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With just a year until Magento 1 reaches end of life, merchants still on the platform are facing a lot of tough decisions; including whether they should stay on Magento 1 (M1), replatform to Magento 2 (M2), or start using an alternate CMS.

Magento 1 was released March 31, 2008 – over 10 years ago. Since then, over 900,000 sites have gone live, and over 200,000 of those are still delivering excellent eCommerce experiences.

Yet for those still on M1, June 2020 will be a decisive date. As the platform stops receiving official support, merchants will have to decide whether to stay or leave. As we’ll look at in this article, while Magento 2 does offer benefits over Magento 1, making the move does not necessarily benefit everyone. So if it doesn’t benefit you, what are your options?

To help merchants make the right choice, this article will look at the differences between Magento 1 and Magento 2 and explore how those differences should be affecting what you do before next June.

Contents

In Numbers
Security
Performance
Software and Extension Support
Functionality
Cost
If You Decide to Stay on Magento 1...

Magento 1 vs Magento 2 In Numbers

Magento 2 was released November 17, 2015. Since then, adoption has grown steadily, but still hasn’t overtaken the number of live Magento 1 stores.

For many merchants the issue is one of resources. Changes to the core design of Magento have made replatforming to version 2 a significant challenge. Costs associated with replatforming include development, hosting, and adapting to the new platform.

Security

Maintaining security is important when running an eCommerce store. Not only will vulnerabilities lead to breaches and customers not purchasing products, it can also have a widespread SEO impact.

The core differences between Magento 1 and Magento 2 in terms of security are relatively small. Two major changes include that Magento 2 supports a strengthened hashing algorithm for passwords, and that admins can enable only one person to be logged in at any one time.  

The good news is that if you’re an M1 site owner and you’re worried about not having this functionality, it’s possible to add it to your store through extensions. The bad news is that there’s a much larger security threat looming.

The largest threat to M1 security is the fact that the platform will be officially deprecated in June 2020. This means that Adobe and Magento will stop supporting security updates and patches. Normally, this would leave merchants still on the platform exposed to vulnerabilities and attacks. However, some members of the Magento community have come together to try and prevent this.

Already, several developers and agencies have indicated that they will continue to support the Magento 1 platform after its official end of life. This provides a welcome safety net for M1 merchants so they can stay on Magento 1 after June 2020.

However, it’s still important for Magento 1 merchants to future proof their store. This means updating as much as they can without having to replatform.

It’s also important to work with a hosting provider that provides a monitored and regularly updated web application firewall (WAF). A good WAF will prevent the majority of attacks from being able to reach your store.

Performance

Magento 2 is the faster, more performant CMS. Some developers estimate by around 20%. This is not only because it’s newer, but also because of the range of technologies it supports.

Some of the main performance boosting tech is caching technologies such as Varnish and NGINX. These allow for sites to store frequently used files to memory, allowing them to be delivered to customers faster. Considering that a 1 second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions, caching plugins can easily give a popular Magento store an edge in terms of performance.

However, Magento 1 performance can still hold its own – especially when Varnish is enabled in conjunction with the Turpentine extension. Turpentine is a very-fast caching reverse-proxy. When first released, it saw significant performance improvements for Magento 1 sites. Turpentine is currently only compatible with Magento 1, so it’s also not something that can be activated on Magento 2 installs.

If you plan to stay on Magento 1, we recommend installing and using the Turpentine plugin as it will enable you to run a much faster store. Despite noticeable performance gains from Turpentine, your site’s code is still going to be one of the main factors in determining site performance.

Software and Extension Support

Until late last year, one of the main concerns for Magento 1 merchants was the lack of support for PHP versions beyond 5.6. This changed in September 2018 when Magento released an official M1 patch supporting up to PHP 7.2.

The main reason for this was that PHP 5.6 was deprecated in December 2018. With official M1 support still available until June 2020, it was important that the platform was still able to run on an up to date PHP version. Supporting only up to PHP 5.6 support would have meant merchants would have an increased vulnerability to PHP attacks.

This is one of the main benefits of replatforming to M2. Due to official support from Adobe and Magento, M2 will continue to support emerging technologies where M1 will rely on the community to build out this support.

