2018 was the year data privacy concerns went mainstream. The media focus on Cambridge Analytica and Facebook brought the importance of data privacy home to the general public. The steady drip of data leaks from prominent companies, including leaks from eCommerce stores targeted by Magecart, cemented the risks in everyone’s minds. Businesses across the world tightened up security and privacy as the GDPR came into effect. And California, the US’s most populous state, home to the largest online economy in the world, passed the California Consumer Protection Act, which has been called California’s GDPR.
When the CCPA comes into effect on January 1, 2020, it will affect eCommerce retailers in California, the US, and the rest of the world, much as the GDPR has affected businesses beyond the EU. Many US retailers, especially midsized retailers, were able to disregard the GDPR because they don’t sell to EU residents. They are, however, unlikely to be able to avoid complying with the CCPA because most sell to the vast and lucrative California market. The CCPA does not require a retailer to have a physical presence in California, only that they do business in California. It is the strictest US data privacy law in history and will require many retailers to overhaul the way they store, process, and monetize data.
Although strict by US standards, the CCPA is not as stringent as the GDPR. It does not require that consumers opt-in to data processing, but does require businesses to provide an opt-out and mechanisms to allow California residents to find out which personal data a business stores and how it is used.
The CCPA also applies to a narrower set of businesses than the GDPR. To be affected, a retailer must conduct business in California and conform to at least one of the following criteria:
Have a gross revenue of more than $25 million.
Derive 50% of annual profits from selling personal data.
Buy, sell, or share for commercial purposes the personal data of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices.
These criteria are likely to capture a huge number of midsized retailers and apply to a much larger number of US businesses than the GDPR. Additionally, stricter rules apply to the data of minors. Consent for minors under the age of 13 must be given by their parents. Older children can opt-in themselves, but businesses must provide an age-verification system and track consent for all minors.
The CCPA has harsh penalties, with fines of up to $2,500 for each violation, rising to $7,500 if the violation is deemed to be deliberate. That might not seem like a lot, but fines can accumulate for each violation of an individual’s rights under the CCPA.
What do retailers need to do to prepare? Most importantly, they need to be able to identify and track the personal data they store and who they sell that data to or share it with. For many retailers, this will not be an easy change to make, and with less than a year before the CCPA comes into effect, they should begin preparations immediately.
For the average American living in Chicago, being able to tell the time in New York is easy. Simply take the time in Chicago and add one hour: 10am becomes 11am.
Yet timezones becomes more complicated when geopolitics are involved, and for any tasks that involve time processing, knowledge of the correct timezone is vital.
Keep reading to find out three of our top ways a server’s timezone can go wrong and how you can fix it.
How Do Timezones go Wrong?
So you know what time zones are and you’ve configured each and every one of your servers to reflect them correctly. For one client in the UK you’ve set the server to GMT +0, for another in Russia you’ve set it to UTC +4, and for another in California you’ve set it to GMT -8 (you think).
Congratulations, you’ve managed to set up time zones that reflect where your clients are based. But you’ve made a mistake… a few, in fact. You’re clients are quickly back on the phone asking why you selected that timezone and telling you that it needs to change ASAP.
So, where did you go wrong?
You Forgot Daylight Savings
Imagine you’re setting up a server and you get to a point where you need to set a timezone. “Well Michigan is (almost completely) in the eastern timezone”, you think to yourself, “and it’s March 27th, so I’ll set the timezone to EDT.” If you set the timezone to ‘EDT’, this would work fine… Until November 4th.
That’s because this is when Daylight Saving Time (DST) ends. At this point, your server would be off by 1 hour until DST starts again. If you had instead set your timezone to ‘America/Detroit’, it would have switched for DST at the right time and would switch back again too. This is why operating system installers often have you choose a location instead of a timezone directly.
Some Timezones Aren’t What They Appear
A client requests the timezone be set to ‘GMT-8’, which means 8 hours behind UTC/GMT. (Roughly corresponds to British Columbia, California, most of Nevada, some of Mexico.) You happily go off and set the time zone to the IANA time zone database special administrative zone (wow, what a mouthful) of ‘Etc/GMT-8’. You then happily go about your day.
That is until the client frantically rushes to tell you you’ve completely goofed up and set the timezone to GMT+8, the opposite of what they wanted. (This roughly corresponds to east Asia, and Fun fact: this is the most populous timezone in the world).
You double check and see to which file /etc/localtime is a symbolic link. You see /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT-8, which appears correct. You scratch your head for a while.
