Magento is an e-commerce platform that has garnered a reputation for being constantly focused on improving itself. The periodic version upgrades is the biggest proof of the conviction and commitment towards reaching the next level. Followed by the major release of Magento 2.3.0 in 2018, it has come up with Magento 2.3.1 within the first quarter of 2019.
Though the first one itself brought a range of revolutionary tools, features and improvements for e-commerce growth, the latest one has a lot more that make Magento upgradation a smart move for businesses. Bringing more than 200 functional fixes to the core product, over 30 security enhancements, and over 500 pull requests by the community, Magento 2.3.1 sounds impressive even as you have a first look at it. And there is much more that is yet to be unfolded. Let us do it for you.
Better merchant experience
Since the merchant is the one who has to manage the store, he would look for a platform that eases the entire process. The new release makes Magento store development even a more apt decision for online sellers because it enhances the merchant experience manifold. Here are the improvements that it offers:
- Improves the workflow of order creation and also eliminates the delays related to edits of billing and shipping addresses.
- Easing inventory management with features such as Elasticsearch support, in-store pickup fulfillment, optimized inventory transfers in mass, and distance priority source selection algorithm.
- Enabling the upload Of PDP images larger than 1920X1200 without having to compress or downsize them.
Stronger security
Security is something that this platform has always prioritized and the release of Magento 2.3.1 takes credit for presenting more than 30 new security enhancements. So an upgrade to this version can translate into a store that is fortified to keep the crucial information of your customers absolutely safe. Some key enhancements that it offers including the closure of:
- Cross-site scripting
- Sensitive data disclosure
- Arbitrary code execution
Enhanced performance
Magento 2 has always been appreciated for its performance improvements but the new version makes it even better on this front. It will not be a surprise if the demand for Magento ecommerce developers increases in the future, just because more and more merchants will be eager to move to 2.3.1. Here is what you can expect from the performance perspective:
- It will be easier to manage numerous customer addresses as the new customer addresses have now been rewritten with UI components.
- There is a considerable improvement in the performance of admin order creation page as it is now capable of handling accounts with over 3000 addresses.
- The shipping and billing data entered by the customer during checkout is kept secure even of checkout is delayed and the customer decides to continue shopping later.
- Multiple customer addresses are displayed as a grid in the customer address book to enable easy selection during checkout.
Simplified development
While the new release has a lot for merchants and customers, it is also a good opportunity for developers. There are several tools and improvements that it offers to them for simplifying the Magento development process. These include:
- It brings a new composer plugin that upgrades all the dependencies automatically.
- There is an improved PWA Studio experience that enables developers to build, deploy and maintain PWA storefronts.
- GraphQL is empowered with additional features such as cart creation, customer account creation, and shipping address setup.
Stronger infrastructure
In addition to the platform improvements that Magento 2.3.1 brings, you can also expect a stronger infrastructure for your e-commerce store with a move to the new version. Here are some ways in which improves infrastructure:
- The Authorize.Net Direct Post module has been replaced by Authorize.Net extension.
- The PayPal Express Checkout has been updated to checkout.js v4.
- It offers extensive support for Elasticsearch 6.0, Redis 5.0, and PHP 7.2.x.
- MySQL Views can be extracted from regular database without having an impact on backing up and restoring data.
- The checkout information of customers stays intact even after they update their cart.
Enhanced bundled extensions
Bundled extensions make a great option for developers as they simplify the development process. With the new release, they get access to enhanced bundled extensions listed as follows:
- Amazon Pay with added support for multiple currencies for stores in UK and EU makes a great option for merchants in these locations.
- It brings several feature enhancements for Magento Shipping, including access to shipping portal via Magento, ability to cancel shipments, addition of field validation to batch processing workflow, apply cart price rules, etc,
- It rebrands dotmailer to dotdigital Engagement Cloud and adds new features with respect to enabled marketing preferences. Further, it provides a retry function for pending contacts.
- Additional support is available for B2C VAT and configurable logging.
Other improvements
In addition to the aforementioned enhancements, there are some more improvements that you can expect by opting for Magento 2.3.1. Here is a list of them:
- It is now possible for the customers to configure options for configurable products after adding them to the shopping cart. In the earlier versions, this led to a fatal error.
- CAPTCHA is now seen in the Login pop-up window.
- Merchants can now update custom address attributes while editing the billing address for an order in the Admin.
- The version will enable zip code validation for new addresses when the option of ‘ My billing and shipping address are the same’ is unchecked.
Conclusion
As there is so much that Magento 2.3.1 version has to offer, the best approach for a merchant would be to hire Magento developer to migrate to it. Doing so will open new opportunities for your store and take it a step ahead. In any case, you will need to upgrade to Magento 2 because the end of life of 1x versions is fast approaching; so why not jump on to the latest version because this is the chance of implementing a bunch of innovative features for your e-commerce store.
If you do plan to make this move, orangemantra is a name that you can trust. We are a leading e-commerce development partner with expertise in Magento and all its versions and editions. From design, development, migration, marketing, and more, we are capable of handling every aspect of creating and managing a Magento store. Further, we also offer dependable Magento support services to ensure that your store runs seamlessly through its lifespan. Share your requirements with us and we will have a solution to match!