The COVID pandemic has impacted every industry significantly and has increased the adoption rate of digital purchases. Moreover, it directly brings hype to the eCommerce website development and gives merchants and store owners opportunities.

The Magento platform is the best choice for developing an eCommerce website as it is very convenient to manage the eCommerce website. In addition, it is free, open-source, and provides rich features.

As the demand of users is increasing towards the usage of eCommerce websites, the platform needs to get updated and upgraded with the latest and new features to enhance the development and use of the eCommerce store.

Recently, Adobe released the latest version of the Magento commerce extension, 2.4.2, which helps merchants and store owners boost their Magento store sales and augment the online store development.

Updates in Magento 2.4.2

  • New and improved default search engine
  • Enhanced media gallery
  • Seller-assisted shopping
  • Purchase approval workflow
  • Two-factor authentication for enhanced security

The latest version of Magento is working and improving some of the significant concerns of Magento community edition features for merchants, such as search and image management.

Some online stores are still running on Magento 1 but with the latest features and functionalities to move towards the Magento 2.4.2 version for better user engagement.

New and improved default search engine

Magento New and improved default search engine

A search engine is a choice that almost every user operates whenever they open an eCommerce store. Therefore, you need to make your user’s search experience the best to provide them with a smooth shopping experience.

MySQL does not power the updated Magento support and maintenance; instead, it requires installing Elasticsearch on your server before using Magento 2.4.2.

Elasticsearch is an agreement, and the eCommerce website development cost will be high to maintain other services on your server, mainly if your current service provider doesn’t support it.

Enhanced media gallery

Magento Enhanced media galler

With the fully redesigned Media Gallery, your store admin can now search, filter, and edit images more smoothly and quicker than in the past version. It has been claimed that it is 30% faster than before.

Images sell, which makes it easy to perform with images, and it will change to a more valuable sales process through your eCommerce online store.

In addition, the new media gallery is combined with Adobe stock which lets you go through stock image previews from the gallery.

It is mainly Adobe up-selling it as a stock images business. But it is good for business and some clients, such features are worth looking for.

Seller-assisted shopping

Magento Seller-assisted shopping

Do you remember the last time when you complained to your customer’s service provider? Were they successful in guiding you through the store?

With the help of the Magento 2.4.2 version, a new feature of seller-assisted shopping has been introduced, and your customer service representative can quickly sign in to the website as the customer from the Magento admin.

Aspects where they will help:

  • They will help customers to find product
  • Will guide them on how to set up a specific feature
  • They can even guide the customer through custom functionalities that are best understood in storefront experience
  • They will impress customers and save their time by creating quick orders and quotes on behalf of them
  • They can also take care of administrative tasks such as adding buyers and setting approval rules

Purchase approval workflow

Magento Purchase approval workflow

The new functionality will bring better spending control to the B2B eCommerce website purchasing companies, allowing them to set up an approval mechanism for individual processes.

To do that, they need to create approval workflows with specific rules based on order value or shopping costs.

If a Magento web development company requires any purchase of some amount, it will be approved by the purchasing manager. It can be set up automatically with a workflow of purchase approval.

Multiple approvers can be there, and each of them will be automatically informed when their approval is needed. As a result, approvers can approve, reject, and comment on a purchase made quickly.

Two-factor authentication for enhanced security

Magento Two-factor authentication for enhanced security

Two-factor authentication can also add to the security of your Magento Admin account. The process is almost the same as most services with two-factor authentication. A system-generated code is sent to the user as the second step for authentication.

Additionally, Magento 2.4.2 now supports the latest PHP programming language and the MySQL database because they have enhanced performance, security, and trustworthiness.

It also shows how the Magento development platform is augmenting its platform towards the latest technological requirements.

Features of Magento 2.4.2

  • Improved two-factor authentication security
  • PHP and MySQL platform support
  • Efficient purchase approval workflows
  • Seller-assisted shopping experience
  • In-store pickup
  • Enhanced platform security, quality, and performance
  • A new media gallery redeveloped
  • Quicker and smoother PWA development
  • Enhanced headless commerce
  • Streamlined asset management

Benefits of 2.4.2 version

  • Enhanced inventory management with in-app pickup and updated product bundling feature
  • Adobe Stock integration allows searching and filtering photos in Adobe Stock gallery
  • PWA 6 and 6.0.1 studio support
  • In-app pickup supported in pickup locations query
  • Users will now have the ability to add all the items to a new cart from a previous one
  • Enhanced web payments as users can pay faster using existing data stored in the browser
  • Enhanced Magento GraphQL APIs empower seller to develop custom experiences for all the digital point of contacts
  • Design personalized customer journeys by using the Venia UI components Adobe Experience Manager powered storefront

To develop a Magento-based latest eCommerce store and get the benefits of the newest version, 2.4.2, you need to hire a Magento certified developer. They will help you with seamless eCommerce website development.

Final Words

If you have an online store and it is still based on the old version of Magento 1, you need to upgrade to the latest version of Magento which is 2.4.2. The reason behind it is that the old version of Magento is not supported officially and is outdated.

The latest version of Magento has advanced features, and its performance, as well as technical requirements, are also high. It will also help you boost the Immunity of Your Magento 2 Store.

The above blogs show the limited features and benefits of Magento 2.4.2 so that you can have an idea of the latest version. In addition, you can hire a Magento certified developer to develop an online store based on Magento.

FAQs

Why should I upgrade to Magento 2.4?

Magento 2.4 is the enhanced version, and new updated features will provide your customers with a faster, more effortless, and smooth shopping experience. As Magento 1 is not officially supported now and an updated version has occurred, you can upgrade to it for being known to the latest version. You can even get tips to Speed up Your Magento Store.

Where should I contact for Magento 2.4 customization service?

Magento consists of a large community of researchers, developers, and testers, and they are available 24/7 whenever you need help or service during Magento 2 development if you are stuck.

What is the cost of developing an eCommerce app in Magento 2.4?

There is no fixed cost of developing an eCommerce application. Instead, it varies depending on various aspects such as your business goals, targeted audience, features, pages, products, technological stack, developers, and much more. All of these are responsible for affecting the cost of developing eCommerce applications.

Rahim Ladhani
Author

Rahim Ladhani

CEO and Managing Director