When we talk about 2020, we usually think about the challenges it brought to us: pandemic, lockdowns, economic crisis, and other unpleasant events. But no matter what, this year is finally over. So today, we will look back and see what we have done and try to predict what 2021 will bring us.
Amasty results of 2020
Even though the pandemic forced our team to work remotely for health and safety reasons, it also made us looking for better solutions. Thanks to the well-coordinated teamwork, we released 14 extensions, 12 add-ons, the first in line theme for Magento, and made hundreds of updates for our modules. Let's remember how it was.
Jet Theme
The big project of last year was our theme. It was our first experience in design theme development, and we are proud to see that it got high interest among our clients and partners.
Our Jet Theme helps stores stand out from competitors with little to no development costs and forget about incompatibility issues. Moreover, now it comes with 4 our extensions included out of the box:
Watch this to learn everything about theme features:
Main releases
This year, we developed new features for B2B and B2C businesses. We focused on the automatization of time-consuming processes like data importing and exporting, promotions management, orders and reviews cancellation, and others. Here are the most noticeable new products for Magento in our store.
Product Option Templates
This module was developed to automate the process of adding product options by creating templates and dependencies. Now you can use mass-actions to assign option templates to multiple products. Also, this extension will help shops to increase the average order value by selling related items.
CCPA
CCPA — California Consumer Privacy Act — is the law that regulates collecting of customers’ personal data. This extension helps stores that serve users from California comply with the law and not get fined.
B2B E-commerce Suite
This complex kit helps stores work with other businesses: wholesalers, suppliers, and dealers.
It comes in 3 versions and includes form 5 to 12 modules and extended warranties. With this suite, you will get:
- 1 extra month of our money-back guarantee
- 3 months of priority support
- and free installation service.
Quick Order
This extension helps stores work with companies that place big recurring orders. The purchasing process becomes faster and easier for them: an employee pastes SKU with quantities into a special tab and adds all the products to the cart in a click.
B2B Company Account
With this extension, B2B clients can register a company account at your site. It is one account for the whole company with different access levels for employees.
It's convenient for companies: they don't have to worry that an inexperienced employee will accidentally order odd goods or that access to their account will be lost together with a quitting employee.
Cancel Orders
With this extension, customers cancel orders independently, and the administrator will not have to interfere. This way, the admin will save time, and customers won't have to wait and worry.
This extension also can cancel orders automatically. This way the admins won't get distracted by orders that don't require actions.
Multiple Wishlists
This solution converts prospects that come to do some window-shopping into buyers. Users look through the catalog and save the products they like in wishlists. The goods will be stored there until the purchase.
When the time comes, users will remember they've saved goods in the wishlist at your site and come back. It is convenient for users: they won't have to look through the catalog again and recall the products they liked. Users will move products from their wishlist to the cart and check out.
Automatic Promotions
This kit was built to help stores automate work with promotions and save time. It
- automatically offers gifts to users for ordering more
- helps to work on a wide set of promo conditions making your deals targeted
- automatically labels promoted products
- lets you schedule promo banners' displaying
- helps to increase the average order value with free shipping.
This product is available in three plans and fits for stores that have many products to promote and spend lots of time and effort on setting them up.
Google Customer Reviews
This module helps to collect reviews automatically and show the store rating to users. This way, you will gain users' trust and increase the conversion rate from Search and Shopping Ads.
As soon as a customer places an order, this extension will ask them to send an email with a feedback form. If the customer agrees, then Google sends them an email a few days after their order was delivered. All you need is to decide on how many days should pass before sending this form.
Import and Export
Also, this year we worked on our all-in-one Import and Export solution. That will help you migrate data about your orders, products, customers, and reviews from a current Magento instance to other instances, CRM/ERP systems, analytics tools, and platforms within minutes. We’ve released 3 export solutions that will be included in the final product:
Other export and import plugins are coming soon.
Banner Slider
This extension helps you launch multiple promotions simultaneously without turning your website into Yellow Pages. You can place all the banners in one single slider, save space, and keep your visitors informed.
Custom Button
The final release of the year was the Custom Button module. This small but functional extension allows you to place custom buttons with custom design and URL to any place on your website.
Add-ons
In 2020, we continued developing add-ons for our extensions. Here are the most interesting ones.
Custom Product Sorting for Shop by Brand
This add-on helps to promote particular products by changing their positions in the listing. It can sort products automatically by novelty, stock availability, price, and name of products. It will save time on manual reordering of goods: you set the rule once and never get back to it again.
Reports for Free Gift
This add-on shows statistics on free gifts performance and helps store owners make decisions to earn more. The store owner doesn't need to collect statistics manually. They open the report once a month, check how the indicators changed, and make decisions based on this.
