Monthly Archives: August 2025
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August 31, 2025
How to Build a Custom 'Abandoned Cart' Recovery Strategy Beyond Emails (SMS, Push)
Abandoned carts are the low-hanging fruit of ecommerce: people who were close to buying but left. Most stores rely on email, and emails are great — but you can significantly bump recoveries by building a multi-channel strategy that includes SMS and browser push. In this post I’ll walk you through a practical, Magento 2-focused approach covering third-party SMS APIs (Twilio, MessageBird), native browser push with Service Workers, personalization, automation triggers, and how to measure ROI with Google Analytics. Think of this like a hands-on conversation — I’ll show code, examples, and sensible defaults so you can implement this in a real store (and adapt to magefine hosting or extensions later).
Why go beyond email?
Quick bullet reasons:
- SMS has a higher open rate (and immediate attention) than email — great for short recovery nudges.
- Push notifications
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August 30, 2025
Hey — if you want to add clear, consistent product badges like "New", "Sale", "Low stock" or "Trending" in Magento 2 without installing a third-party extension, this post walks you through a pragmatic, step-by-step approach. I’ll show you how to build a small custom module (PHP/XML), how to integrate it with Magento marketing rules for automation, how to avoid performance pitfalls, and how to extend it for dynamic badges. Think of this as chatting with a colleague while pairing on the code.
Why build custom badges (and why not just install an extension)
Extensions are great, but a custom solution gives you:
- Precise control over markup, styles and placement.
- No extra license or unpredictable updates.
- The ability to integrate tightly with your business rules and indexers.
That said, a custom approach needs proper planning to avoid hurting performance or maintainability. Let’s do it right.
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August 29, 2025
Want to expose a clean, secure REST endpoint in Magento 2 so your ERP, CRM or PIM can talk to your store? In this post I’ll walk you through creating a custom API endpoint step-by-step, explain the Magento 2 API architecture and best practices, and give concrete examples of code, authentication, and performance tips you can use in production. I’ll keep the tone relaxed — like I’m explaining it to a colleague who’s just starting with integrations.
Why you might build a custom API endpoint
Magento 2 already provides a lot of REST and GraphQL endpoints, but when you need specific behaviour — a tailored payload, a special business rule, or an endpoint designed for an external system — a custom endpoint is the way to go. Common uses:
- ERP sync for orders and inventory
- Sending product data to a PIM with custom attributes
- CRM hooks for customer events
- Bulk endpoints with optimized payloads for nightly jobs
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August 28, 2025
Why add custom product tabs in Magento 2?
Think of product pages like a conversation with your customer. Tabs help you keep that conversation organized: technical specs in one place, size guides in another, and rich user manuals or reviews elsewhere. Building a custom tabs module in Magento 2 gives you control, performance and the ability to hook into product attributes so non-developers can edit content without touching code.
What you'll build in this post
In plain terms, we'll create a small Magento 2 module that:
- Registers a new module and injects a block into the product page layout.
- Reads a product attribute containing JSON for tabs (so admins can edit tabs without code).
- Outputs accessible, SEO-friendly tab markup and uses a tiny JS switcher.
- Shows performance best practices for cacheability and lazy loading.
- Explains how to package and sell this as a premium extension (with a link to a recommended
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August 27, 2025
How to Build a Custom 'Recently Viewed Products' Module in Magento 2
Want to add a neat "Recently viewed products" box to your Magento 2 store without buying an extension? Cool — I'll walk you through a solid, production-ready approach that balances flexibility and performance. We'll cover the architecture (using observers), client vs server storage, layout and template integration, advanced personalization (limits, retention, category exclusion), and caching considerations so you won't break Full Page Cache (FPC).
What we'll build
- A small Magento 2 module that captures product views via an observer.
- Two storage strategies: client-side (localStorage) and server-side (DB table) with a toggleable config.
- A block + template and layout XML to render a recent-products widget.
- Options for limiting number of items, retention, and excluding categories.
- AJAX-friendly rendering to keep FPC intact (best practice).