Eventually you venture far enough down the rabbit hole that you find out that the ‘Etc/GMT’ time zones in the IANA timezone database have their sign switched due to legacy POSIX reasons, just like every weird thing in the wonderful world of Linux. You switch the timezone to ‘Etc/GMT+8’ and update. All is good with the world.
Timezones Reflect Geopolitics
The year is 2013. In between frequent bouts of the harlem shake, you field a client request to update the server to the same timezone as Moscow. Being very geopolitically savvy, you knew right off the bat that Russia switched to “permanent daylight saving time” in 2011 and the timezone of Moscow would be UTC+4. Permanent sure does sound like forever to you, so you pat yourself on the back and call it good.
BUT YOU’RE WRONG.
Russia switched to, ahem, permanent non-daylight saving time (?) in October 2014, making the correct timezone for Moscow UTC+3 “permanently” from that point on. Since you used UTC+4, the servers time became off in 2014 and the client had to put in a new ticket to adjust it.
If you had used ‘Europe/Moscow’ instead, the timezone would have been correctly adjusted in 2014 due to updates to the ‘tzdata’ package. This package contains the IANA timezone database and is updated for administrative and geopolitical changes as time goes on.
Changing Timezone to Location
Instead of changing the servers to a specific named time zone, we recommend setting time to a specific location. This helps to avoid the pitfalls and issues outlined above.
One of the most popular timezone databases is called the tz database. Within the database, different locations have different names depending on Area/Location. For instance, America/Detroit, Europe/London, etc.
Instead of going to a UTC/GMT offset such as GMT+8, databases like the tz database account for geopolitical and other changes around the world which allows you to set the timezone to a location. This means that as long as you’ve set your location correctly, then your timezone will never go wrong… probably.
It’s time for our monthly roundup! If you’re looking for the same great articles the rest of the year, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Enjoy and let us know if we missed anything important in the comment section. WordPress and WooCommerce Prospress Joins Automattic to Jointly Develop WooCommerce Subscriptions – Prospress is joining Automattic…
It’s less than a month until one of the biggest marketing and retail conferences kicks off in Chicago. This year, the conference will take on a new form as it combines with GlobalShop and RFID Journal LIVE! Retail to form the colocation event Retail X.
Once again, we’ll be back to deliver the facts on eCommerce hosting and performance, with two booths in the exhibit hall and one of the most exclusive after parties to take place during IRCE 2019.
Whether it’s your first time or you’ve attended IRCE for years, we’ve put together this article to help you know what to expect. Keep reading to see what IRCE is, when it takes place, what you can expect, and eight sessions we think you should attend.
What and When Is IRCE?
IRCE is short for the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition. This year, the event will take place on June 25th – 28th at McCormick Place in Chicago.
Whereas in past years IRCE was a standalone event, this year it will be colocating with GlobalShop and RFID Journal LIVE! Retail under the combined banner of RetailX.
This will open the conference up to more than just eCommerce and marketing talks. Expect conversations this year to revolve around omnichannel business, integrating eCommerce and marketing technologies, and understanding the finer points of ROI reporting in an age where attribution continues to elude many.
With over 1,200 exhibitors and countless sessions dedicated to commerce, the over 20,000 attendees predicted to show are going to need to make some tough choices when it comes to deciding what they do at the conference. Keep reading for a handful of suggestions.
Why Attend IRCE?
IRCE is an annual meeting of the biggest and best in eCommerce. This year, the conference expects to see over 20,000 attendees from all around the world walk through the McCormick convention center during the four day event.
Besides the great networking opportunities available, the four days also provide a chance to learn. A huge number of sessions have been scheduled, with a full list available here.
In addition, some big names in eCommerce will be delivering insights into their retail experiences, and advice on how you can improve yours. Some of the major keynote speakers this year include retail prophet Doug Stephens, Chip Conley of AirBNB, and Susan Tynan of Framebridge.
Our #IRCE18 recap, including #NexcessLive at the Park, the exhibit hall, and our three biggest takeaways from the sessions regarding eCommerce and Magento.Don’t forget to grab a copy of our Magento 2 Optimization guide from nexc.es/2Knocc2
Our recap video from IRCE 2018 provides a good summary of what you can expect.
IRCE 2019 Rooftop After Party
We’ll be running one of the most exclusive after parties during IRCE: The NexcessLive Rooftop Party.
