Testing emails in Magento is a pain. Even if you have a development site, email is usually disabled, so your only choice is to activate the email on the live site. Yireo built this nifty email tester that enables viewing new layouts and template updates without activating them. Faster, simpler and safer are things we like.

Do you want to offer financing, but can’t stomach the thought of setting it up? Aimed at B to B merchants, this tool enables customers to seek payment terms from CreditKey, instead of from you. Merchants get paid-in-full instantly, while the customer gets financing for their purchase without having to load up a high-interest credit card.

The only thing as annoying as poorly organized navigation is slow navigation. Magento’s default layered navigation is great for organization but Magento’s default page-loading technology isn’t the quickest. This extension pumps up left nav, letting shoppers multi-select attributes, enabling merchants to easily set up and incorporate custom filters, and loading the results dynamically with Ajax.

Another email service? Hold on, MageMail is triggered email without the need for a full-featured ESP like Dotmailer or Listrak. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those …) But the main difference we see is the fee model – 3% of generated sales to be exact. Do the math and read the fine print.

It’s an app. No, it’s an extension. No, it’s the next big thing! Push notifications, one-tap access, instant load with no-or-poor signal, and works with your already responsive site – those all sound like good ideas. Google is pushing PWA technology, so it’s probably worth thinking about.

If you’re thinking you’re going to save a pile of cash by using a Magento theme, we’d encourage further thought. We’ve worked with clients who came to us with custom themes already installed. These things are the sketchy carnival food of the extension world; You just don’t know what’s in them. However, they’re cheap and Magento lets you have multiple themes. You could turn it off and decide not to use it. Maybe it’ll turn out great. (If so, please let us know!)

Magento has great navigation aids straight out of the box. Layered navigation adds more flexibility and usability for displayed navigation and filtering options. One key feature is that no page refresh is required while a user selects filters.

If trying to defeat the scourge of cart abandonment hasn’t left you exhausted, you can ratchet it up a notch. Browse abandonment picks up where remarketing leaves off, actively going after users who try to leave the site, collecting emails and sending emails based on visit patterns. Features granular control over when emails are sent, triggers, notifications and templates.

Among its other capabilities, Ordoro makes dropshipping and multi-channel fulfillment more efficient and accountable.  We also like the “kitting” feature, which puts a different twist on Magento’s bundled product type

Quick Order extension functions as an enhanced search that enables adding one or multiple items to the cart from the Quick Order pane, without navigating to category or product pages. Customers can enter lists of SKUs and quantities and add to cart all at once. An adequately-sized server, well-organized catalog and speedy content delivery are crucial to make this (or any) search-based tool truly quick.

Seasonal supply variations, manufacturing delays, and other factors can quickly zero out inventory of popular items. Pre-orders replaces the “Buy Now” button and displays an expected arrival date on the product page for selected products. The extension enables the merchant to receive advance payments for products that carry a status of pre-ordered or backordered and has granular control over order status for purchases having mixed in-stock and pre-order items.

Some merchants just can’t display prices on certain products – often due to vendor agreements or MAP restrictions. This is a pretty minimal extension, so make sure to provide a useful and informative alternative to the price and shopping cart. Merchants who are considering using a feature like this because they have complex products, please give InteractOne a yell, instead; we’d love to show you some alternative approaches!

Provides a simplified, attribute-based grid or drop-down view of child products for a smoother path to bulk ordering configurable products. Includes tooltips and clickable options that can help cut down on purchase support requests and increase conversion. Advanced tier pricing can be applied per child product, versus the entire order.

We’re in favor of merchants using Magento to sell, not to just catalog or display products. But we know there are times when a current business model or complex configurations might make quoting necessary. This pair of extensions allows B2B and retail merchants to designate quote-only products and choose when to display prices. Once sent, quotes can include a cart so that the customer can complete their order within Magento.

Incorrect customer orders can lead to cancellations and lost revenue. Prevent invalid order addresses with Address Verification Support, which provides address verification at checkout. If customers place an order with an invalid address, the extension will suggest the correct address to the customer in real time.

Need a better way to vet the customers that register to your store? B2B Customer Approval extends the customer registration functionality without affecting the default registration process. The site admin gets an email notification on every registration and can approve one or more customers at the same time, while each customer will get an approval notification.

When custom products are just not custom enough – you probably need dependent options. This extension adds a number and field to each option which can be configured so that options show based on the status of a previous option. Note that this extension works for Custom Options only – of simple, configurable and bundle products. It does not work for “Configurable Options” of configurable product and it does not work for “Bundle Options” of bundle product.

Having to create an account to complete an order can be frustrating for customers. Social Media Login provides a registration shortcut by allowing customers to login via their social network accounts, making completing an order much easier. The login buttons are available at both the customer login and checkout pages.

It’s easy to forget that our customers are a widely varied group, with preferred shopping modes and habits that don’t always conform. Bottom line: some people like to print out product pages. Also, some merchants may have a need to create a pdf catalog – whether for print or sending via email. This tool provides for QR codes, customer-group display and HTML tags for PDF-only content.

Everyone wants a performance edge. Caching technologies are hot, as developers, merchants and hosting companies alike scramble for ways to accelerate page delivery. MERC provides a means to integrate Redis cache with Magento. The tool manages and monitors cache key hit rates, allows for bulk delete, and displays an array of performance and base activity metrics.

Drag and drop files into the product filter grid for placement on product pages. Shoppers can access product-specific or general warranties, user manuals, MSDS, certificates or other documentation in numerous formats. Includes admin controls for customer-group visibility, mass actions and icon display.