Magento 2.4 Released: Explore The Features and Benefits

COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated pace of digital adoption. Just in the past few months, we have seen rapid transformation in the digital landscape. This brings a digital commerce business acceleration opportunity for merchants and store owners to exceed expectations of the new digital customers.

Adobe released its latest Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source 2.4 version to help merchants accelerate their Digital Commerce business and capture new opportunities in the current evolving commerce landscape. We’ve extracted some of the key highlights like platform upgrades, security enhancements, infrastructure and performance improvements that both Magento partners and merchants were looking forward to.

The latest Magento 2.4.0 release un-boxes 98 new functionalities, 68 bug fixes, 50 security enhancements, 7 test cycles, 12 packages & extensions as well as PHP 7.4 support.

Noteworthy features of Magento 2.4 release

Enhanced 2FA Security
PHP 7.4 & MySQL 8.0 platform support
Efficient Purchase Approval Workflows
Seller-Assisted Shopping to enhance Customer-Centric Service
In-Store Pickup to provide shoppers with new fulfillment options
Improved Platform Security, Quality & Performance
New Media Gallery Redesign
Faster and easier PWA Development
Improved Headless Commerce
Streamlined Asset Management

Security Enhancements

30+ security fixes to plug threatening vulnerabilities like RCE (Remote Code Execution) and XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) that attackers use as gateways to inject malicious content and obtain crucial store information.
Default 2FA for Magento Admin Panel that cannot be disabled
2FA (Two-factor authentication) for the Magento admin panel that supports authenticators like Google Authenticator, Duo, Authy, and U2F keys.
The template filter mode – default enabled
Data rendering for UI data providers – default disabled – to prevent the spam users to execute arbitrary JavaScript
Improved Content Security Policy
Updated tech stack components for long-term compliance and security
Magento Security-Only Patch to fix the vulnerabilities identified in the previous quarterly release – Magento 2.3.5-p1. It also includes all hot fixes that were applied to the 2.3.5 release

Platform Upgrades

Support for PHP 7.4,PHPUnit 9.x
Support for Elasticsearch 7.x and MySQL 8.0
MySQL catalog search engine replaced by Elasticsearch
Support for MariaDB 10.4
MariaDB 10.0 and 10.1 – now not supported
Zend Framework migrated to Laminas project
PHP 7.4 – 7.1, 7.2, PHP Unit 9.x – 6.5 deprecated
Signifyd fraud protection code removed
Braintree module – removed
Braintree integration migrated to Vendor Bundled Extension for more frequent delivery updates
Support for Venmo, Apple Pay, and Google Pay
Improvements in extensions developed by vendors like DotDigital, Klarna, Amazon Pay, Braintree Payments, Vertex, and Yotpo
Several code issues and fixes for over 200 GitHub issues are now resolved

Infrastructure Improvements

Integration of payment gateways like Authorize.Net, eWay, CyberSource, and Worldpay – removed
Upgraded PayPal JavaScript SDK with PayPal Express Checkout integration
Partial word search with Elasticsearch
Web Setup Wizard – removed
New composer updated plugin for automation of manual upgrade steps

Performance Improvements

Improved customer data section invalidation logic
Improved speed of Quick Order and 30% faster add-to-cart performance
43% faster page loads at higher traffic volumes
50% faster reordering and checkout
Optimized Redis performance for less CPU consumption
Improved SQL queries
Improved lazy loading for images

Efficient B2B enhancements with Order Approval Workflows

Magento 2.4 is a significant turnaround in its B2B capabilities upgradation. New purchase approval workflow functionality included in Magento 2.4 enables Purchase Managers in B2B organizations to configure approval rules for buyers based on order value, number of SKUs, shipping costs, etc. B2B buying companies can customize approval process by using a simple form. Also included:

Create unique approval conditions
Email notifications to approver at various stages of the approval process for taking an action to approve, reject, or comment on a purchase order
Complete log of actions performed on purchase orders
Quick view of purchase orders