Midwest culinary legend chef Nolan Narut will join world-renowned DJ Madrid to help IRCE attendees party through the night in style. All while 22 stories up and overlooking Chicago’s famous skyline.
Join other eCommerce professionals for free drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and some of the best networking opportunities of the week.
Get your tickets now before they all run out! Visit nexc.es/irce19 to register.
What to Know Before You Go
As with any conference, there is always a list of best practices for getting the most out of the four day event.
The Sessions
The first of these is that it’s vital to plan what sessions you want to prioritize.
Take a look at the agenda before you go to see if there are any speakers or talks that really stand out. Try to identify any areas you want to improve in and place those at the top of your list. IRCE is one of the best events for learning about changes in the online retail space. By prioritizing, you’ll guarantee walking away with a list of actionable points to integrate into your store.
The Exhibit Hall
The second area you need to pay attention to is the exhibit hall. With over 700 vendors this year, there will be no shortage of interesting proposals. Try to break up your time in the exhibit hall as much as possible. While it’s a great chance to talk to vendors and understand new technologies, it’s important to balance vendor discussions with the other opportunities at IRCE.
Don’t forget, Hostdedi will be on the show floor at two booth locations. If you’re interested in understanding how the right eCommerce technology foundation can lead to net growth in performance, scalability, and more, speak to a member of our team at either booth #534 or #173.
Networking Events
Finally, the party doesn’t stop once the exhibition hall is closed down. Many of the sponsors will run parties and events during the evening. Take the chance to go and have some fun in Chicago, while also meeting and networking with other professionals from your industry.
Keep an eye on social media or your inbox for invites from multiple vendors. We’ve already issued our first email invite and will continue to offer invites through our social media channels.
8 Sessions You Should Definitely Attend at IRCE 2019
The choice of sessions is incredible this year. To help you out, we’ve chosen 8 sessions we think you should try to attend.
Usability: Keeping Shoppers on the Road to Checkout, Step by Step
Tuesday 10:00am, Room S102A-D
Conversations surrounding eCommerce for the past several years have often touched on the customer journey and keeping it going. In this session, Salesforce UX researcher, Scott Kincaid, will team up with Jason McClintlock, the President of Desert Steel, to talk about how to find and fix roadblocks in that journey.
The Marketing Stack: Demystify the Array of Solutions to Build and Optimize
Tuesday 10:00am Room S100BC
What marketing technology do you use? Are you sure that you’ve picked the right solutions? That’s what Marta Dalton, the Global Director of eCommerce at Unilever, will ask in this session.
Not only will she ask these questions, she’ll also be providing marketers with the tools and metrics they need to evaluate the marketing stack they’re already running. With over 7,000 marketing solutions available, this session should help everyone in attendance to optimize their stack at least a little.
Before attending, we recommend you review you own marketing solutions. What do you use for email, landing pages, form building, content management, etc? Come with a good idea of why you’ve chosen those solutions and see if Marta can’t change your mind.
Selling B2B or B2C: What B2B and Brands Must Get Right on Technology
Tuesday 11:50am Room S100BC
In this session, Mike Earl, the senior director of Timbuk2, and Lucas Robinson, the CEO of Weblife Stores, will come together to present the pros and cons of technology considerations. With a special focus on B2B and B2C, this talk should provide a number of actionable insights for merchants and developers alike.
Before listening to Mike and Lucas talk, read up on Timbuk2’s history and how they overcame some of the struggles of eCommerce success. This goes into more than just technology considerations and answers questions on building brand loyalty and virality. A good pre-IRCE listen.
Making Sense of Email Marketing Today
Tuesday 3:00pm Room S102A-D
If there is one thing that marketers still struggle with, it’s email marketing. We were recently at a show in which a speaker told the audience that he had sent email blasts with click through rates upward of 90%. They gasped.
In this session, Cindy white, the Senior E-Commerce Marketing Manager at Plow & Hearth, will talk about how to close gaps and cut through the noise to find the right tools and strategies to improve your email marketing.
Before attending, check out this article for some background insight into the Plow & Hearth email marketing strategy.
What You Need to Know About Behavioral Metrics
Tuesday 3:30pm Room S102A-D
Behavioral metrics refer to data that allow for merchants and businesses to track the user experience of their customers. This data indicates where customers visit, how the interact, and the best ways to improve conversion rate, traffic, and ROI.
In this session, Ashlee Colliver from Classy Llama, and Brittany Graham from Tombow will discuss how you can leverage this data for your own store, to match the latest in Google and Facebook algorithm shifts. The actionable strategies and information you’ll find here should be enough to help you identify and improve on almost all areas of your marketing that involve engagement.