A brief list of software Magento 2 supports that Magento 1 does not includes:

• NginX 1.7+
• Varnish 3.x+
• Redis 2.x+
• RequireJS / Knockout.js
• Symfony
• Composer
• PSR – 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

This level of software compatibility lends itself to a number of functionality improvements. By leveraging a more advanced tech stack, extensions are also able to offer more to merchants.

That being said, for those on M1 looking to replatform, compatibility can be a problem. While it’s true that more than 80% of the most popular M1 extensions have received updates, this doesn’t account for extensions customized for individual stores.

Functionality

One of the big performance and functionality gains of Magento 2 was the addition of Ajax Add-To-Cart. In Magneto 1, when a product is added to the cart the page needs to reload. With Magento 2, cart updates can happen without the need for the page to reload. This has obvious UX and performance benefits.

Magento 2 takes this further and also offers improved checkout functionality by automatically recognizing inputted card types and users that are already registered by analyzing their email address. Again, this offers an improved user experience and for registered customers, it is up to 29% faster.

Finally, one of the big benefits of Magento 2 is dependency injection. This provides a solution to class files which are so large that it makes it hard to determine what their core functionality is. Dependency injection abstracts a class’s dependencies to make the process faster and easier.

If you’re looking for functionality, Magento 2 is the better option. As a newer platform with improved software and extension support, it’s going to offer a lot more than an M1 store. That being said, due to the nature of the platform, M1 developers are often able to implement solutions similar to M2’s functionality for you. If you don’t want to move but would like some of the functionality listed above, talk with your developer to see if they can help.

Cost

In terms of cost, there are three primary areas you’re going to have to invest in:

• Development
• Hosting
• Support

The largest of these expenses will probably be development. This can easily eat up your entire budget if you’re not careful, and leave you with little room for other essentials.

For many M1 merchants, this is the primary barrier to entry for replatforming. That being said, it’s always good to know the potential cost of replatforming. For some merchants with relatively simple stores, it may be a lot less than they think.

Hosting is also going to take up some of your budget. Depending on the size of your store, this can vary from $50 to thousands every month. We recommend working with a hosting provider that offers an optimized Magento environment. This will help improve performance, security, and scalability, even if you’re staying on M1.

The final cost you’re looking at is support. Many hosting providers offer this as standard. Development agencies also often provide continued support for your Magento site. Otherwise, support can cost a lot, especially in the case of serious vulnerabilities due to falling behind with updates. Check that your site has regular backups and that someone will be available if your store goes offline.

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Magento

Magento Imagine is less than a week away. Kicking off May 13th, this year promises to be a big one, with merchants exploring how to “Expand the Experience”.

And NexcessLive is back for another incredible party and the chance to talk with merchants about how we can help them to optimize the eCommerce experience.

If you haven’t already, keep reading to see what we’re going to be doing to keep the party going outside of the Wynn, and see if scheduling a time to talk is right for you.

The NexcessLive Party – May 13th

The Hostdedi Live Party is a chance for you to let loose and channel your inner golfer – regardless of how well you can actually golf.

Taking place at Topgolf Las Vegas, from 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm, enjoy complimentary drinks, hors-d’oeuvres, and take the chance to go club to club against the Hostdedi team. If golfing isn’t your thing, don’t worry. We’ll have a pro on standby to help you learn, or you can just enjoy the ambiance of the cabanas.

Transportation will be provided from the Wynn at 7:00 pm and then back from Topgolf at 10:30 pm. All guests will also receive a bonus golf-themed gift set, with more than a few luxury surprises.

Sign Up

There Will Be Prizes

This year, we’re invited BigCommerce along, who will be providing a number of prizes. This includes:

• A Nintendo Switch
• A Moleskin Eclipse + Set
• A GPS Golf Smart Watch
• An Oculus VR set

Interested in getting your hands on one of them? Three will be raffled off and one will be offered to the winner of our golf-themed competition.

Reserve your spot on the guest list today. Places are limited.

The Suites Meetings – May 14th

Besides being a great chance to get off your feet during conference hours, the Suites Meetings let merchants demo new Hostdedi innovations and see how we can help you to realize the promise of Magento.

Interested in scheduling a time? Click here and let us know what works for you.

Make the Most of Vegas

You might be in Vegas for one of the biggest eCommerce conferences of the year, but don’t spend all your time with Hostdedi. Make the most of your time in Vegas by exploring a little. Swing by the casinos, view some of the city’s unique and interesting shows, and soak in the atmosphere of one of the world’s most luxurious cities.

