Magento Extension Roundup - July 2017

One feature that a lot of custom checkout extensions for Magento 1 and 2 bring is the ability to let customers add comments to their order with a free-form text field. This can be used to provide important details to the merchant, such as delivery instructions. This extension adds a comments field to the default Magento 2 checkout without the need for a full checkout overhaul.

The textbox for the customer's comments is added to the X step in the checkout process. Once the order is successfully placed, the comment is added to the order and the merchant can view it in the admin panel while viewing the order, like any other comment.

Magento has built-in support for adding canonical URLs to product and category pages. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the same support for CMS pages, despite these being an important part of the overall content management process for a merchant. This extension is a really simple module that fills in this missing support, automatically adding canonical URLs for all CMS pages (including the home page).

The extension comes with a system configuration setting that lets you control whether or not the canonical URLs should have any trailing slashes forcibly removed. Turning on this setting can help ensure your canonical URLs are consistent across the entire site, which is important according to Google.

This extension allows merchants to create a URL that when accessed by a customer will automatically add a selection of products to their cart. This can be useful for various situations, such as if you have a promotion running where the customer is eligible for a discount if they purchase multiple products together for example. The URL could then be sent out in an EDM, a tweet, or any other form of marketing you prefer.

To create a URL, the merchant just has to select some products in the admin panel. Currently the extension supports simple products and configurable products. One future improvement could be to allow disabling URLs, so that a customer doesn't inadvertently attempt to add a sold out product to their cart for example.

Virtual Reality is one of the biggest things in the technology world right now, with varying implementations for different use cases. It introduces some especially exciting possibilities for eCommerce, something that Elgentos have been exploring.

Ikea has lead the way on this, creating a dedicated VR experience for customers that lets them roam a virtual showroom and interact with products, allowing customers to visualise how things can fit into their house without leaving their house! Elgentos have taken that one step further, exploring how VR web shops can help bring customers closer to your products before buying them in a series of blog posts on the topic.

The culmination of this is the Magento 1 extension that adds VR support to your website. It's still in the early stages of development, but it's already functional and definitely something exciting to look out for in the future!