Magento

Magento knows that creating a seamless, end-to-end online shopping experience for your customers is critical to the success of your online store. It is important to think beyond set-up and marketing and consider what happens after your customer completes an online transaction.

Shipping, delivery and tracking are part of the operational logistics behind eCommerce that can help your business stand out from the competition. Magento has partnered with Canada Post, the only company to deliver to each of the 15 million Canadian business and residential addresses, to provide more choice and flexibility when it comes to shipping, delivery, tracking or returns for Canadian online shoppers. New extensions that connect with Canada Post are now available on Magento Connect.

By empowering online shoppers with greater transparency and control over decisions related to these key areas, you can help enhance long term customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Canada Post’s strategic integration with the Magento platform will better enhance the Canadian consumer’s online shopping experience. This means your customer never has to leave your online store, from first click to the last leg of item delivery.

So what can you expect from the new Magento Canada Post extensions?

• Set accurate customer expectations from the onset: discourage shopping cart abandonment with transparent total rates and expected delivery dates in the checkout process.
• Choose from various convenient, local delivery options: Canada Post delivers to over 15 million addresses across Canada, so customers can get their package right to their doorstep. Because your customers lead different lifestyles, they can also choose to have their item delivered to the closest Post Office of their choice. Integrated with Google Maps, Canadians can choose from one of the 6,500 postal outlets across the country.
• Keep customers up to date with tracking details throughout the process: We know there’s a lot of anticipation attached to receiving an item after purchase. Do you want to spend less time and money answering the question – where’s my item? Now, you can empower customers to get real-time tracking information about their parcel’s whereabouts. Customers don’t have to leave your online store to get the tracking information they want about their shipment.
• Simplify tasks through automation: Now you can print shipping labels directly within your Magento admin panel, helping to further simplify shipping logistics for your business.
• Keep customers satisfied: Provide your shoppers with simplicity and convenience with self-serve return labels within the online store. Making the return process easy will give shoppers a reason to come back to your online store another time.

You can choose from two Canada Post extensions from Magento Solution Partners. To learn more about the new features and functionalities, visit www.magentocommerce.com/magento-canadapost.

Register for the Canada Post webinar on March 20th at 9AM PST

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Thanks to the enthusiastic response from the Magento Ecosystem, we have sold out of registrations for the third year in a row!

While we are thrilled to make this announcement, we are also aware that some of you missed out on your opportunity to secure a ticket. Sign up now for our waiting list and you will be given first priority if there are newly available spaces.

We hope to see you in April.

- The Imagine Team

ShipStation, based in Austin, recently joined the Industry Partner Program as a Silver partner to help bring value to our Magento community. As a web-based shipping application, ShipStation helps thousands of merchants, most of who ship through multiple sales channels, process and ship their orders with greater efficiency. Now online retailers can manage their entire shipping and fulfillment processes through this complimentary and collaborative relationship.

Magento merchants can get the free extension for ShipStation within Magento Connect and begin processing their orders more quickly, efficiently, and with ease! Automate a majority of the normal time-intensive administrative tasks (such as insuring high-value orders, or automatically assigning orders to certain users) and significantly reduce the time typically required to process orders.

ShipStation supports Magento Community, Professional, GO, or Enterprise Editions. They are offering a free 30-day trial and a free DYMO Endicia account (a $16/month value) with each subscription. Try them out today!

We are excited to announce our stellar lineup of guest keynote speakers for Imagine 2013! They are all masters of their art and leaders in their industries. They will offer the Imagine audience a range of fresh perspectives on topics both within and beyond commerce. In addition to our guest keynote speakers, you can be sure that the Magento leadership team will be there in full force!

John Donahoe

John Donahoe joined eBay in 2005 and became President and CEO of eBay Inc. in 2008. As CEO, John has led the transformation of eBay from an e-commerce company into a global commerce platform and payments leader. Under John's leadership, the company's eBay Marketplaces business has been reinvigorated, PayPal has driven consistently strong growth , and its GSI Commerce business unit is enabling large retailers and brands compete and win in a multichannel commerce world. eBay Inc. also has become a mobile commerce leader, expecting its eBay and PayPal mobile apps to each generate $20 billion of commerce and payments volume in 2012. The company's Magento business is another way eBay Inc. is driving innovation and enabling commerce as a partner, not a competitor, to retailers and brands of all sizes.

Steven Levitt

Steven D. Levitt is a tenured professor in the University of Chicago’s economics department and the recipient of the American Economic Association’s prestigious John Bates Clark Medal - given to the country’s best economist under 40. Levitt and Stephen Dubner co-authored Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics, which are among the best-selling and most-discussed economics books ever published. Freakonomics is a cross-media phenomenon, having spawned a documentary feature film and radio show, as well as a popular blog maintained by Levitt and Dubner.

Jeff Jordan

Jeff Jordan is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and serves on the board of potfolio companies including Airbnb, Belly, Circle, Fab, Lookout and Pinterest. Jeff also oversees the firm’s investments in Fanatics and zulily, and is on the boards of OpenTable, Wealthfront and Zoosk.

