Magento Extension Roundup - October 2017

Addresses can be the bane of an online store. Even with well labelled fields, customers will often enter their details incorrectly, putting their city into the region field, adding extra numbers to their postcode, or simply entering their entire address into the first street field. Address validation can be a hard problem to solve in general, which is why Google Maps and the associated address lookup API can provided much needed assistance. This extension will provide customers with a single address input, allowing customers to search as they would on google maps and select their address from the list of available options.

The extension provides the option for customers to enter their address manually into the normal fields if they require it, but generally it would be expected that customers would utilise the simpler single-input interface. This will have the added benefit of increasing conversion rates, as customers will be less likely to drop out if they only need to fill out a single field instead of painstakingly entering their address in multiple fields.

Who doesn't love the holidays? It is often a critical time for online retailers, as customers are on the hunt for the perfect gift for their loved ones. While retail stores will often dress up their displays with decorations for this period, eCommerce stores will often remain the same year round. This extension provides a healthy dose of holiday cheer to customers, putting them in the mood to fill the stockings of grateful friends and family.

One of the most confusing aspects of the default Magento checkout is the first step that presents customers with a choice to log in or register. Continuing as a guest, which is often a preference for customers, is almost hidden on this screen. This can result in customers dropping out before completing their purchase, while not providing any tangible benefit. This extension removes this initial step and instead has two modes, one where all logged out customers can proceed as a guest, and one where you can opt to have the checkout in register mode where the password fields are visible and required. In either mode the customer will immediately be presented with the billing address section.

The main downside of this extension is that it rewrites the Onepage Checkout controller and block. For sites that haven't been modified heavily this shouldn't be an issue, but if the store already has some checkout modifications it is more likely that this extension will require some extra effort to integrate.

One of the more frustrating issues with Magento is not being able to effectively disable a lot of the email notifications. This extension provides a single interface that allows any of the emails that Magento sends to be disabled. No more hunting through system configuration settings looking for the right email, or using blank templates to prevent emails from being sent. Due to the limited extensibility in the core email sending code, this extension employs a number of rewrites. Fortunately, it's unlikely that most stores would already have extended any of these classes, so it should be a simple one to drop in.