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August 26, 2025
Want to add a fast, polished "Product Quick View" modal to your Magento 2 store? In this post I’ll walk you through building a custom, production-ready Quick View module step-by-step. I’ll explain the technical architecture, show the exact files and code snippets you need, and cover advanced topics like working with Magento caches and indexers, accessibility, responsive design, CSS/JS customization, and testing/debugging tips. Think of this as a friendly walkthrough you can follow with a terminal open and your IDE ready.
Why a custom Product Quick View?
Quick View is an important UX pattern for e-commerce: it lets shoppers preview product details without leaving the category or search page. But if implemented naively it can hurt performance, break caching, or be inaccessible. A custom Magento 2 module gives us full control: we can make it cache-friendly, index-aware, keyboard accessible, and easy to style or extend.
High-level technical architecture
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August 25, 2025
How to Use Magento 2's Customer Groups for Targeted Promotions and Content
If you’re running a Magento 2 store, customer groups are one of those underused features that can deliver outsized results. Think of them as neatly labeled buckets — you can serve different prices, promotions, and even entirely different content to each bucket. In this post I’ll walk you through advanced admin configuration, practical segmentation strategies, code examples you can paste into a module or data patch, integration tips for marketing automation, concrete B2B vs B2C use cases (loyalty, tiered pricing), and how to measure ROI so you can iterate properly. I’ll keep the tone relaxed — like we’re pairing a coffee and working through it together.
Why customer groups matter
Customer groups let you classify visitors and customers (e.g., Guests, General, Wholesale, VIP). That classification can then be used by:
- Catalog Price Rules and Cart Price Rules (apply discounts
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August 24, 2025
In Magento 2, pre-orders can be a powerful way to gauge demand, smooth out cash flow, and launch new products when your customers are ready. This guide walks you through building a custom pre-order module from scratch, with a relaxed, colleague-to-colleague tone and concrete code examples. We’ll cover architecture, database design, payment integration, admin workflows, customer notifications, and performance best practices. The goal is to give you a practical blueprint you can adapt to your store without relying on a paid extension, while keeping the code approachable for a neophyte developer.
Why a Custom Pre-Order Module in Magento 2?
Pre-orders let you offer products before they are in stock, manage waitlists, and capture customer interest early. A custom solution gives you: - Full control over when pre-orders start and end, and how they convert to real orders. - The ability to keep your main catalog undisturbed, ensuring stock levels aren’t
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August 23, 2025
How to Implement a Custom Reward Points System in Magento 2
If you’re building or upgrading a Magento 2 store and want to reward your customers for loyalty, a custom reward points system is a smart way to keep buyers coming back. Think of it as a lightweight loyalty program that you tailor to your business rules. This post walks you through the practical steps to design, implement, and operate a custom reward points system inside Magento 2. We’ll cover architecture, data models, order integration, an admin dashboard, and security measures to prevent abuse. The goal is to give you a clear blueprint you can adapt quickly—with real code samples you can copy, tweak, and ship.
Why build a custom reward points system in Magento 2?
- Full control: You’re not limited by an off-the-shelf extension’s roadmap or pricing model. You can tailor the experience to your store, products, and customer segments.
- Cost predictability: While there’s initial development
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August 20, 2025
Alright, let's talk shop. If you're running a wholesale business, you know it's a whole different ball game compared to B2C. Your customers aren't browsing for a single item; they're managing complex procurement for their entire company. They need tiered pricing, custom catalogs, purchase approvals, and real-time inventory data. Trying to force a standard Magento B2C setup to handle this is like using a teaspoon to dig a foundation—it's the wrong tool for the job.
That's where Magento 2's native B2B suite comes in. It's a powerhouse built specifically for the complexities of wholesale. But with great power comes... a decently complex setup. Don't worry, we're going to break it all down. This isn't just a high-level overview; we're going to get our hands dirty with some code and configuration examples to show you exactly how to leverage these features for your business. And we'll see where a powerful extension from a place like magefine.com can take things to the next level.