Jeff was previously chief executive officer and then executive chairman of OpenTable, where he led the company during a period of accelerated domestic and international growth and oversaw its initial public offering.

John Lunn

John Lunn is the Global Director of the PayPal Developer Network. He has been building payments and anti-fraud systems on the internet for more than 15 years and has advised many successful (and some less successful) start-ups on their payment strategies. Originally a java certified developer and now an all-purpose hacker, John runs PayPal’s Developer Evangelism team. He’s known as one of the most forward-thinking innovators in the world of payments.

Jamie Clarke

Jamie Clarke is an entrepreneur in the business of adventure. As the co-organizer of several Everest expeditions, Clarke oversaw project budgets in excess of $1 million. After being forced to turn back in 1991 and 1994, Clarke finally reached the summit in 1997, and again in 2010 when Clarke led Expedition Hanesbrand. The summit of Everest was just the beginning of his journeys: Clarke continued on to cross Arabia’s Empty Quarter and climb Carztenz Pyramid, completing his quest to climb the Seven Summits. Additionally, he brings his passion for the outdoors online with LiveOutThere.com, a website dedicated to serving people who are just as passionate about the great outdoors.

Visit the Imagine Website for more information about Imagine 2013.

Magento’s Partner Pavilion opens for the first time at Retail Business Technology Expo, London on March 12-13.

Retail Business Technology Expo, Europe’s biggest and fastest growing retail event fills the gap in the UK and European retail technology market to provide retailers with the opportunity to discover the newest and most innovative products and solutions.

Be sure to take this opportunity to speak with Magento’s team members and partners to find the right solution for your online business. We’ll show you how the world’s leading brands use Magento to improve their online experience and drive growth. Don’t miss the chance to meet our Solution, Industry and Hosting partners who can help you boost sales!

Be sure to enter our drawing for a free seat in our Managing your Magento Store ($1,850 value) Training course!

Magento Partner Pavilion

Partners Exhibiting at Retail Business Technology Expo

Stop by Magento’s Partner Pavilion and be sure to visit all of our Magento Partners around the show.

The Imagine Challenge opened on January 17, 2013 and was met with a wave of outstanding submissions from Magento merchants and developers. 172 entries later we concluded the submission period and allowed our community to vote for the winners.

The entries truly showcase the art of commerce and the passion our community has for the Magento brand. Each unique innovation posted to the three categories (Site Design, Site Promotions and Customizations) was a real testament that the possibilities of the Magento platform are endless. These sites prove once again that our community is second to none!

The competition was so tight that voting came down to the final day and there was even a tie for best site promotion!

We are proud to announce the winners for the 2013 Imagine eCommerce Challenge.

The Imagine Challenge 2013 Grand Prize Winner: Jonas from SmartOSC

Taking home a free ticket to Imagine, two nights at the M Resort and Hotel, and a $500 Visa gift card was Jonas, an employee at SmartOSC, with his customization of Canadian wine store Alambika.

Alambika

When Alambika, a brick-and-mortar, Canadian wine-store, wanted to put their products online, they picked Magento for it's rich feature-set and reliable inventory capabilities. They selected our extension X-POS for transforming Magento into a point-of-sale solution.

The POS solution is created on top of Magento to avoid having to sync products to an external system, ensuring that stock and products are always 100% up-to-date.

The solution gives Alambika the ability to complete sales on a single page interface, which also supports searching by barcodes, credit card swiping, and even off-line sale fulfillment.

This setup saves www.alambika.ca time in areas of their every-day work, such as maintaining an inventory and sales reporting. It also improved their brick-and-mortar POS activities without forcing them to invest in new hardware.

View Full Entry

Runners Up: Site Design & Site Promotion

The runners up, and winners of Imagine 2013 tickets, were:

View All Winners

Thank you to the winners and everyone who participated in the Challenge. We look forward to seeing all of you at Imagine 2013!

The Magento community is looking forward to this weekend’s Magento Bugathon, where they will join fellow community members and Magento core team to stomp out issues that have been a bug in their daily work life. During the event there will be lots of great opportunities to network, code, listen and participate to presentations, and share Magento experiences with the Magento community.

Here are few updates to familiarize the attendees with the agenda and workflow processes.

Bugathon GitHub Repo

A list of functional issues provided by our Magento core team was uploaded to a newly minted GitHub Bugathon Repo account. Our engineering team members will review fixes contributed by the attendees at both events (Los Angeles and Zurich) to make sure they adhere to Magento development best practices. Once approved, commit and test the fixes to make sure we include them in the next release version of Magento Community Edition.

Orientation and Important Information

• Welcome & Introduction
• Development Process
• QA Process
• Simple QA testing example

Location

If you are available to join us in Los Angeles, come and enjoy a social gathering, included meals, and brainstorming with the best – it will be a fun weekend!