NEW FEATURES IN THE LATEST MAGENTO RELEASE – ENTERPRISE EDITION 1.14 & MAGENTO COMMUNITY EDITION 1.9

The new version of Magento Enterprise and Magento Community Edition was launched at the 2014 Global Imagine Ecommerce Conference in Las Vegas. The release of the newest versions of Magento Enterprise Edition version 1.14 and Magento Community Edition version 1.9 introduced numerous features with which Magento based websites can be better managed and which help all Magento users to manage their Magento based websites more competently.

1.- RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN TEMPLATE

( Images from New Features in Magento Community Edition (CE) 1.9 and Magento Enterprise Edition (EE) 1.14 by Magento)

The default theme uses Responsive Web Design for a tablet and smart phone-friendly site
Retailers are now able to obtain a tablet- and smartphone-friendly responsive site in approximately half the time as previously required, taking advantage of the rapid growth in mobile commerce. Mobile commerce now accounts for 34% of UK web sales (Internet Retailer) The responsive web design also helps the retailer to maintain the site more easily and to achieve brand consistency along the site.
This approach of a responsive site also offers potential search engine optimization (SEO) benefits because it uses Google’s preferred approach to mobile-optimizing sites.

2.- CROSS-BORDER TRADE (PRICE CONSISTENCY)

Support merchants across The European Union to display a clean and uncluttered price independently of tax structures and rates that vary from country to country.
To enable cross-border trade in the Admin Panel, click System > Configuration > SALES > Tax > Calculation Settings, option Enable Cross Border Trade

3.- CHECKOUT IMPROVEMENT

A.- AJAX CHECKOUT

The customer can change the quantity of items or remove items without refreshing the page

B.- USE OF WIDGET IN MINI SHOPPING CART

C.- NEW CHECKOUT OPTION BILL ME LATER CONSUMER FINANCING

Bill Me Later is a credit line that’s built-in to the Paypal account that can help merchants improve conversion and sales.

Last August 2013 a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of PayPal entitled “The Total Economic Impact of PayPal’s Bill Me Later Financing Banners.” mentioned that offering special financing options on qualified purchases helps retailers sell more inventory and capture up to 18 percent more sales.

D.- STREAMLINED CHECKOUT

Order a review page which displays after the customer logs in to Paypal can be enabled or disabled. If you disable the order review page, the client will pay for the order on the Paypal site ‘Pay Now’ button instead of ‘Continue’ button.
In the advanced settings of Paypal, there is an option which says ‘Skip Order Review Step’

4.- FRESHER SEARCH RESULTS FOR CUSTOMERS AND FASTER INDEXING FOR MERCHANTS

This is an Enterprise only feature, 1.14 now has native support for Solr 3.6.2 which gives you the option of suggesting names of products in the event that the user enters an incomplete or incorrect search term in your Magento store’s Search field. Using Solr, if a user enters an incorrect search term, suggestions display as the following figure shows.
Better admin performance, Magento Enterprise Edition (v 1.14) builds on Indexing Improvements. Merchants can save time and experience faster admin performance because Solr indexing is now performed automatically in the background as the product catalog changes – this can also improve customer experience and conversion rates since shoppers see the most up to date search results.

5.- TECHNOLOGY UPDATES ( PHP 5.4)

PHP 5.4 compatibility ensure s better performance & more efficient memory usage.

6.- IMPROVED QUALITY AND NEW MORE FEATURES

Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14 and Magento Community Edition 1.9 feature more than 50 enhancements that improve quality and security throughout the product.

CONCLUSIONS

This new release is a real step forward both in terms of functionality and performance. The new responsive template finally brings Magento in line with current industry best practice (without having to adopt some pretty crummy responsive templates (yes Ultimo we do mean you) or go through the expense of developing one from scratch. With the new PHP version and better indexing performance has taken a leap forward.