Meet Magento UK '21 - Andy Mulcahy, Performance Team at Google & Marion Freijsen.
In today's blog, we will be taking a look at all the great sessions that will be taking place between 10.00am and 10.30am at this year's Meet Magento UK. So if you've been looking at this year's schedule and aren't sure which session to watch live, maybe we can help.
Andy Mulcahy
Merchant track - 10.00am -10.30am
How has the pandemic changed online retail?
Rewind 1 year, Covid had just hit the UK, the lockdown was announced and the entire commerce industry was thrown into utter chaos overnight. As a result, MM20UK went online and Andy Mulcahy successfully navigated the issue of what impact did Covid have on online retail?
This year he's back and it seems like we're getting part 2 of that talk. Andy will be taking a look back over the last year to see how the pandemic has changed the landscape of eCommerce, looking at the impact of the high street stores closing for the majority of the year and what the future holds for both online and offline commerce.
Who is this session for?
If you run a store, be it physical, online or both then this will be a great session for you, especially if you find yourself struggling to grow or even to keep afloat. There will be a ton of actionable data coming from this session that you can use to help steady and even grow your business.
I for one am particularly looking forward to this one.
Who is Andy Mulcahy?
Beginning his career as a Technical support engineer for Energis, Andy then moved to DSGi Business as a copywriter, became an editor at Pendragon and then took the position of head of communications at IMRG. Andy is now the strategy & insight director at IMRG and commands around 15 years worth of knowledge on industry trends and developments.
Find more on Andy and IMRG by following the links below.
Andy Mulcahy
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/andy-mulcahy
Twitter - https://twitter.com/andymulcahy
MM19UK talk - https://youtu.be/fENVoPyxcj8?list=PLlUxtxNX9ZEwSxLbGUw68XEEVcKFm_k1A
MM20UK talk - https://youtu.be/TLSo9uKI3Xs
IMRG
Website - imrg.org
Twitter - twitter.com/imrgupdate
Performance Team at Google
Technical track - 10.00am -10.30am
Forming a Core Web Vitals strategy: Myth-busting common misconceptions
This is one of those does what it says on the tin kinda sessions where the title tells you everything you need to know, there isn't much room for speculation here. However, we live in an age where many of you may be new to e-commerce as a result of the pandemic and that Google's Core Web Vitals are new this year, so we thought we'd help you out by asking the question
What Are Core Web Vitals?
In a nutshell, Core Web Vitals are things that Google have determined provide a good user experience for customers online. Google then takes those CWV's and checks your site/store against them and the better your site performs the higher your Google ranking will be, which makes it easier for people to find you.
There are 3 Core Web Vitals
- Loading - Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- Interactivity - First Input Delay (FID)
- Visual Stability - Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Loading - Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
This is all about speed! For years the industry standard was 3 seconds load time, anything longer than 3 seconds and you would stand to lose somewhere in the realm of 50-60% of users. Covid changed all of that! With shopping habits changing and the huge move to digital retail even 3 seconds is too slow these days.
It used to be that your site's speed was determined by the first thing to load, so if the first element on your site loaded in 2.3 seconds then you were a fast site, even though maybe everything else on the page took 5 seconds to load, thus giving an almost false metric. Now, LCP measures the largest, and by default the longest, element to load enabling the merchant/developer to see a more accurate metric when it comes to site speed.
Interactivity - First Input Delay (FID)
This CWV measures the time it takes between a customer's first interaction with your site and the time it takes the site to recognise and respond to that interaction.
For example, let's say you want to buy a new hat, you open up your favourite store's website and the first thing you do is click/tap the tab for hats. The moment you click on it a timer starts and it only stops when the website shows you the hat page. The faster the site responds the better the FID score.
Visual Stability - Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
There's nothing worse than going to click a button or link and finding that the elements you are looking at are moving or not where they are supposed to be. This is called a layout shift and it can seriously damage your customer's experience and potentially, depending on how bad and often it happens, cause you to lose new and loyal customers.
CLS measures this effect and again will rank you on how well or poorly your site performs in this area.
Who is this for?
Now it's important to note that this is just a quick overview of Google's new Core Web Vitals, there is more to it than just this and so if you are worried about how the CWVs will impact your store or you are just curious about them and want to know more then this is the seminar for you.
Who are the Google performance team?
At the time of writing this article we have no information on who exactly will be presenting this session, all we know is that they are on the performance team for Google. Once we have some confirmed names etc. we'll update this section but for now, we can rest assured that the people from Google are fully qualified to talk to us about the things from Google.
Marion Freijsen
Platform track - 10.00am -10.30am
Marketplaces, Eat or be Eaten
Amazon, eBay, wish, Etsy are all examples of online marketplaces and, especially over the last 12-18 months, the digital marketplace has become increasingly popular with customers and merchants alike.
But are they worth it? Do the benefits out way the disadvantages? What about creating your own marketplace? Can you compete with the likes of Amazon and Etsy?
In this seminar, Marion Freijsen will help you to grasp the importance of the online marketplace, to understand how a marketplace could benefit your business and teach you what to look out for when choosing an online marketplace to use.
Who is this for?
If you are looking to expand into or even creating your own marketplace then you do not want to miss this session I would even go as far as to say that if you are in one of those camps then this will be essential viewing for you.
Who is Marion Freijsen?
Over the past 30+ years, Marion has worn many a hat and served in many a role. It would take us quite a while to list them all as well as the companies she has worked at and cofounded along the way.
Needless to say, Marion will bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and passion to this year's Meet Magento UK.
Marion Freijsen
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfreijsen/
Our final thoughts….
And that is our 10.00-10.30 lineup for the morning. Don't worry if you want to watch more than one of these talks as they will ll be available on-demand a few days after the event is over. Tomorrow we will be taking a look at the next round of talks but until then stay safe and have a great day.
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