If you are running your ecommerce store on Magento Commerce then it is important to drive continuous innovation and iteration. The customer needs and broader marketplace are always changing, making it highly important for your business to improve the experience that you are delivering on the regular basis.
It completely applies to the Magento Commerce Platform as well which is powering your ecommerce store. A few months ago, Magento releases a minor version of Magento 2.4. It came with quality fixes and security fixes of Magento 2.3 while the full product is on the latest line. It is essential to keep the Magento version up to date with the latest release. It will help you in taking advantage of improved performance and new features, improving the security defenses, and delivering richer customer experiences. In a long period of time, if you regularly update your Magento Commerce versions then it can definitely reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by a significant margin.
If you procrastinate the platform upgrades then it may come down with the emergency cost. Also, the actual cost of running an outdated Magento Commerce version for your ecommerce store, not to mention the accumulated technical debt, can have a lasting material impact on the business.
It Needs High Performance For High Stakes
Currently in this holiday season and beyond, the stakes will be high than ever. We have seen huge changes in the customers’ shopping behavior due to COVID-19. In the second quarter of 2020, the sales in the ecommerce industry were up by 44.44% in comparison to 2019. We can expect that this surge is going to sustain even in 2021. This alone factor is compelling enough for you to make sure that your ecommerce site is running on the latest version of Magento Commerce, currently Magento Commerce 2.4.0 for leveraging the latest features and performance improvements.
You can grab more ecommerce dollars than ever before. If you are delivering the most compelling, streamlined digital experience then it will help you in winning a major pie of the cake. You will have a leg up in this race. For instance, Magento 2.4 includes Quick Order add-to-cart improvements which accelerate the add-to-cart processes by 24% to 30%.
In every Magento Commerce release, there are improvements in the performance, which have an outsized and cumulative effect. Do you know that every second of latency can reduce the conversion rate by 7%? Speed or rendering of web pages is also a leading SEO ranking factor. Hence, for your business, you must leverage each release of Magento Commerce.
Upgrade Path Gets Simplified
It ostensibly seems counterintuitive but if you regularly perform the updates then it will be less arduous than performing irregular or intermittent updates. It indicates reduced lower-term costs, which also impacts the total cost of ownership. For e.g., if you move from ad hoc to quarterly upgrades then may help in saving 4 weeks of cumulative efforts (including the associated costs) over the last 1 year.
There are incremental changes when the updates are regular and the efforts for implementing them are minimized. When the updates for a platform are put off over an extended period of time, then this can become a multi-step process. The extensions present on the Magento Marketplace got more broadly affected. You may also observe impacts in the 3rd party integrations as well. It takes more time to investigate, plan, and perform the upgrades with more costs and effort.
Improved Security
We are completely aware of the fact that the customers shop from only a trusted and secure website. Do you know that Magento spends a huge sum and effort to embed abundant and redundant security features into the platform and for providing additional resources such as Magento Security Scan tool? As ecommerce is booming, and more money is coming online, the number of bad actors are also increasing who want to exploit the system exponentially.
Magento is completely aware of this and that’s why there are new security fixes in every Magento new version release. It includes numerous security patches to harden a merchant’s defenses. 2-factor authentication is one of the most popular security enhancements for admin users. It has reduced the chances of compromising admin credentials by any means such as phishing. The attackers wouldn’t be able to log in and take control of the site.
Implementing New Features
A temporary differentiation is a good differentiation. The merchants who do regular updates have an advantage over those merchants who don’t. These merchants will be the first to roll out the new features and improving performance, thus driving more conversions. There are new features and enhancements in each Magento update.
For e.g. in Magento 2.4.0, there is an inventory management option for in-store pickup. This option has become extremely useful for merchants with physical retail locations. The added ability to license Adobe Stock images directly from the Media Gallery improves efficiency for back-office teams. Elasticsearch has become the default search of Magento making the search functionality of the site extremely valuable and increasing the site conversion. With such new functionalities in every release, you can provide a best-in-class experience to the customers.
If you want to tread on the path of continuous improvement then you have to give priority to the platform upgrades. Incorporate regular Magento Commerce platform upgrades in your ecommerce site maintenance. Plan them and budget them as you do for other business strategies. Then measure the overall performance against their historical equivalents. You may be pleasantly surprised how continuous innovation can directly lead to stronger growth, lower operating costs, and better TCO.
Wrapping Up
In this article, we have understood the importance of doing regular Magento updates for your ecommerce store. It will not only improve the security and performance of your ecommerce store but will also increase the conversion rate and improves its SEO visibility. At Emizentech, the best Magento development company in India, we are having expertise in developing Magento stores from scratch, Magento upgrades, customizations, and much more. Please let us know your requirements.
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