The EU’s data protection reforms came with a lot of challenges for most e-commerce stores that take pride in customer retention. The reforms brought up a lot of issues concerning data and privacy issues that had a negative impact on customer relations. According to the new laws that were introduced in 2018, e-commerce service providers were expected to collect personal information from their customers with regards to the GDPR compliance measures. This obviously, did not sit well with some customers, especially those who enjoy their privacy. However, thanks to third party extensions such as that of the Magento ecosystem, service providers can now continue to protect their customer privacy while maintaining the EU policies at the same time.
Amasty provides online merchants with a module – Magento 2 cookie – that allows them to easily comply with the EU cookie regulation policies while also maintaining the privacy that some customers cherish. Magento 2 module serves as an extension on the website that informs the visitors about the cookie policies and what they are required to do should they choose to continue browsing the website.
Making the cookie policies compliant with the GDPR rules was the major issue for many, a fact that would lead to the loss of customers. The online merchants would also have to face mandatory fines if they did not meet the GDPR specifications. The default Magento did not have a cookie policy alert system, and some customers felt cheated whenever they had to give out their personal information just to access a website. All this, however, changed for the better thanks to the Amasty cookie consent extension. Amasty brought with it the Magento 2 cookie consent module that allows customers to decide whether or not they are willing to give out their information so that they can continue using a certain website. By using the extension, merchants can get to follow the GDPR rules and thus avoid fines without having to compromise their relationship with clients.
Features
Some of the features included in the Amasty cookie consent (Magento 2) extension include the following:
Cookie policy action logging
Visitor access settings
Cookie classifications
Cookie notice bar
Cookie consent GDPR compliant coolie information
Store view cookie configuration
Customer consent management
Yes/No cookie group pop up bars
The Amasty cookie extension works by displaying all the types of cookies available and groups them together in a special pop up bar. When the customers visit your website, they can immediately decide which cookies they will allow having their information. The merchant can also display and specify the category of information that is optional and that which is mandatory. The cookie categories can be as many as the merchant wants. Once given consent by the customers, the store owners can now go ahead and use the information for purposes such as remarketing on Facebook and google A/B testing and other relevant functions.
The Amasty cookie extension also allows the owner to customize the pop-up bars to suit the theme or brand of their website. If the customers opt to ignore the cookies, it is possible to disable them so that they don’t keep on popping up on every page the customer opens, thus allowing them to continue browsing in peace.
The backend cookie management allows you to manage the cookies on a separate grid that shows the names of the cookies and the specific connection category. Specifications can be made on them such as on the lifetime of the cookies. Once the customer gives his consent, the information is gathered in a separate grid that shows the details pertaining to each consent, such as customer data. The consent logging is what will allow the store owner to track customer activities on the website. Cleaning the log is also possible depending on how long (cookie lifetime) you want the cookies to be stored in the log.
The Amnesty extension also allows the customer to edit/withdraw their consent through the use of the cookie settings. Both registered and guest users have the ability to adjust the cookie settings to suit them. This allows users to feel comfortable enough to trust and use your store however they wish to.
Backend
A classification grid includes the following information
Description
Is Essential
Checkbox
ID
Is Enabled
Action
You can access the grid by going to customer – Cookie consent – Cookie groups. Once in the grid, you will be able to sort, filter, and delete groups if need be. There is an “Edit” option that allows you to information in the cookie groups. An “Add” option allows you to create a new cookie category.
When you decide to customize a new cookie, you will be required to detail the lifetime, description, and name, after which you will link it to one of the groups you created.
The general settings option is only made up of three components which are: General settings, page speed optimization, and Cookie bar customization.
Frontend
Below you can see a sample of the amnesty cookie bar that allows customers to decide whether or not they will continue to use the website by allowing their personal information to be taken.
As mentioned earlier, other extensions allow the customer to make a decision on what cookie category they will use.
The “More Information” buttons reveal all the cookie categories that are available for the customer to choose from. Under each cookie is a description of how the cookie works. The user can thus decide to
enable or disable it.
Amasty cookie consent for Magento thus allows online merchants to comply with the EU regulation while at the same time helping to maintain their customer privacy. Its frontend interface is user friendly, meaning that any user can log in an easily maneuver through the various pages and options by the simple push of a button. By allowing the user to ignore the policies, enables store owners to create and maintain a healthy working relationship with their clients. Trust will lead to more traffic to your store. The Magento 2 module can be bought for only $119.