Apple ID for Social Login
Now users with Apple devices will be able to register at your online store or login into their account via Apple ID. There's no need to remember and restore the password. Users pass the registration part of the checkout in one click and proceed to payment.
Amazon Payment for Subscriptions & Recurring Payments
This add-on gives an extra payment option - Amazon Pay. Also, you can configure payment limits and inform users if they reached the maximum monthly limit.
PWA add-ons
These add-ons turn a store into a PWA — progressive web application. With their help, the store will look like a native mobile app. It will be displayed correctly in the most popular browsers: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge. This way, nothing will distract users from exploring the store and purchasing.
During 2020 we released PWA add-ons for all these extensions:
- PWA for Product Labels (Add-On)
- PWA for Automatic Related Products (Add-On)
- PWA for Blog Pro (Add-On)
- PWA for Custom Form (Add-On)
- PWA for Advanced Product Reviews (Add-On)
- PWA for Elastic Search (Add-On)
- PWA for Shop by Brand (Add-On)
Other changes
Besides the new Magento products we showed above, we also worked on shopping experience improvements.
For example, now you can pre-order our upcoming extensions with a discount. When our development team is at the last stage of development and testing, we change the status of the coming soon product to pre-order.
We care about businesses of different sizes, therefore launched our 3-plan concept. A line of our products is available in 3 different plans: lite, pro, and premium. They come with different prices and features to meet the needs of any e-commerce business.
Why 3-plan concept? → (By the way, Medium account is also new :) )
We launched the support subscription. Now, you can get an annual or monthly subscription plan, and don’t worry about free support period expiration.
See the support subscription plans →
Also, we compiled monthly deals to make it easier for you to save. And we plan to continue this practice in 2021, so don’t forget to visit the page for new offers every month.
At year end, we started our partnership with MageWorx, an experienced Magento extensions developer and services provider. It means that pretty soon, you will be able to purchase some extensions by MageWorx at our store. And as of today, you can subscribe to the first coming-soon solutions:
Learn more about our partnership→
Despite the endless challenges of 2020, we’re optimistic for 2021. They say e-commerce continues to grow. Let’s see if that’s true.
Predictions for 2021
#1. E-commerce continues to grow
COVID-19 had a huge impact on e-commerce. Due to the “stay at home” regime and lockdowns, people were forced to switch offline stores to online ones. And a lot of businesses developed their websites and moved to online retail. Statistics show that traffic growth caused by pandemic was measured in billions at the beginning of 2020.
And experts suggest that this trend will continue in 2021. E-commerce sales will grow up to 40% in the next 4 years, according to Statista.
#2. Purchases from smartphones will dominate the market
According to Adobe research, smartphones will contribute more than 50 percent of e-commerce revenue by 2022.
As a result, the role of PWA and mobile apps will only increase.
#3. The role of smart home devices and AI will increase
Juniper’s research shows that the revenue contributed by smart home devices may reach $164 billion by the end of 2025. That’s over 630% growth compared to 2020. Also, smart home devices change customer behavior and SEO. The latest Google updates showcase an increase in the number of long-tail keywords, which is the result of widespread voice searches.
Besides smart homes, we also need to pay attention to AI and chatbots specifically.
According to LivePerson research, 76% of customers trust chatbots to help choose products, and 60% are more likely to buy more if they get help from a chatbot.
- How to optimize your Magento 2 for voice search?→
- How are e-commerce giants using AI to automate their commercial tools?→
- How AI transforms the logistics industry and e-commerce→
#4. Focus on delivery experience
There was a trend towards an increase in the importance of speed and quality of delivery service before, but 2020 and the total lockdown only strengthened it. Today you can lose up to 84% of buyers after a poor delivery experience.
- How to introduce no-contact delivery and safe online payment to Magento 2 store →
- Ultimate guide to Magento 2 shipping →
#5. Globalization
Despite closed borders, international sales continue to grow. Facts & Factors predicts that the cross-border e-commerce market may reach almost $5 billion by 2026.
#6. Growth of the number of small and local retailers
Before the holiday season, Adobe made research that showed the desire of users to support local businesses. 38% of buyers said that they deliberately plan to support small and local retailers this holiday season.
#7. B2B market will be merging with B2C
Experts predict that a new generation of leaders will bring B2C and B2B markets closer. Millennials become the biggest part of the global workforce, and they are looking for the same experience as they get in B2C shopping. To make it fit, you will need to provide them with all the possible information online and offer self-serve tools. New managers are looking for convenient and smooth shopping experiences online and as little contact with selling people as possible.
And what do you think we need to expect in 2021?