We recommend taking a trip to see the Fountains of Bellagio for its incredible evening water show. If you’ve got the time, the Fall of Atlantis show at Caesars Palace is also something you don’t want to miss.

Unsure about where else to go? You might be able to get some good suggestions from the Hostdedi team on unique places which usually fly under the radar. Just ask. Rigo knows some great restaurants. 

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Magento

Magento is still one of the best eCommerce platforms available for merchants looking to optimize the eCommerce experience. Between incredible functionality and unrivaled product management, it provides the ability to create storefronts that can’t be created in other, comparable applications.

In 2018, we found that the top reason merchants chose Magento was functionality. Yet great functionality requires a lot of server resources. As a result, Magento is a known resource hog.

Luckily, with over 10 years of experience supporting Magento stores, we understand the application’s complex performance requirements. In fact, we even wrote the book on the subject. For this reason, merchants continue to choose Hostdedi for reliability, security, and performance.

Interested in learning more about how we create Magento environments you can’t find anywhere else? This article looks at four of our optimizations and how they make your store faster with Hostdedi.

PHP-FPM

PHP code lies at the foundation of Magento, and there are multiple ways that a web server can be configured to execute that code. Even minor changes to default configurations can lead to significant Magento performance improvements.

Usually, when you install PHP support on a web server, an apache module called mod_php is set up. This module offers a simple set of configurations that will provide a Magento installation with the type of performance you’ll see with any web host.

We don’t accept the default mod_php file configurations. Instead, we use PHP FastCGI Process Manager, commonly known as php-fpm, on our servers.

PHP-FPM allows Magento sites to make use of memory and CPU resources more efficiently than its mod_php counterpart. This helps Magento sites to better manage content and serve websites faster.

In additional, we optimize the mod_php setup so it makes the best use of memory and CPU resources. Usually, a mod_php setup is also configured so that each Apache httpd process also contains a copy of the PHP interpreter. This inevitably means a larger memory footprint – even for Apache threads serving requests for static assets.

Under our configuration there are separate PHP processes to serve dynamic requests so the web server can serve only requests for static assets. This also allows us to tune settings related to how these processes behave to improve responsiveness or reduce memory footprint.

A Fine-Tuned OPcache

PHP is an interpreted programming language. This means that when PHP code is executed it must be parsed by an interpreter. This interpreter organizes the code into an internal representation that can then be executed by the PHP runtime.

Parsing must take place within the interpreter before the code can even begin to run. Usually, parsing repeats every time a request is made. That means that every time someone visits a new page on your site, the parser kicks in.

This is where OPcache can help. OPcache helps by saving the internal representation of the code so it doesn’t need to be parsed for each request. For an application like Magento, which has tens of thousands of PHP files, this translates into a significant performance improvement.

As part of our strategy for optimizing performance for Magento, we’ve tuned the settings for OPcache to support a large number of compiled files. This translates to less time spent parsing PHP code and more time spent running useful code that helps customers access your Magento store.

NGINX-Based Cloud Accelerator

One of the biggest resource demands on any eCommerce store is the delivery of static assets such as images, CSS, and JavaScript. On default Magento configurations, these assets are delivered through Apache after reading the file on disk.

By implementing built in microcaching using NGINX, static assets can be stored and served directly from memory for a short period of time. This is particularly useful for highly trafficked stores that have a selection of very popular products, with NGINX meaning that each visitor page load is faster and uses less server resources.

Nginx also provides HTTP/2 protocol support, which allows for optimizations such as server push, where a web server or web application can tell a browser to download additional assets in response to a request.

Traditionally a browser would not start downloading additional assets until it encountered them during a page load. Server push means a browser can be told to download static and other assets immediately.

In addition to these optimizations, we also have compression enabled automatically for relevant assets. This means that instead of serving a raw JavaScript, css, or other test file, we transparently and automatically compress the file so the download becomes smaller. This results in a significantly faster overall page download time.

As an example, the latest version of jQuery, a popular javascript library, is 86 Kilobytes in an uncompressed state. Compressing this with gzip yields a 30 Kilobytes file, or savings of over 65%.

