Last week, Magento Imagine 2014 took over the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for three days of announcements, keynote speakers, networking, and innovation. They may say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” but as technology becomes less and less for work and more and more a part of our lives, we know nothing really stays in Vegas. These takeaways are too good to leave behind!
1. Imagine 2014 drew in over 2,000 attendees
2. Ecommerce is growing at 16% compared to 5% in traditional retail
3. A flexible front-end and an industrial backend are imperative to delivering in online retail.
4. 60% growth in Magento platform since Imagine 2013 with over 240,000 businesses on the platform.
5. Magento holds a 30% market share of top 100,000 Alexa sites.
6. It’s also #1 in the mid-market space.
7. Ben Marks is announced as the New Developer Evangelist.
8. The single most important decision Magento made as a company was a commitment to open source – Roy Rubin, Magento co-founder and COO
9. With the eBay merger, there are more opportunities than ever before to grow on Magento and across the PayPal, Braintree, and eBay Marketplaces.
10. There are over 2,900 Certified Developers in the program and more on the way thanks to on-site Magento Developer Certification at the conference.
11. Magento U sessions and courses were offered too.
12. Over 100 exhibitors spanned the Muse hall.
13. There were two BarCamps – one for developers and one for designers, the very first.
14. The Magento Solutions Specialist Certification was announced. It’s the first business-related certification for analysts, project managers, etc.
15. Magento Community Edition v.1.9 and Enterprise Edition v.1.1.14 are released.
16. Some of their biggest enhancements include the responsive design reference theme, which can allow responsive sites to be designed in half the time, Bill Me Later integration, PayPal Express Checkout improvements, and faster search indexing among others.
17. Magento can now connect to eBay’s omni-channel, cloud-based services.
18. Magento 2.0 should enter Developer Beta in December with a General Release March 2015.
19. Magento 2 will be released as both open source and as Enterprise, marking one of the largest contributions eBay Inc. has made to the open source, open commerce movement Magento began.
20. There are 3 ingredients to transformation: understanding the problem & challenging the status quo, a disregard for how others will react, and urgency.
21. There are 4 waves of commerce in history: producer power (early to mid-20th century), marketing power (started in the 1950s), consumer power, technology power.
22. Consumers use mobile 80% of the time when shopping for products.
23. They’ve shifted from needing stuff to demanding experiences.
24. Conformity has shifted to customization & personalization.
25. Think fast, innovate, fight to win, and be fearless – this is what it takes to compete in the highly-competitive, constantly changing world of commerce.
26. PayPal redesigned their Developer site and sandbox to make it easier for developers to find what they need faster.
27. The new PayPal mobile SDK is available for developers on iOS and Android in more than 30 markets.
28. PayPal’s “Beacon” can send two-way communications back & forth from a consumer’s mobile device, allowing for easier credit card payments in-stores, without having to connect to WiFi.
29. “Fight harder than others, be as resilient and agile as possible, iterate faster than your competitors, and find your vector of growth.” – David Marcus, PayPal President
30. Fear should not be an inhibitor. It’s only when we completely disrupt ourselves that we can truly deliver extraordinary results. – Carey Lohrenz, the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot, U.S. Navy
31. Consumers are more and more involved in brand messaging.
32. In the coming years, virtual reality will be the most important technology to watch. – Michael Dart, Co-Author of ”The New Rules of Retail”
33. Cross-channel tech is where it’s at. All your customer touch points should be quick, stable, and optimized.
34. Imagine 2015 will be April 20-22 at the Wynn, Las Vegas.
Transformation isn’t easy and it will never be a one-time thing; but with determination, timing, and fearlessness on our side, it can be rewarding – possibly the most rewarding thing you will do. Analyze the data, find your niche, and own it, fiercely and fearlessly. Don’t be afraid to imagine. We’ll see you next year.