Before attending, we recommend you read up on some of the main metrics you could (or should) be following. Semrush offer a good summary.
The Future of Retail is More Than Retail
Wednesday 10:30am Room S103A-D
Yes, another future talk, predicting where eCommerce is going. A pretty ingenious way to kick off the second day is to have a good understanding of some of the key research and results that have been published already this year.
And that’s exactly what this session from Erin Jordan, VP & Partner at Walker Sands Communications, is all about. Get yourself ready for the day ahead with a look at Walker Sands Future of Retail report and see what direction they are recommending eCommerce retailers go in.
Influencers have become a mainstay of retail marketing. They offer brands the chance to connect and build trust with their customers through multiple channels. However, over the last few years, regulations have been tightening, with the list of things influencers can and can’t do shrinking quickly.
In this session, Joe Gagliese of Viral Nation and Taylor Offer of Feat Socks will walk through best practices for finding, negotiating with, and managing influencers for your brand. Also learn how to measure ROI from influencer efforts, and see if it’s something that’s really helping your brand to grow.
The Supply Chain Tactics That Push Retailers to the Top
Wednesday 4:15pm Room S102A-D
It’s not all about marketing. It’s important to also focus on the user experience with regards to logistics.
In this session, George Lawrie from Forrester Research will explore some of the top retailers and how they have used unrivalled supply chain tactics to push their business to the top. Whether you’re a brand selling in B2C or B2B, this session should give you some valuable insights into how to get the most out of your supply chain.
Magento Master Miguel Balparda shares his insights into the Magento ecosystem from 2019’s Magento Imagine event. See where this year took him and what he sees Imagine looking like next year.
After a week of rest, it’s time for our Magento Imagine recap. This was my fifth Imagine — and probably the last one as we currently know it…
Pre-game at the Git
This year the event started at 9 a.m. on Saturday with a 2-day contribution event organized by the Community Engineering team. Now in their second year, these contribution days have become an Imagine centerpiece, featuring community-created code for Magento 2 and a steady growth of +100% YoY.
This year, it was organized as a side event in the Country Club at the Wynn, where developers from around the globe gathered to code and contribute to Magento 2, DevDocs, graphQL, Multi-Source Inventory (MSI), among many other GitHub projects. As a maintainer, I love Contribution days because I meet people I had previously only known online and work with them to make Magento even better.
Work began with a new Adobe Stock + Magento 2
integration, a small project to kickstart the collaboration between Magento and
Adobe. See GitHub for details.
Contributing wrapped at 5 p.m. Sunday, and I headed to #preimagine at the Encore. Once again, WebShopApps and ShippersHQ organized an awesome community event with beverages and fun with friends, both old and new. See all the action at #preimagine.
Day 1: Yoga, Secrets, and Clubs
Monday marked the official start of the
conference and I attended MageYoga with Wagento, Hostdedi-supplied mats, and our
fearless instructor Vijay. After practicing the basics, Vijay led us into some
Laughing Therapy to kickstart the conference experience.
After Yoga, I headed to the super-secret
Magento Masters Breakfast, where we had the chance to talk with Adobe and
Magento executives and managers over omelettes and coffee. This is one of the
side events I enjoy most: a quiet place to talk with industry leaders about
topics affecting the future of our community. The ever-present progressive web
app (PWA) discussion made an appearance. However, most of the talk revolved
around Adobe’s interest in feedback from the open source community and the
possibilities of integrating Magento with Adobe products.
Afterward, the Sponsor marketplace opened to a
flurry of presentations. While these are often worthwhile, I stayed on the
“hallway track” to meet colleagues and talk about the present and future of
Magento 2 development. This was by far the biggest Imagine (in attendees), and
I didn’t want to miss my chance to exchange knowledge with both new and
familiar faces.
This year saw the adoption of Labs track from
other Adobe events, where people can get their hands dirty with some of the new
products. Magento and Adobe employees together played host.
As the sun began to set on Monday, I headed to Topgolf for #NexcessLive. There are no words to describe this incredible event, so here’s a video!
Day 2: Masters of the Universe
Tuesday morning, I headed to the Keynote to
hear Philip Jackson again as well as attend the
Magento Masters award ceremony. I had the honor of standing on stage with
19 other Masters, and in lieu of a theme this year, we rolled with capes.