Automatic Processing Priority

All multi-tasking operating systems have a mechanism called a CPU scheduler. This component determines which tasks are allowed to use the CPU at a given time and to what extent. On Linux, this is done by assigning a “niceness” value to a process. The value is called this because it determines how “nice” the process is, or how big a share of CPU resources that process will get. The idea is that nicer processes use less CPU resources.

Hostdedi has created a system that automatically changes the niceness value of running processes so that web critical processes (NGINX, apache httpd, php, mysql, etc) get CPU priority over less critical tasks. (compressing files, backups, etc).

Additionally, we run most maintenance tasks with a low CPU priority. This helps ensure that your website responds quickly even when administrative or scheduled tasks are running.

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Magento

Magento Live Australia has come and gone, and another year of informative information, actionable strategies, and future predictions has passed.

For Merchants, changes to Magento such as the 2.3.1 update, came with a promise of increased accessibility and improve integration. For developers, roundtables, discussions, and future developments came with both personal, professional, and business recommendations for the next twelve months in the APAC region.

Attending several of the sessions, talking with clients, meeting new faces, and – of course – experiencing another incredible Magento party, our team were on the ground gathering as much information as possible for those that couldn’t attend. Keep reading for our top five takeaways from Magento Live Australia 2019.

1. Mobile Is Incredibly Strong in the Asian Pacific Region

It’s been said time and time again, but the fact that mobile remains particularly strong in the APAC region is still a huge takeaway from Magento Live Australia. In 2018, it was predicted that more than three-quarters of B2C eCommerce sales were through mobile in the Asian Pacific. Comparatively,  In North American mobile commerce made up just 39.6% of the market.

For merchants, this provides valuable insight into the buyer’s journey (another key takeaway this year) and aids in the creation of commerce experiences that are increasingly frictionless and accessible. For developers, it allows for adjustments to best practices, so new and existing stores continue to meet the needs of merchants and businesses.

Undoubtedly, Magento developers in the Asian Pacific have “led the charge” with regards to mobile. Few other regions have managed to keep pace. The reasons are multitude, but the direction Magento is heading in will continue to support merchants whose most profitable channel is mobile. Most importantly, the multitude of capabilities that come with PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) will contribute enormously to a future frictionless eCommerce experience.

2. eCommerce Is Increasingly Focused on Creating Integrated Shopping Experiences

As customers, we are now more connected to the world around us than ever before. We connect through our smartphones, our computers, voice assistants, and much, much more. Each of these connections provides merchants with opportunities for integration and conversion. For merchants, it’s not just about being a purchasing option anymore, it’s about being present and accessible at the exact moment a customer recognizes and wants to fulfill a desire.

One of Magento Live Australia’s best takeaways was the emergence of truly global, ubiquitous commerce solutions. The idea that eCommerce and Magento merchants don’t just have to exist online; that they can be integrated into a customer’s offline journey to create more than just a purchase.

Increased and improved vertical technology integrations for Magento are what will make this happen. The continued evolution of the payments industry, the integration of data to inform shipping and inventory, and the inclusion of machine learning in content strategy and delivery. 

We’re looking forward to seeing how these integrations continue to grow and improve throughout the rest of 2019, and what developers will be looking for next.

3. Shipping and Logistics Is a Top Priority

How long do you usually wait for a package to arrive? How long would you have waited two years ago? How about five years ago?

Hand-in-hand with integrated customer experiences comes expectations with regards to shipping. Digital and offline commerce have many differences, but one of the largest divides is immediacy; the ability for a consumer to get a product as soon as they’ve decided to make a purchase.

As Consumers become even more connected and as long as immediate gratification remains a core tenant of not only good customer experiences but also good commerce, shipping and logistics will continue to remain a competitive advantage for merchants. There are several different shipping and logistics providers out there, so there’s no excuse not to invest in one that will not only increase your sales, but also improve retention.

4. Magento Will Become More Accessible

The new drag & drop page builder didn’t escape anyone’s attention. As a WYSIWYG that enables instant previews and offers a powerful set of pre-defined content types, merchants will now be able to expand their development capabilities and create better, more fluid content.

Particularly excited about this should be small and medium businesses who otherwise have limited access to a development team. Page creation can now be managed by fewer team members, with it being possible for scalable Magento stores to be built in a much shorter time frame.

For those looking to implement different solutions such as a PWA, the page builder can also help. The new page builder will be compatible with PWA, meaning APAC developers and merchants can more easily implement Magento solutions that appeal to their audiences and keep pace with the changing outlook for Mobile.  

