Merchants leveraging Adobe Commerce Cloud need to be preparing for the Magento 2.4.4 release (Adobe Commerce Cloud 2.4.4). Available starting in March, this upgrade includes a robust feature set, addresses security vulnerabilities, significantly improves site performance, and offers easier overall maintenance. With End-of-Life (EOL) dates approaching for both the 2.3 line and versions 2.4.0 to 2.4.3 in 2022, it is important to upgrade to version 2.4.4 or higher by November 2022.
Improve Your Site Search
Did you know that site search bars are one of the most used features by shoppers? A poor-performing site search is also one of the biggest reasons shoppers leave a site. With the upgrade to Adobe Commerce Cloud 2.4.4, merchants will now be able to integrate with Adobe Live Search using Adobe Sensei.
Live Search from Adobe Commerce delivers better site search experiences and allows merchants more control to optimize that experience. Powered by Adobe Sensei, Live Search uses artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms to perform a deep analysis of aggregated visitor data. This means merchants can create richer search experiences, more relevant to the individual shopper, all with simplified back-end management. This feature is available on Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 at no additional charge.
Improve Customer Check-out
Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 also brings features that serve to support an improved customer checkout experience.
- Asynchronous order processing: Enable the ability to add this configuration to checkout. Excellent news for merchants with large-scale needs, seasonal rushes, or limited edition/high demand releases, this feature reduces the load on your servers when many customers are checking out and improves performance.
- Buy Online Pickup In-Store (BOPIS): With integrated multi-source inventory and shipping management capabilities, you can assign and track products across multiple locations, set rules around order fulfillment, prevent stockouts, and speed up delivery times.
- B2B Order Approval Workflows: Improve your business customers' checkout experience with easy self-service tools and the ability to define individual purchase order approval workflows.
- Seller-Assisted Shopping: This takes customer service to the next level, enabling your team to log in as the customer to help with saving time in placing orders or troubleshooting issues with their check-out experience.
Improve Time-to-Market and Site Management
Adobe Commerce Cloud 2.4.4 makes it easier to launch, update, and manage your site.
Several features to take note of:
- Page Builder makes it possible for business users to create and implement content updates without the need to involve IT.
- Leveraging Adobe PWA Studio merchants can deliver app-like capabilities quicker than before with a lower total cost of ownership.
- With improved site management capabilities, you can easily control multiple websites and stores from one admin dashboard.
- The new Site-Wide Analysis Tool allows you to gain access to real-time site health insights and recommendations.
Upgrading Costs Less Than Not
At the end of the day, month, even quarter running outdated eCommerce software is more costly then upgrading and can have a lasting impact on the business. Regular platform upgrades ultimately require less overall effort than infrequent upgrades which quickly become a more involved, costly process. Upgrades bring the opportunity to offer innovative, time-saving features to your customers along with security and performance improvements while ensuring PCI compliance.
If you need guidance preparing your site upgrade to Adobe Commerce 2.4.4, contact the experts at Echidna to start a conversation. As an Adobe Commerce Cloud partner with over a decade of experience working on the Magento platform, our team can help ensure you have a stable foundation on which to build to begin preparing for the upgrade and take you through the process with best practices.