I spent the rest of Tuesday afternoon meeting
with our clients and partners in our suite, and again PWA was a hot topic.
Since the release of PWA studio, plus some community initiatives like Deity
Falcon and VueStorefront, the Magento community has continued to see a rise in
early adopters. As we heard during one of the keynotes, multiple developers and
agencies (Inchoo, JH, and others) have been working on PWAs. Our own system
operations team has been creating an PWA-optimized hosting environment while working
in close collaboration with other Hostdedi teams.
Tuesday night, I attended the annual Legendary
Party at The Encore, giving us another chance to interact with developers from
everywhere over drinks and music. Once again, I was grateful for the chance to
attach faces and voices to the pixels on Twitter and GitHub. If you have ever
have the chance to attend, don’t pass it up!
Day 3: Imagine Reborn
Wednesday started slowly, but the event wasn’t
over just yet. Marketplace was open again with the final swag giveaways and
people buzzing the corridors. After a healing breakfast, we headed to the last
keynote, where they announced Magento Imagine will continue as part of Adobe
Summit, just like Marketing Nation from Marketo was included in this year’s
Summit.
We also got a look at Sneaks, where Magento
shares short demos of future technology. This year’s lot included AR, VR, and
customer-engagement tools, among many other cool glimpses of tomorrow’s
commerce.
After the announcements. only DevExchange
remained before lunch and the goodbyes. Now in its fourth year, DevExchange is
a space to exchange opinions on various topics around the Magento community.
This year’s all-around attendance was record-breaking — beer and nachos
probably didn’t hurt — and I was fortunate enough to lead a discussion about
working remote.
DevExchange soon wrapped. Like every Imagine,
I left Vegas exhausted and slightly dehydrated, but cozy after meeting again
with our extended Magento (and now Adobe) family.
Hope to see you all again next year at Adobe
Summit, and may you never miss a step in 2019!
May 2, 2019 – We’re proud to announce the addition of a new hosting solution to our lineup for merchants: BigCommerce. This new addition allows us to provide merchants with multiple options for creating, customizing, and delivering their online stores.
As a powerful, headless eCommerce solution, BigCommerce allows merchants to employ a powerful product catalog while maintaining the simple front-end capabilities of WordPress. To this end, BigCommerce accounts with Hostdedi will include a WordPress environment with the BigCommerce plugin pre-installed and pre-configured.
In additional to the same great optimizations you’ll find across all of our plans, you’ll also have access to our support team and auto scaling functionality.
Keep reading to find out more about how Hostdedi and BigCommerce can work together to power your eCommerce needs.
Why BigCommerce?
By 2021, eCommerce will hold 17.5% of the commerce market share. In 2018 it was 11.9%. Part of the reason for this growth is the number of options available to different merchants. More and more, merchants that lack technical knowledge and access to a developer are being provided with accessible eCommerce platforms.
In 2018, we already saw a significant rise in the number of eCommerce solutions leveraging the ease-of-use associated with WordPress. During this time, WooCommerce, another eCommerce plugin that runs on WordPress, saw an 86% increase in the number of services.
With BigCommerce, we hope to support these merchants, by providing them with the functionality and ease of use of WordPress, as well as the powerful product and SKU management tools of BigCommerce. Together, we hope to empower merchants to create the professional, personalized eCommerce experiences they want.
The Same Great Support
BigCommerce merchants will still have access to the same great Hostdedi support they would with any other application. However, in addition to this, they’ll also have access to BigCommerce support ninjas.
Available 24/7/365, support for the new eCommerce solution is designed so merchants are never left in the dark regarding any part of their implementation. Key channels of communication have been set up to enable the best support possible for both the BigCommerce API, and the WordPress front-end.
BigCommerce Features
The new BigCommerce solutions come in several different forms, with three primary plans on the BigCommerce side: standard, plus, and pro. Each of these plans offer merchants an increased set of functionality.
All plans will include access to multiple sales channels such as Amazon, eBay, and social channels. Merchants will also have access to coupons, discounts, and gift cards, along with professional reporting tools, and multiple payment processor options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Amazon Pay.
Once upgraded to the plus plan, merchants will have access to advanced marketing tools for segmenting and targeting customers. Merchants will also be able to store credit card information within the BigCommerce API, and implement abandoned cart campaigns through their store.
For those that select a higher-tier solution from Hostdedi, they’ll have access to the benefits of the Pro plan. This includes an unlimited number of API calls. In conjunction with Hostdedi Cloud auto scaling, this means that merchants won’t have to worry about sales events and periods of high traffic. Merchants will also be able to implement advanced search, allowing customers to find products faster and more easily.