5. eCommerce Will Continue to Grow in the Region

One of the big APAC learns of the past few years has been that eCommerce in the region has continued to grow at an unprecedented rate. This year, the total online retail value of APAC commerce is forecast to grow from $787b to %1.2t. That number shows the true value in moving into eCommerce with a solution that truly allows for customer experiences that convert.

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Magento

January 22nd, 2019 – We became aware of a potential issue with clients using Authorize.net as their payment processor in Magento stores. The issue originated from an Authorize.net update which led to multiple customers being unable to complete payment for purchases.

During this time, the Hostdedi support team were actively engaged in fixing the issue for customers that reached out.

As of January 23rd, 2019, Authorize.net have reverted the changes they made, thereby fixing the problem. If you are still experiencing issues, please get in touch with the Hostdedi support team.

What Happened?

Changes made to how character data was submitted to Authorize.net systems led to payment issues arising.

The issue originated as a result of multiple-character delimiters passed via the x_delim_char field no longer being respected by the Auth.net payment gateway. Because of Authorize.net’s change, only the first character in the delimiter was being used.

Customers trying to make purchases on Magento stores that used Authorize.net were unable to complete the checkout process and were instead directed to a 500 page, with the server receiving a RESPONSE_CODE_ERROR (3).

At around 8 pm EST, Authorize.net confirmed that they were planning to revert the changes. At approximately 9:30 pm EST, clients were reporting that their payment processing system is again working.

How to Fix It

Note that as of January 23rd, 2019, Authorize.net have reverted their changes and this should no longer be required. If you have already implemented this fix, we recommend that you revert it – or ask the Hostdedi support team to revert it for you.

A quick fix offered by the Magento Community stated that the line:

const RESPONSE_DELIM_CHAR

Be changed in the following class (app/code/core/Mage/Paygate/Model/Authorize.netphp)

Mage_Paygate_Model_Authorizenet

From

'(~)'

To

'('

We strongly advise that you review this change with your developers. If you would prefer Hostdedi to make this change for you, the support team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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Magento

The goal of every Magento store is to increase online sales, and almost every day, a new strategy for doing so seems to pop up. But keeping up to date with the latest and greatest can be an impossible task, especially when you’re confronted by the enormous number of options available and need to prioritize which are the most important.

To help you get the most out of your Magento store, we’ve put together a list of the 17 best strategies for increasing sales quickly and efficiently. We’ve found that these techniques are the most effective amongst those we have tried.

1. Optimize Your Buyer’s Journey

Before you can hope to increase Magento eCommerce sales, you need to understand what actions your customers are performing and when. This is what’s called the buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey is represented in several different ways on paper. For the sake of simplicity, when we refer to the buyer’s journey here, we are referring to the sales funnel.

The sales funnel has three primary levels, each of which addresses a different set of thought processes.

• Awareness – Buyer is aware of a need for a product or service
• Consideration – Buyer researches competing products or services to find the right fit
• Decision – Buyer makes a purchasing decision

There are several different ways to optimize this process so a buyer can move from awareness to decision swiftly. The real trick to optimizing a sales funnel is to isolate what channels are the most profitable for your Magento store, and then build on these to create as clear a pathway to checkout as possible.

2. Optimize Your eCommerce Hosting

A simple way to increase sales is to improve your eCommerce store’s hosting performance. Numerous studies have shown that even a 1-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% decrease in sales. The faster your store loads, the more sales you will make.

Your store may be slow due to not being optimized, being overloaded, or because you’re hosting with an unsuitable provider. Regardless of the reason, to improve your site’s speed, you’re going to have to make some changes.

Before making those changes, it’s a good idea to benchmark your site’s performance. Google Lighthouse is a great way to start and can easily be implemented through your Chrome browser without having to download anything. There are also several websites that allow you to check site speed manually.

With Google’s increased emphasis on user experience, the time it takes for customers to see and interact with your site is the most important. Many providers emphasize their TTFB load speeds, when this number isn’t a good metric for estimating sales performance. The most important metric is time to interactivity or time to full page load.

3. Take Control of Your eCommerce Environment

When we say take control of your eCommerce environment, we mean being able to make changes to the resources you have access to. This usually means you should avoid SaaS platforms. SaaS platforms, while great for getting started, lack the customization capabilities many hosting environments provide.

