Did you make it to Magento’s Imagine show in Las Vegas this April? What you really need now is a way of converting the barrage of information, brochures, and of course LinkedIn requests into a plan to improve your eCommerce fortunes.  If you’re a merchant who attended Imagine and now wonder what you should be doing next, here’s our take:

Magento introduces new or improved products at Imagine, and all of them run on Magento 2

2016 was a record year for Magento in their quest to modernize eCommerce. Magento Enterprise Edition 2 came of age after a late 2015 stable launch. But it didn’t stop there.

Magento also acquired RJ Metrics, the leading data analytics software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to small-to-mid-market businesses. This product is now branded as Magento Business Intelligence.

Magento Commerce Order Management, another late 2015 announcement, came on strong in 2016. It promises to help solve a vexing issue that cuts across most industries: how do you deliver your brand experience to all your customers, regardless of what channels they prefer to use?

Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition was also announced at last year’s Imagine show. It’s already powering many of the latest Magento builds, and will continue to be a popular option.

In 2017, there are even more new products and services coming down the pipeline.  These new products from the past 18 months or so are maturing and will dominate the conversation in 2017.

For example, Magento Social and Magento Shipping were announced at Imagine. Magento Social allows you to connect your store to popular social media outlets to bring customers directly to your store from your social posts. Magento Shipping addresses your biggest headache as a merchant – shipping the goods and keeping carrier information, tracking, and rates organized.

Magento B2B will be released later this year and will allow you to support your sales and distribution channels with negotiated pricing, more sophisticated account management tools, and enhanced inventory and order management.

If you’re running Magento Enterprise Edition 1.x, the time is now to be planning your upgrade journey.

Imagine builds the Magento Community of Technology Partners and Systems

Magento is built on community, and that community is working together better than ever. Magento has made a number of new hires to support the business development and marketing functions. Systems integrators like Jamersan have more resources to help take the worry out of your Magento new build or upgrade. At Imagine, we met with several of our Magento contacts. We also met with technology partners like Dotmailer, to cement these relationships. This means that we can help you cut through the clutter and make the best decisions on extensions, middle-ware, and hosting options to make your site a success.

Digital commerce is more critical to your business than ever

According to Forrester research, almost 50% of commerce depends on digital. Whether you think of yourself as a “high tech company” or not, figuring out your digital presence is more crucial than ever. Buyers are increasingly “loyal” only to the company that can provide them the best online shopping experience.  Fortunately, Jamersan is here to help. We’ve got the training and experience to enhance your online offering, whether you need a simple upgrade or a complete re-imagining (no pun intended). Contact us and let’s talk.

Thanks to Sean Barnes and Magento for allowing use of photos from Imagine.