Magento 2.2.2 – Your Favourite Xmas Gift

Winter holidays are right around the corner. And the Magento company has just announced a new version of both Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce. The update will undoubtedly become your favorite Xmas gift. In the following post, we shed light on key features that are available in Magento 2.2.2.  

Both Magento Open Source 2.2.2 and Magento Commerce 2.2.2 introduce four core features that revamp the default e-commerce functionality of previous versions entirely:

• Instant Purchase. A very convenient feature that affects your returning customers. Now, they can save their data to pass the instant checkout procedure – just like in case of Amazon.
• Email Marketing Automation. Your email marketing campaigns will become more precise, personalized, and automated. Fully leverage Magento store data and avoid multiple time-consuming processes.
• Advanced Reporting. Do you remember our comparison of the best reporting solutions for Magento 2? Perhaps, the default platform will get closer to the top-notch third-party solutions with this update. We know for sure that the best Magento 2 advanced reports extension bill be improved to keep the gap between them and the out-of-box functionality.
• Magento Shipping. New multi-carrier shipping and fulfillment capabilities are included into Magento 2.2.2 by default.

The features look intriguing, so let’s take a closer look at their details.

Magento 2.2.2 Instant Purchase

Amazon was a monopolist of instant purchases for ten years, but the patent is finally over, and the exclusive ownership is no longer valid so that everyone can benefit the technology.

Now, Magento also offers a better way to buy. Being the first commerce leader to provide the ‘Amazon-like’ experience, it is ready to hit high cart abandonment rates in the new year. But what is the nature of the new feature?

As we’ve just mentioned, the Instant Purchase feature is aimed at returning customers. Now, Magento provides the ability to store their credentials and shipping data. This information is leveraged for a zero-step checkout.

Just select the “Instant Purchase” button on a product page, and you will be redirected to a confirmation page to place the order. The necessity to enter your address, payment and shipping information is eliminated (if it is your second purchase of course).

Below, you can see the “Instant Purchase” button on a product page. At the same time, you can still add the product to cart. We sincerely hope that the “Instant Purchase” button is also available in a shopping cart; otherwise, you cannot pass the zero-step checkout for multiple items simultaneously. But you can get the desired experience with our Stripe Express Checkout for Magento 2.

According to the official documentation, the new feature allows reducing the amount of time necessary to place an order by 90 percent. And while we agree that it is particularly well-suited for mobile shopping, but in case of replenishment purchases (which are mentioned in the official announcement), there are way better solutions. You can check them here: Subscriptions and Recurring Payments Magento 2 Extensions. It is also necessary to pay a separate attention to the professionalism of the Magento team. We’ve just mentioned that the inability to use a zero-step checkout for multiple items is a serious drawback, but it can be fully leveraged in the following way. According to the official release announcement, some merchants have found that it helps to increase impulse sales: shoppers just click and buy as they go through your e-commerce website and are never shocked by the total cost of all items in the cart. It happens to be.

The Magento 2 Instant Purchase feature leverages Braintree Vault, so it is available with

• Braintree PayPal,
• Braintree Credit Card,
• PayPal Payflow Pro.

From the merchant perspective, it is possible to customize the new button as well as change the default business logic behind the process.

Magento 2.2.2 Email Marketing Automation

The integration with dotmailer email marketing automation is the second substantial improvement introduced in Magento 2.2.2. The new feature allows merchants to set up and start campaigns with the minimum effort. If you are not familiar with dotmailer, it is a Premier Magento Partner that is responsible for servicing over 4k B2B and B2C brands across the globe. Thus, Magento provides the ability to deliver smarter and faster email campaigns out-of-box. You can quickly maximize ROI through advanced segmentation and personalization capabilities without any third-party modules. Fully leverage all Magento attributes and integrations to create highly targeted email marketing campaigns. As for supported channels, they are:

• Email;
• SMS;
• Push Notifications.

Besides, you can efficiently manage transactional emails for Magento stores. And due to a drag-and-drop editor and an incredibly flexible toolset, you can quickly implement the most complex marketing techniques with the minimum time and effort. Live support is available as well.

But we’ve noticed that there is the following phrase in the announcement: “Magento merchants can test out dotmailer with a free 14-day trial.” It seems that the feature is not provided for free, so you may still need some alternative solutions. We’ve gathered the best Magento 2 email marketing extensions here: Magento 2 Newsletter Extensions And Email Marketing Services.

Magento 2.2.2 Advanced Reporting

The advanced reporting solution introduces 20 reports, an easy-to-use interface, and advanced visualization. Everything is available in the Magento admin via three pre-configured dashboards:

• Orders:
  • number of orders,
  • revenue,
  • AOV,
  • taxes and shipping fees;
• Customers:
  • registered accounts,
  • unique customers,
  • key metrics by customer;
• Products:
  • quantity ordered and best-selling products by revenue;
  • quantity ordered and best-selling products by volume.

The section provides updates on a daily basis. As for time intervals, you can get insights for various periods from one day to two years.

It’s an excellent and long-awaited improvement, but several third-party modules provide even more advanced functionality. You can find the best Magento 2 reporting solutions here: Magento 2 Reports Extensions Comparison.

Magento Shipping

Multi-carrier shipping and fulfillment capabilities are the crucial fourth improvement introduced in Magento 2.2.2. The new shipping system allows managing multiple shipping tasks right from the Magento admin without any help of third-party extensions. The update covers numerous areas from shipping options and fulfillment rules to shipping prices divided by carriers. The shipping update offers the following features:

• Account registration with the world’s leading carriers in the admin;
• Convenient, competitively priced shipping options on the frontend.
• Fulfillment from multiple locations;
• Customer-focused omnichannel experience;
• Advanced packing rules and shipment rating;
• Powered by Temando.

The update is excellent, but we still think that you can find more advanced options introduced by third-party Magento 2 extensions. Therefore, check the following digests: Magento 2 Extension for Custom Shipping Methods And Rules and Magento 2 Drop Shipping Extensions. You can discover more information about Magento 2.2.2 shipping here: Magento Shipping.

Magento 2.2.2 Conclusion

These were core features introduced in the new Magento 2 major update. We think that it is a good Xmas present and for some merchants, it will probably be the favorite one, but the Magento ecosystem still offers a lot of reliable options that not only provide similar functionality but add even more robust solutions. For more features and fixes, check our Magento 2 Release Notes.