Announced at MagentoLive Europe 2018, Magento Commerce 2.3 will include a host of new tools and will incorporate significant community contributions. Here's a look at what's new.
Page Builder
Magento is upping its content game by incorporating Page Builder, which allows powerful content creation without the need for any technical or coding ability. The focus here is to allow content editors and marketers to get straight to the point by creating their own powerful content as and when, without bottlenecks that often occur waiting for IT or the development team to implement.
Content creators will be able to easily create rich, contextual experiences, with previews and publishing abilities. The intuitive interface includes drag-and-drop editing tools, making it simple and fast. More complex content types and the use of APIs across third-party platforms will also be possible in the new feature.
PWA Studio
The much talked about (and possibly headline act) PWA Studio is making an appearance in Magento 2.3.
PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) offer a near identical experience to a native app but are delivered by a standard web browser (and are actually websites). PWAs have a range of advantages: their caching ability means they're fast; they don't have to be installed like a native app; they are responsive and provide the best user experience possible; they work offline and allow push notifications.
We all know that mobile traffic now outweighs that of desktop; Magento’s PWA Studio will enable merchants to create reliable, fast and engaging PWAs to help that all important metric: mobile conversion rate - which to this day still remains low compared to desktop.
PWA Studio will allow apps to be created rapidly and at a lower cost than it would be to develop a PWA from scratch, using themes and guided development - developers won't require specialised Magento expertise in order to implement.
Magento Payments
Magento Payments facilitates the growing trend of consumer adoption of alternative payment services. Payments instantly accepts a wide variety of payment methods, including local and region-specific, digital wallets, mobile payments, & different international payment options.
Magento Payments integrates Braintree Payments, PayPal Checkout, and Signifyd fraud protection technologies into Magento Commerce to streamline the payments and risk management process directly from the Magento Admin panel. The Cash Flow Manager in Magento Payments also automatically synchronises payments and order details within the Magento Admin. Coming in Q1 2019.
Multi-Source Inventory
Multi-Source Inventory helps merchants manage inventory stored across multiple physical locations, directly via Magento admin. Merchants can: track inventory at each location and view quantity by source, prioritise locations by setting rules to automatically control inventory sources used to fulfil orders, and set up inventory reservations for high performing checkouts.
Performance & Reliability Enhancements
Performance enhancements such as sharding and parallel processing of indexers allows significant time reduction in category product re-indexing time. With the latest release of Magento Commerce, performance and scalability are improved across the board resulting in exceptional shopper experiences.
Security Enhancements
Two-factor Authentication (2FA) and Google ReCaptcha have been included to protect the admin panel against stolen passwords and hacking using bots. Merchants can use multiple authentication methods via 2FA, and ReCaptcha limits bot activity like registering fake accounts or guessing passwords.
Sales & Ad Channels
Coming early 2019, Magento Sales & Ad Channels will include tools to allow merchants to manage Amazon Marketplaces and the Google Network via the Magento Admin, serving as the hub of all marketplace activities, leveraging Google automation and machine learning to improve advertising results and return.