You don’t need to be a developer to take full control of your application environment. Many managed hosting providers will help you unlock the true potential of your eCommerce store with auto-installs and help getting your application off the ground.

A good eCommerce environment allows you to increase page load speeds, optimize environment settings, and implement custom tools for advanced functionality. 

4. Go Content First

The best way to attract new customers and draw them into your sales funnel is by luring them with great content.

Great content at the top of your funnel means that potential customers will find your brand while researching for the right product or service. From here, you won’t only be a vendor, you’ll also be an authority – one they’re more likely to purchase from.

Long tail keywords are key to a true content first Magento strategy. The best way to get started is with tools like MOZ and Google Trends. Find content opportunities and fill them.

5. Improve Personalized Experiences

Personalization has long been at the center of great marketing campaigns, so there’s no excuse not to provide it in 2019.

With the introduction of AI and machine learning services, and Magento’s already incredible internal functionality, creating campaigns that appeal to multiple users should be easier now than ever before.

Moreover, improved personalized experiences are an important part of optimizing your buyer’s journey. A buyer is more likely to make a purchase and remain loyal to a store when their name or attributes are mentioned and appealed to.

6. Create Abandoned Cart Emails

10% of customers that receive abandoned cart emails will make a purchase. The potential power in reminding customers of what they left behind, even if it isn’t the same in every industry, is incredible.

Abandoned cart emails are one of the most effective ways to increase Magento sales; especially if you haven’t been sending them already. Implementing them can be tricky, but extensions like Recapture’s Abandoned Cart Recapture or  Magewares’ premium Abandoned Cart Email can help you to get started quickly.

7. Reduce Abandoned Carts

Do you know what’s better than sending abandoned cart emails? Not having to send them at all.

Understanding why potential customers are abandoning their shopping cart is the first step to avoiding it. Looking at the main reasons behind cart abandonment reveals some clear trends.

According to Baymard, the top reason for cart abandonment is unexpected shipping costs, followed by having to create a new user account, and a checkout process that is too complicated. These are all issues that can easily be resolved through minor tweaks.

A great way to improve the second two points is by integrating social logins. This can be done by installing an extension and will, in most cases, provide customers with increased peace of mind over your store’s reliability and trustworthiness.

8. Upsell and Cross-Sell Products

We’ve all heard “would you like fries with that” when we order fast food. It’s a great example of upselling and one that can help you increase Magento store sales.

Upselling is when you provide a customer with additional options for purchase. If you sell shoes, for instance, you may also try to upsell them on a shoe protection and maintenance kit, thereby increasing the life of the shoes and keeping them in the best shape possible.

A good upsell requires two primary elements to be there, otherwise, it can fall on deaf ears.

1. Upsells should be related to the original product
2. Upsells should not increase the price of the original product by too much

If you’re already selling an expensive product, customers may be eager to buy into a warranty or protection program. recommendations like these often appeal to a buyer’s journey to find value for their money and make the best purchase possible.

9. Bundle Products

You decided to have fries with your fast food order. You probably got a drink as well, and all for less money than it would have cost you to order each individually. This is bundling, and it’s an incredibly effective way to increase sales.

Not only does bundling help you to upsell more products, but, if done correctly, it can position you as a knowledgable vendor with a clear idea of what is important to customers.

In the example above regarding a shoe repair kit, you can do more than recommend the kit.  By increasing the purchase price of the shoes and including it, you’re able to provide both at a lower combined cost. Customers will feel they are getting great value for money and be less inclined to purchase from a competitor.

10. Integrate Social Media

Integrating social media into your sales funnel can be a great way to increase your Magento sales. Social posting, social ads, and interaction with potential customers are great ways to increase awareness, reposition your products, and retarget potential customers.

Integrating social channels doesn’t have to be a time-consuming task. Integrate social channels with your blog for auto posting and use a social media tool to auto-alert you to brand mentions. For Twitter, Tweetdeck is a great, free tool with a good level of customization.

For social ads, run multiple tests to see what content performs best and work on narrowing down the right audience. The longer you work on it, the better your content will perform and the more customers you’ll start to see hitting your funnel.

