Holiday Preparation Tips for Magento 2 Stores

Prep your Magento 2 Store for Holiday Season 2022

The Holiday season is one of the busiest shopping seasons throughout the year. In 2021, the months of October and November witnessed a jump of 11% YoY and accounted for $211.41 billion in online retail. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday and Halloween to New Year, these two months are a gold mine for online retailers if all falls in place as per plans.

But what is the plan?

The plan is to optimize and strategize, even if it’s last-minute, to cater to the traffic surge and cut-throat competitive environment of the Holiday season. In this article, we will look at the technical aspect of prepping your Magento store for the upcoming Holidays, to be visible, to acquire and convert customers, and to render a better customer experience while handling unwelcomed issues in the midst of it.

So, without further ado, let us list down the tips to prep your Magento 2 store technically for a fruitful Holiday season in 2022.

Tips to Prepare your Magento 2 Store for Holiday Season

You can take specific measures to put your best foot forward during the Holiday season. These are majorly classified as

Performance Optimization,
Support and Maintenance.

Let us elaborate a bit on each of these.

Magento Performance Optimization

The performance of an online shopping website plays a crucial rate in conversion and customer experience. No customer wants to go through the hassles of bad-performing online sites, and it is a big no, especially during the pressure of shopping for the perfect gift in time. So, we bring you key points to keep in mind while optimizing your Magento 2 store just in time for the Holiday rush.

Full Page Caching

Caching is crucial to a faster loading time as it gives less load on the server. A full page caching facilitated Magento 2 optimization making the eCommerce website as light to load as possible.

System > Cache Management > Select all > Enable > Submit

The Appropriate Magento Host

Hosting is the foundation of your Magento 2 store. You do not want a sluggish host. Instead, strive for a fast and reliable host with the highest security standards, high-speed connection, and 24*7 customer support. You can also outsource help for managed hosting for your Magento 2 store.

The Production Mode

The Magento 2 production mode is one of the three running modes, the others being default and developer. Ensure to turn on the production mode as it is deemed to be the fastest.

PHP bin/Magento deploy:mode:set

Production

is the code to enable the Production mode on your Magento 2 online store.

Merge and Minify the CSS and JS Files

You can merge and minify the JavaScript and CSS bundles to make your web pages as light as possible and easier to load. This paves a long way to optimize your Magento 2 store. You may consider the following steps. a.

Merge and Minify CSS

Open Backend
Stores > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > CSS Settings
Set “Yes” for Merge CSS Files and Minify CSS Files

Merge and Minify JS

Open Backend
Stores > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > JavaScript Settings
Set “Yes” for Merge JavaScript Files and Minify JavaScript Files

Image Optimization

Images ideally account for more than half of the webpage’s total weight. Hence, have a significant impact on the speed, the Core Web Vitals, and rankings. To speed up your Magento store, compress your images using optimizing tools or Magento 2 speed extensions, Compressor extensions, and TinyPNG extensions.

TTFB Optimization

Time to First Byte or TTFB measures the actual time taken by the user’s browser’s request to travel to the server and receive the server’s response, also known as Latency or even the Server Response Time. It can also be the time the server takes to generate the HTML. Your TTFB should not exceed 200ms, or else Google will term it as lousy. Ensure to conduct an extensive Server response Time Audit to use the insights to speed up your Magento 2 store.

Code Optimization

Optimize your code to lose the extra pounds. Let us take it up in segments. –

PHP Accelerators for Magento 2 Performance Optimization

For heavy PHP coding, use PHP accelerators. They cache the PHP scripts in the webpage and improve the speed.

Reduce Third-Party JavaScripts

Audit all the third-party JavaScript files cautiously. Also, keep a check on using random third-party JS codes with your Magento 2 store. Finally, remember to run a speed test before implementation.

Limit/Disable PHP Modules

Multiple PHP modules usually negatively impact your website speed. Uninstall unwanted PHP modules from the coding section to enhance the speed.

Do not Abuse jquery.ready

CPU-intensive tasks are often put in jquery(document).ready during development. Unfortunately, this eventually slows down the loading speed. Therefore, to avoid lag, choose onLoad events very carefully.