Seller-Assisted Shopping to deliver Customer-Centric Service

Taking digital commerce experience to the next level, the new Seller Assisted Shopping feature enables Magento merchants to enhance user engagement and deliver exceptional customer service by allowing store administrators to login as a customer from Magento Admin. It helps customer service representatives to improve buyer’s experience in several ways:

Helping troubleshoot and resolve any part of the buying process like assisting in finding a product, set up wishlist, etc.
Giving consumers an experience of custom functionalities
Save time by creating orders and quotes on customer’s behalf
Handling administrative tasks, such as adding buyers and approval rules set up

Bringing value back to physical locations with In-Store Pickup fulfilment options

Since the first quarter of this year, Adobe has tracked increase in buy online, pick-up in store (BOPIS) orders. With In-Store Pick Up functionality, merchants can easily manage which physical inventory location options are available for customers as pick up locations in Inventory Management. During checkout process, consumers can easily find locations near them and review other important information such as store open hours. Once the customers place orders, the store administrators can easily notify the customers when the orders are ready to pick by just one click. This advanced feature is available in both Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source versions.

Faster Performance and Streamlined Asset Management with the New Media Gallery

The new digital consumer expects quick communication from merchants. Creating a content-driven experience to generate user engagement requires updating the content frequently, which is a time-intensive exercise. The latest version of Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source introduces improved asset management capabilities in Magento Media Gallery with an updated Adobe Stock integration that moves the workflow management into the Media Gallery thus helping in significant time and resources saving for creative designers. A completely rebuilt Media Gallery performs up to 30 times faster and strengthens integration with Adobe Stock, tightens control of access, and provides easier search and management of images.

Creative stakeholders can directly handle the Media Gallery with the help of Access Control List permissions for uploading and handling the assets
Easy management of images for the site with new image details that includes images used throughout the pages, categories, or products
It allows searching and filtering of the images faster with new image attributes, tags, etc.

Headless Commerce and PWA Development made quick and easy

According to Forrester Wave, Adobe is a leader in both B2B and B2C Commerce Suite. PWA Studio lowers the cost and complexity of Progressive Web App (PWA) adoption. With Magento 2.4.0 release, Adobe has also released the latest version of PWA Studio for Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source, which introduces new Venia storefront experiences, built using Page Builder (now supports PHP 7.4) to accelerate checkout workflow and improve customer experiences. Adobe also introduced an extensibility framework to easily customize and extend the capabilities of PWA Studio, both for magento custom development and Magento Marketplace apps.

Allows launching of PWA storefronts faster, easier and in a cost-effective way to accelerate the adoption of PWA Studio
Expand support for headless commerce

2.4x Benefits to Merchants

Improved Inventory Management with In-Store pickup and upgraded Product Bundling feature
Adobe Stock integration enabling searching and filtering photos in Adobe Stock gallery 30X faster
PWA Studio 6.0.0 and 6.0.1 support
In-Store Pickup supported in Pickup Locations query
Users now have the ability to add all the items to a new cart from a previous cart
Improved Web Payments as users can pay faster using existing data stored in the browser
Improved Magento GraphQL APIs empowers merchants to build custom experiences for all digital touchpoints
Create personalized customer journeys by using Venia UI components Adobe Experience Manager-powered storefronts
And many more

Magento 2.4.x Release Roadmap

Release of 2.4.x versions are also being expected soon; 2.4.1 on October 15th 2020, 2.4.2 on February 9th, 2021. These updates will bring Magento 2.4 fixes (if any) and further enhancements as necessary and hence will be crucial.

Magento Commerce Team has organized a special webinar on Thursday, September 17, 2020, to learn more about this release and how they are helping merchants adapt to the current commerce landscape with Magento 2.4.

Till then, stay tuned, stay updated.

Source: Magento 2.4 Release Notes

Are you planning to upgrade your store to Magento 2.4 or need a strategic partner digital commerce to help you build a Magento store from ground up?

Talk to our experts.

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Shivi Rao is a content marketer with Krish. She has worked in various industries spanning technology, science, rural marketing, startups & unicorns, eCommerce business, and digital marketing, believing that content is the foundation to facilitate the visibility of any organization and ensuring her words do the same. In her free time, you can either find her lifting weights in the gym or feeding the strays.

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