help merchants find and download the right theme for their business, and will allow developers to showcase their Magento themes and appeal to retailers in specific industries.

New Editorial Content Section

To make it easier for merchants to discover great extensions and give extension owners a way to gain more visibility, we are introducing new editorial content section on the Magento Connect homepage that includes: Most Recent, Staff Picks and Customer Picks. These categories will shine a spotlight on the best and most relevant extensions among the thousands to choose from.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback!

As part of our Magento Connect spring cleanup, we’re introducing new subcategories for the Magento Themes category and assigning new categories to some extensions that have been miscategorized as themes.

To make it easier for merchants to find just the theme they need, we’re introducing 16 new subcategories (see complete list below). The new subcategories will also make it easier for developers to showcase their Magento themes and appeal to retailers in specific industries.

We assigned themes to what we thought were logical subcategories. But if you’re a Magento theme owner and you feel we’ve assigned your theme to the wrong subcategory, login to your Magento Account and change it!

New Theme Subcategories

Animals & Pets
Automotive & Cars
Books, Media, & Entertainment
Computers & Electronics
Consumer and Business Services
Fashion & Apparel
Food & Beverage
Gifts & General Merchandise
Health & Beauty
Holidays & Special Occasions
Home & Garden
Jewelry
Mobile
Sporting Goods
Styles & Colors
Toys & Baby Products

Adding subcategories to themes is part of our ongoing strategy to continually improve Magento Connect for our merchants, developers, and solution partners. Let us know your feedback as well as your suggestions!