Commerce With a 0% Transaction Fee
One of the big benefits to using BigCommerce is that the eCommece platform has 0% transaction fees. This beats a huge range of other eCommerce platforms, and gives merchants a clear fee at the start of each month.
Similar to all other Hostdedi services, features such as auto scaling and dev sites will also be available at an additional price. A vital part of your move to Hostdedi is going through appropriate sizing with our team of experts. Get in touch to find out what size commerce is best for your store.
A Simple Migration Process
Making the move to BigCommerce is simple. As with all migrations to or between Hostdedi accounts, we provide full support from start to finish. However, from a preparation perspective, there are a few things you can go over prior to making the move.
Consider what vendors you want to use for different aspects of the commerce experience. Who will be your shipping provider, who will be your validation provider? If you’re content with the ones you have, that’s great, but see if there is anything you’re going to need to do to make the move as easy as possible.
We also recommend taking a look into the different options available for manual migration. BigCommerce offers a great tool for catalog transfer from Magento. Note that if you’re running a heavily customized storefront on your previous eCommerce platform, the migration may require more work.
Get Started with BigCommerce
Interested in seeing if BigCommerce is the right eCommerce platform for you? Solutions start from $58.95 for the XS cloud package with the standard BigCommerce plan, and scale with merchants depending on their store requirements.
Start a conversation with our sales team to find out what size is right for your store, and how else Hostdedi can help you to provide your customers with the eCommerce experience you always wanted.
When Magento was first released, it provided an eCommerce platform that offered functionality not seen before. It still does, but as Magento stores have grown, their requirements have changed. The platform’s functionality now needs to be delivered to an increasingly large customer base, and in an increasingly performant way. For this reason, we’ve made sure that our Magento solutions are optimized to make the best use of the resources available to them.
You’ve probably heard the statistic that “a 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.” This may be overused, but it provides vital insight into what eCommerce customers expect. A single second can be the difference between a Magento store that drives traffic and generates as much profit as possible, and one that falls flat.
“Magento is capable of supporting eCommerce stores of any size, but making the most of that power requires careful optimization.“
Since Magento’s creation, Hostdedi has worked to increase performance and optimize Magento environments. Our first guide, released in 2013, helped developers to create incredible, high-performance Magento stores. Stores which beat out the competition when it came to speed, efficiency, and responsiveness.
Our newest guide brings things into 2018 (now 2019), with everything from PHP optimizations, MySQL recommendations, and notes on how to implement Varnish and full-page caching effectively. Moreover, we’ve included all of this in a convenient 68-page book available for any Magento 2 developer who wants to know how to optimize a Magento 2 site.
What Has Changed With Magento 2?
From a technical perspective, Magento 2’s performance has improved since Magento 1; especially with regards to PHP utilization. Changes in how the application handles PHP threads has led to noticeable speed gains and better memory utilization.
Some of the reasons for this performance boost are that Magento 2 supports full-page caching, database improvements, native varnish, a modern code base, and has improved CLI tools.
This may be why in 2018, we saw the average monthly growth of Magento Cloud solutions remain stable at 21%, while by the end of the year, 64% of all hosting solutions supplied by Hostdedi remained optimized for Magento.
Yet while the second version of the application originally brought the eCommerce platform in line with the increasing demands of a modern online marketplace, these demands continued to grow. Further performance optimizations have become essential to ensuring that eCommerce businesses are now able to keep pace with their competitors.
How Can I Optimize My Magento Store?
For a full list of Magento 2 optimizations, we highly recommend downloading The Definitive Guide to Optimizing Magento 2. We will cover only a few of the main environment optimizations here.
We’ve discovered several PHP optimizations for Magento 2. These are specifically designed around increasing performance and load times for users.
From a high-level perspective, we’ve managed to improve Magento PHP performance even further by turning out back on mod_php, and opting to use php_fpm instead. Php_fpm allows for the serving of seperate php processes to serve dynamic requests, so further performance tuning means improved responsiveness and a reduced memory footprint.
You’ll also find recommendations on php version usage in our guide. With our cloud solutions, it’s possible to set your php version as far back as 5.6. We don’t recommend this as using a newer php version, especially 7.0 or later, will lead to performance improvements and can dramatically reduce memory usage.
