MeetMagento UK 2024

Meet Magento UK 2024 conference delivered another fantastic edition this year – bringing together agencies, retailers and technology partners in an exceptional event filled with learning, and networking. Overview of the key moments and insights from the event captured by the team.

Conference Overview

As one of the busiest years yet, the 2024 edition once again reflected Meet Magento UK has become renowned for over its seven-year history. Organised by wearejh and partners, the conference benefited by a broader spectrum of speakers and topics. This reflected positively in a slightly more open and varied community of attendees both newcomers and long-term Magento community members.

Ben Marks, a long-standing contributor to the Magento ecosystem, was among the prominent attendees. Arguably Ben’s contribution to the Magento ecosystem – from the early development fundamentals courses to international community engagement/evangelising during the early, somewhat difficult years of the Adobe acquisition – cannot be overstated.

While they didn’t sponsor or have a stand, there was still presence from Adobe throughout, and in a sense this allowed more emphasis on the key sponsors and partners such as Akoova, ShipperHQ and Hyva. 

As drivers for some of the most important recent developments to Magento it was very encouraging to see such good attendance from Hyva and Mage OS, who share some of the same leadership team.

Key Takeaways

The Customer’s Champion: Managing Expectations Seamlessly

Speakers: Johnnie Norton, Alex Hannaford, Lauren Duncan, Catherine Rees

• B2C-Like B2B Experiences: The convergence of B2C and B2B shopping behaviors emphasizes the need for intuitive, seamless customer journeys.
• Personalization: Agencies must enable clients to leverage tools like search & merch personalization and payment recommendations.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Training workshops to unify efforts across logistics, fulfillment, and operations were encouraged.
• Data Analysis: SaaS-based sentiment analysis emerged as a tool for efficiency and insight.
• Innovation: Modernizing customer strategies by integrating marketplace channels such as eBay remains vital.

SEO for Magento: A Strategic Approach

Speaker: Dan Coleman

• Crawlability and Localization: Simplifying URL structures and implementing localized content with hreflang tags were highlighted as best practices.
• Optimized Listings and Navigation: Detailed descriptors and optimized filter URLs enhance search engine performance and customer engagement.

Women in Tech: Making Strides

Speaker: Ksenia Zvereva

• Building an inclusive work culture and balancing work-life priorities were underscored as essential for encouraging women in tech.

The Role of Data in B2B eCommerce

Speaker: Martins Saukums

• Reliable data collection and analysis drive profitability and enhance the customer experience, aligning website functionality with user needs.

Technical Insights

1. Accessibility as a Daily Practice
   Speaker: Kuba Zwolinski
   
   Accessibility shouldn’t be a once-offone off task, but should be something that’s continuously thought about and improved upon on a daily basis. It makes the lives of those with disabilities less frustrating , as they’ll be able to use your store without unnecessary hurdles, which could otherwise cause them to go elsewhere . As a merchant one positive side effect of this will be increased revenue, so it’s a win-win situation for both customers and merchants alike.  Development agencies and merchants should be ensuring their sites comply with at least the minimum WCAG 2.2 standards, and work towards the coveted AAA rating.  
   
2. Event-Driven Architecture with Magento
   Speaker: Andreas von Studnitz
   
   Adobe Commerce is integrated with Adobe I/O, which is a Commerce module providing asynchronous integrations with a suite of Adobe products, however out of the box Magento Open Source is missing this functionality. Gowri Sankar, a member of Magento Open Source community and contributor to MageOS, developed an open source module which modernises the existing event driven architecture of Magento, by implementing asynchronous events with the help of AMQP.  
   
   The mageos-async-events module is part of a suite of modules, which when installed together provides both developers and administrators with access to a range of tools to easily integrate with third party APIs. The module includes automatic retry on failure, event logging and monitoring sections within the Magento admin, and even the ability to create event subscriptions via the admin without the no need to know how to code.
   

Beyond the Sessions

The conference also included a Women in Tech networking event and memorable pre-and post-event gatherings for networking across the community.

From table tennis to engaging discussions – Meet Magento UK 2024 demonstrated that collaboration and innovation go hand in hand.

Looking Ahead

The conference served as a reminder of the immense potential of the Magento ecosystem when driven by collaboration and innovation. With evolving technology and a dynamic community the future of Magento looks brighter than ever.