11. Go Responsive

Mobile now counts for over 50% of all eCommerce traffic, and it’s not surprising considering the number of people equipped with smartphones and other mobile devices.

in 2019, responsiveness is not something that should need to be mentioned. However, if you haven’t got a mobile-friendly store already, it is a surefire way of increasing Magento conversions. Moreover, there are several great guides and themes available to help store owners make their Magento store responsive quickly.

12. Improve the User Experience (UX)

Good UX makes a buyer’s journey as intuitive and simple as possible. In eCommerce, UX should not aim to recreate the wheel, but adopt the wheel that already exists. There are several primary aspects that eCommerce design should follow, including:

• Simplicity of navigation
• Clear presentation
• Ability to leave and check product feedback
• Easy access to contact information
• Design that supports, not overshadows
• Strong branding

From the perspective of a business, these elements require a clear audience definition and the identification of that audience’s expectations. A tech-orientated audience is going to have a different set of assumptions regarding how an e-commerce site is meant to look and feel, compared with an audience looking for flowers.

13. Embrace User-Generated Content

Imagine being able to improve your content-first marketing tactics without having to hire a writer or strategist? It’s time to look at user-generated content.

Leveraging customer images and reviews can provide you with great advertisements, but it also does something much more important: create advocates.

The real benefit of user-generated content comes from its trustworthiness. Multiple studies have shown that people don’t trust marketers. 92% of people lean towards trusting another person’s recommendation over content created by a brand.

As soon as a customer shares positive content about your products, they become an advocate. They are a real person sharing real feelings about their purchase. This authenticity can go a long way toward pushing a buyer that is otherwise on the fence towards making a purchase.

User-generated content provides authentic, easily-digestible content, and gives your Magento store the edge you need to increase sales.

14. Run an SEO Audit

On average, 51% of all website traffic comes from organic search. That means that potentially 51% of your traffic and potential customers come as a result of your SEO efforts.

If you’re new to SEO, then blogging regularly can help you to improve your SEO rank quickly. Create fresh and helpful content that appeals to what buyers are looking for. We recommend getting started with tools like Google Trends and then going from there.

15. Update Local SEO

SEO is more multifaceted than you may believe – this is especially true if you’re running an omnichannel Magento store and want to encourage online visitors to visit your brick and mortar location.

Local SEO is a great way to increase your business visibility for free. Start by heading to Google My Business and make sure that your business’s information has all been configured correctly. You can provide your customers with important information including your:

• Address
• Opening Hours
• Contact Details

Well configured local SEO can increase your store’s visibility on Google and allow even more customers to find your store during the awareness stage of their buyer’s journey.

16. Listen to Customer Feedback

Getting feedback from customers is an important part of knowing how to improve your store’s eCommerce experience. Buyers are often more than happy to give you feedback, especially if they’re not impressed by something. You can enable feedback in a number of ways. Each of which has its own unique advantages.

Surveys are the easiest and quickest to implement. There are a number of free survey sites available, or you can invest in a cloud service such as SurveyMonkey. We find that surveys often need something to motivate customers to engage. This can be a discount code, a voucher, or something else.

Social media is also a great way to elicit feedback. Moreover, by combining feedback with your social media efforts, you’re able to engage with customers online and position your brand as one that cares.

However you decide to collect feedback, the information you receive will be invaluable.

17. Take Part in Holiday Sales

Online sales for Black Friday in 2017 were 26% higher than they were in 2016. In 2018, they increased again. If we’re not being clear: holiday periods can net you a significant increase in sales if you’re suitably prepared.

There are several ways to prepare for holiday sales. Many of them include retargeting potential customers. The reason for this is that during a holiday sales period, buyers are often looking for the best deals available. This involves a much longer consideration stage, with many different merchants competing for a buyer’s decision.

As a merchant, it’s your job to make sure that your products remain at the forefront of your buyer’s mind. Retargeting campaigns through PPC ads and abandoned cart recapture can help to keep you there.

How to Increase Magento Sales the Easy Way

The tips above should help you to make serious headway when it comes to increasing sales. However, it’s important to know that this isn’t an exhaustive list. There are numerous techniques and strategies at a merchant’s disposal. We have included those we have found to be most valuable yet for many merchants, techniques not listed here may make the biggest difference.

We highly recommend checking what other eCommerce stores are doing right and aligning your optimizations around what already works. Again, being a successful eCommerce business is not about reinventing the wheel, following the patterns and expectations that already exist.

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