Use CDN

A CDN or content delivery network stores the content on the server side worldwide instead of in a single location. So, when a browser requests a page, the server closest geographically at the time responds to the content request. As they say, less distance equals less time.

Though optimizing a Magento 2 store performance is more than a better page load speed, the faster the loading, the lesser the bounce rate! Therefore, a fast-loading website should be a priority to crack the code to a good Google Core Web Vital score while making your online shopping website holiday-ready.

Magento 2 Holiday Support and Maintenance

Then again, there are certain technical measures in the support domain you can consider to get rid of the bottleneck and help you up your eCommerce game during the Holiday season. Let us take a look at some of the critical ones.

Mobile Optimization

With the number of mobile users on the rise, most eCommerce businesses have taken to mobile apps, PWAs, or mobile responsive eCommerce websites. We do recommend you follow their suit. But make sure that your mobile app and mobile websites are optimized for better performance and render a consistent and superior customer experience. Also, ensure your PWA SEO and other ducks are all in a row for the Holiday season.

Code Freeze to Minimize Bugs and Downtime

One way to minimize crashes and bugs during the super busy Holiday season is to Code Freeze your Magento 2 store. It is an agreement between the store owners and the developers to stop pushing any new codes or roll updates during rush hour. Massive traffic coupled with a bug due to a new code and an evident downtime is a disaster recipe for holiday revenue. A code freeze can prevent all of that.

Recovering from Outages

Downtimes can be harsh on businesses during the busiest time of the year. The holiday season helps you acquire new customers, but downtime can make them abandon your website. According to CNBC, each hour of downtime costs the eCommerce business 8% of its sales. Use website management and traffic monitoring tools to support your Magento 2 website. Prep your team with experts and professionals in outage recovery to handle any eventuality.

Secure your Magento 2 Store

Magento 2.4.1 and Magento 2.3.6 include recent security updates and bug fixes, including CAPTCHA to order placement with WEB APIs endpoints associated with payment details. All of these updates cater to minimizing carding fraud attacks on eCommerce websites and customers. Adobe is constantly striving to make the eCommerce platform as secure as possible by releasing fixes to all potential vulnerabilities. Additionally, experts recommend for eCommerce stores on Magento 1 migrate to Magento 2 due to the End-of-Life since 2020. Therefore, all Magento store owners must update their security patches for a secure Holiday transactional environment. Several resources and guides will help you in your Magento 2 migration journey.

Get the Best Magento 2 Holiday Support

Sometimes it is best to seek expert help to make the most of a situation. And Holiday Support and Maintenance for your Magento 2 store is one such instance. Here is where Krish, we come into the picture. You can avail of our Adobe (Magento) managed support services to make the most of the Holiday season and beyond. We will continually strive to provide your Magento 2 store with the necessary fuel round the clock for it to run at its best, even during the busy months of the year.

You can focus on creating an excellent customer experience, and we will bring your vision to reality. Engaging shopping experiences every single time. Our team of Magento-certified developers, seasoned eCommerce enablers, and trained support staff will go the extra mile to position your brand at par with the Holiday shopping expectations. We are all in to help you be heard above the noise with services including development and customization, bug fixing, outage recovery, handling holiday traffic, comparing potential vulnerabilities, and rendering timely security patches with a team’s help of quick TAT that stands 24/7/365.

Also, get your hands on our BFCM 2022 eCommerce performance blueprint for a quick check on the must-have support and maintenance aspect ahead of the holiday season.

Krish - Your Partner in Adobe Commerce Success

With over 19 years of experience serving established brands and SMBs worldwide, Krish is a full-fledged commerce agency of certified Adobe (Magento) Commerce experts who have helped clients enrich and expand their commerce capabilities in this ever-evolving digital world. Being a Gold-Solution Partner to Adobe (Magento), we take pride in fulfilling our promises.

ecommerce holiday planning

Shivi Rao is a content marketer with Krish. She has worked in various industries spanning technology, science, rural marketing, startups & unicorns, eCommerce business, and digital marketing, believing that content is the foundation to facilitate the visibility of any organization and ensuring her words do the same. In her free time, you can either find her lifting weights in the gym or feeding the strays.

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