Highlights from MagentoLive UK 2016
Cream attended MagentoLive in London, and it was a fun and educational experience. We went hoping to learn more about Magento 2 and get a better understanding of the platform.
The event floor was packed with stands offering all kinds of e-commerce products and services, and a diverse crowd of visitors moved between sessions and networked with one another.
The general sessions, hosted by Magento CEO Mark Lavelle and Chief Product Officer Steve Yankovich, among others, covered where Magento stands as an e-commerce platform, the current state of Magento 2, and what the future might hold for e-commerce.
Over the past year, Magento has become the leading platform for e-commerce. Its usage has more than doubled, while other platforms such as IBM, ATG / Oracle, and Demandware have held steady or even declined.
The new version, Magento 2, already looks like a clear success. It has been downloaded more than 350,000 times, more than 2,400 online stores are already running on the new platform, and there are more than 113 trained, certified partners.
We attended several technical presentations and picked up valuable knowledge about developing for Magento 2. We learned about the new techniques and systems at the core of Magento 2, as well as the structures used to build its framework.
Magento also demonstrated two tools that make it easier to migrate a Magento 1 store to Magento 2. The presenters outlined several steps you can work through to keep the migration as short as possible. There’s also an optional “Delta” mode, which synchronizes active data such as customer details and order information in real time with a Magento 2 installation.
We also attended a session on improving conversion through redesign. The speakers shared several client case studies in which redesigning specific parts of an online store led to a significant jump in conversion. The main message was clear: A/B testing your designs is the most important part of improving conversion, and no change should go live in your production environment without being A/B tested first.
Another technical presentation focused on the new Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition, Magento’s own PaaS, or Platform-as-a-Service. Hosting runs on Amazon’s scalable cloud servers, and several services come included. Among them are Fastly and Blackfire.io, which give the store a performance boost and make it accessible worldwide. NewRelic can be used to monitor both the services and the platform.
Beyond hosting, the package includes tools that, among other things, make it easy to create multiple environments and instances of your store and keep their data in sync.
The event wrapped up with another general session, hosted by Steve Yankovich and Michael Sonier, Head of Omnichannel Products, among others. They shared their ideas and vision for the future of e-commerce and the role Magento can play in it. They expect buying products to keep getting easier, more accessible, and faster. As automation takes over almost everything, they see people having more time to shop online, and using it. Even delivery to the customer should become faster and more convenient.
They also showed a testimonial video from Fraport (Frankfurt Airport). Fraport offers a service that lets travelers buy products from various retail chains through a dedicated online store. Products can be ordered during a flight or while waiting to board. On arrival or departure, the purchase is delivered right to the gate, or it can be picked up at one of the participating stores.
Last but not least, Magento announced that it will officially partner with Meet Magento events and sponsor them going forward. We hope this will help both the events and the community grow even further.