At last year’s Imagine, a third-party patch was needed to make Magento 1 compatible with PHP 7.0. As of September 2018, Magento released an official php 7.2 patch, which can be downloaded here.
Some of the PHP optimizations you’ll find in The Definitive Guide to Optimizing Magento 2 include:
A PHP runtime limitation of 600 seconds.
A script memory utilization limitation of 768MB
A POST data size limitation of 512MB
PHP Opcache Optimizations for Magento 2
Opcache is a PHP-caching extension able to improve performance by optimizing what static code is stored in shared memory. This can improve PHP performance dramatically by skipping the intensive compilation process and reading files directly from memory.
By default, however, Opcache is not optimized for Magento. Instead of performance gains, you’re more likely to see performance losses. After careful testing, we found several settings that could easily be optimized by configuring the opcache.ini in the php.d directory.
Some of the Opcache optimizations we recommend are:
Set opcache.memory_consumption to 512mb
Set opcache.max_accelerated_files to 65407
Set opcache.revalidate_freq to 4
MySQL Optimizations for Magento 2
For Magento 2 database optimization, we recommend implementing and optimizing MariaDB as a replacement in the MySQL section of your stack. MariaDB is fast and offers a simplified deployment over CentOS 7.
In general, MariaDB, by default, allocates too many resources to database processes. We’ve found that these numbers can easily be reduced while still providing improved performance.
Some of the MariaDB optimizations we’ve implemented include:
Single server environments to incorporate a 50% buffer size pool. For systems dedicated to MariaDB this should be increased up to 80%.
Set query cache size to 2% of your available memory, or 127MB.
A well-tuned stack means optimizing the technology that helps to deliver your Magento store. Simply enabling NGINX microcaching can double store performance with no additional modifications. For more information on the stack we offer, see our application stack page.
Enable Full-Page Caching
It was introduced with Magento 2 for a reason. Even if Redis is not available and you need to use local files for caching, full-page caching will pull load away from the PHP interpreter and MySQL, increasing site speed.
Run Modern PHP
With the official update for Magento 1, there is now no excuse to not upgrade to PHP 7.0 or later. If you’re unsure on how it will affect your store, try using a dev site to test and develop safely.
Hostdedi Cloud as Changing the Magento Environment
One of the biggest changes the Hostdedi Cloud has brought to Magento 2 stores is the inclusion of Hostdedi Cloud Auto Scaling. Auto Scaling is a feature which allows for your cloud account to scale the number of concurrent users automatically, whenever your Magento store picks up traffic spikes.
For instance, if you run a sales event which results in your store receiving double the number of guests it normally does, Hostdedi Cloud Auto Scaling will allow your store’s concurrent user capacity to increase. This means no rejected page loads and no loss of potential income.
WooCommerce security is a partnership between a hosting provider and a hosting client. The client is responsible for updating their store and taking care which plugins and themes they install. But that’s only part of the work involved in keeping a WooCommerce store safe. A hosting provider and their platform play a pivotal role, but…
Conversion rate is an important indicator of the health of an eCommerce store. An eCommerce store is, essentially, a machine for converting visitors into buyers. Whatever other roles an online retailer’s site has, its ability to move people through the purchase funnel determines whether it can be considered a success.
Typically, conversion rates are compared over time: Is this month’s conversion rate better than the same month last year? But it is also useful to compare conversion rates to industry averages, answering a different question: Is my store performing as well as the competition and the eCommerce market generally?
What is a conversion rate?
A conversion rate measures the proportion of visitors to a store who buy a product. In fact, the definition is broader than that, covering any event in which a lead responds favorably to a marketing message. But, for eCommerce retailers, a sale is the most important conversion and a good measure of a store’s efficiency — although conversion rate has limitations as a performance indicator, as we’ll discuss in a moment.
A conversion rate measures the proportion of conversions relative to the number of visits in a given period.
(Number of sales / number of visits) * 100
If a store has 13,000 visitors in a month and makes 400 sales, it has a conversion rate of approximately three percent.
(400 / 1300) * 100 = 3.07
Three percent of visitors to the store bought something.
What is a good conversion rate?
The most accurate answer to this question is — it depends. But that’s not very satisfying, so let’s look at the industry average. According to Econsultancy’s Performance Benchmarks, the global average is between one and three percent. The store in the example calculation above is successful by that measure; its conversion rates are at the top of the average range. In fact, most stores have lower conversion rates. If your store is somewhere in that range, you shouldn’t be too worried, although there are other factors to consider.
The limitations of conversion rates
Conversion rates are important, but they are just one metric among several that eCommerce retailers should monitor. To take an extreme example, an eCommerce store that receives ten visitors a month and makes eight sales with an average order value of $1.50 has a conversion rate of 80%. That’s an excellent conversion rate, but it doesn’t bode well for the business.
An increasing conversion rate indicates that a greater proportion of visitors are buying products. That might mean conversions are increasing as total visits remain static (good). Or it might mean that conversions have stayed the same while traffic has decreased (not so good). Or it might mean some mixture of the previous two possibilities.
The store owner can’t be sure what their conversion rate says about the health of their store without viewing it in context with other metrics, including revenue, average order value, and, perhaps most important, profit.
The two biggest challenges faced by eCommerce retailers are getting people to the store and getting them to buy something when they arrive. Marketing is the domain of solutions to the first problem, and WooCommerce has many features to help bring shoppers to your store. Some are built into WordPress and WooCommerce, but many of the more sophisticated marketing tools are available as plugins and integrations.
In the WordPress world, there are excellent plugins for every possible problem, but in this article we’re going to highlight five marketing plugins that those new to WooCommerce should know about.
Google Shopping is one of the most important marketing channels for eCommerce stores. If your products aren’t included in Google’s dedicated shopping search engine, they won’t appear in desktop and mobile searches. Google Shopping is a paid service — to be listed, retailers pay for Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads. They also have to submit a feed of their products via the Google Merchant Center.
The Google Product Feed plugin generates a feed of products and associated metadata in the correct format. Retailers can choose which products and fields to incorporate, including additional data that isn’t normally available within WooCommerce. The plugin creates feeds compatible with Google and Bing.
Yoast’s SEO plugin is one of the most popular WordPress marketing plugins. It adds numerous search engine optimization features, including input elements for meta description and title tags, content auditing tools, and internal link suggestions. WooCommerce SEO makes these features compatible with WooCommerce and adds a number of eCommerce-specific features, including improved breadcrumb navigation and rich social media posts for Facebook and Pinterest.
There are over 500 million Instagram users, many of whom use the platform to discover products and follow their favorite retail brands. The WooCommerce Instagram plugin allows retailers to showcase Instagram images with a specific tag on their WooCommerce store.
OptinMonster is a cloud service that provides a suite of tools for increasing conversions on eCommerce stores. In addition to high-converting opt-in forms — including exit intent popups — OptinMonster can display relevant promotions and content to shoppers and retarget shoppers who left the store without making a purchase.
The OptinMonster WooCommerce plugins brings these features to WooCommerce, providing easy-to-use forms, personalized messages, split testing, and cart abandonment solutions.
AutomateWoo is a marketing automation solution for WooCommerce. There is some cross-over of features between AutomateWoo and OptinMonster, but it’s worth taking a look at both to see which fits your needs better. AutomateWoo automates a number of common email-based marketing strategies, including follow-up emails for upselling and cross-selling, abandoned cart recovery emails, personalized coupon generation, review rewards, card expiry notifications, and more.
We’ve covered just five of the best marketing plugins available for WordPress and WooCommerce. There are many more, and you can browse the full selection on the WooCommerce extension directory.
2018 was the year data privacy concerns went mainstream. The media focus on Cambridge Analytica and Facebook brought the importance of data privacy home to the general public. The steady drip of data leaks from prominent companies, including leaks from eCommerce stores targeted by Magecart, cemented the risks in everyone’s minds. Businesses across the world tightened up security and privacy as the GDPR came into effect. And California, the US’s most populous state, home to the largest online economy in the world, passed the California Consumer Protection Act, which has been called California’s GDPR.
A client requests the timezone be set to ‘GMT-8’, which means 8 hours behind UTC/GMT. (Roughly corresponds to British Columbia, California, most of Nevada, some of Mexico.) You happily go off and set the time zone to the 
The year is 2013. In between frequent bouts of the harlem shake, you field a client request to update the server to the same timezone as Moscow. Being very geopolitically savvy, you knew right off the bat that Russia switched to “permanent daylight saving time” in 2011 and the timezone of Moscow would be UTC+4. Permanent sure does sound like forever to you, so you pat yourself on the back and call it good. 
It’s less than a month until one of the biggest marketing and retail conferences kicks off in Chicago. This year, the conference will take on a new form as it combines with GlobalShop and RFID Journal LIVE! Retail to form the colocation event Retail X.
May 2, 2019 
