Magento Ecommerce: Everything you need to know!
- Aug 26, 2024
- By Rajeev Nar
When you decide to start your eCommerce store, the first name that pops up is – Magento eCommerce! Undoubtedly it is one of the best eCommerce platforms for small businesses if you wish to start your eCommerce business. It offers a simple, customisable, and secure environment for your store. But what exactly is Magento? What differentiates it from other platforms? Why are businesses choosing it?
Calm down! We have created this guide to help you understand everything about Magento eCommerce. By the end of this guide, you will have a thorough understanding of Magento, its features, and its importance. Also, you will find out how it helps your eCommerce business to succeed.
So, let’s dive right in.
What is Magento?
Magento is an eCommerce platform that is owned by Adobe. It was acquired by Adobe in 2024 with a price of $1.68 billion to complete its commerce loop. Businesses can create and manage online stores using Magento.
Magento was released by Varien Inc. on March 31, 2008, and written on send, a PHP framework. It works just like platforms such as Wix, Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc.
The eCommerce platform offers robust features, customisable templates, scalability options, and more. Using Magento, users can control how their eCommerce store looks, feels, and functions without compromising the shopping experience. This is why Magento is considered the best eCommerce platform for all types of business. Big businesses like Nike, Samsung, etc., use Magento.
But you need to understand one thing, just like other eCommerce platforms, Magento is not beginner friendly. So, you need to hire a Magento developer to get the most out of it.
Now that you know what Magento eCommerce is! You must be wondering why you should choose Magento for your eCommerce platform.
Right? We are going to tell you why! Before that let’s first have a quick briefing on Magento developers.
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What is a Magento developer?
A Magento developer is a person who develops and customises eCommerce websites that run on the Magento platform.
Some of the key roles of a Magento developer are as follows:
1. Customising the front end by making use of Magento’s theme and the widget system to get the desired feel and look for the website. For instance, HTML, CSS, Templates, JavaScript, etc.
2. Ecommerce website development as well as designing templates in Magento. For instance, product pages, checkout pages, home pages, category pages, CMS pages, etc.
3. Configuring and optimising the Magento settings for specific requirements such as payment settings, tax settings, catalogue settings, etc.
4. Integrating plug-ins and third-party extensions into the Magento eCommerce store to add functionalities.
5. Troubleshooting and debugging the issues that arise with Magento stores.
6. A developer helps write custom codes and extensions using Magento’s API and PHP to add functionalities and features.
7. Optimising the speed, performance, and scalability of the website
8. Maintaining and updating the online store with the latest features, version upgrades, and security patches.
To conclude, a Magento developer is responsible for developing, customising, and maintaining Magento eCommerce stores for clients based on their requirements. They should have expertise in PHP, Magento, CSS, HTML, and other related technologies.
Now let us understand why you should choose Magento for your eCommerce store.
Why Choose Magento for Your Ecommerce Store?
As per stats, the growth of business transactions escalated 3 times since they shifted to Magento.
Scalability
One of the reasons why Magento is the best choice for developers is that it is open source. That means anyone who knows website development can use it to their full advantage. It is an ideal framework for handling a relatively small number of customers and orders.
However, as your eCommerce business grows, you can switch to making elaborate Magento editions to handle high-scale and more complex businesses with thousands of products and orders. Magento helps you through your business development stages.
However, if you are a Magento expert, then you can boost the performance of your online store and promote your eCommerce website with the latest features and functionalities by developing or installing the Magento modules.
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Supports Latest Technologies
Magento is built on the Zend framework. This framework supports both Apache and Nginx server technologies. For optimal performance, it needs Varnish and Redis cache. In addition to this, Magento also Protect your Magento store from attackers and supports the latest versions of MariaDB, PHP, Composer, MySQL, Open search, Elasticsearch as well as other technologies.
This is why Magento eCommerce merchants get the best for their eCommerce businesses.
Enhanced Security
Do you know more than 670 million websites are using Magento as their eCommerce platform?
Magento continuously offers the latest security updates and fixes. The security features of Magento include the prevention of cross-site scripting, better password management, and flexible file system ownership and permissions.
For better password management, Magento eCommerce has improved its hashing algorithms. Now it supports Argon21D13 through PHP sodium extension. Moreover, it has adopted various methods that control the release of data in the output source. In addition to this, it has improved the file permissions as well.
Mobile Commerce Support
This is one of the most important benefits of Magento eCommerce. It offers mobile commerce support, which is crucial in today’s era of people using smartphones. To remain competitive in the market, having a strong business presence is of utmost importance.
Understanding this shift, Magento has focused on enhancing and supporting mobile shopping experiences.
For that, it offers mobile-friendly and responsive design templates to make your online store function seamlessly on all devices. It also provides features such as mobile-optimised d navigation and one-click checkout to streamline the process of mobile shopping.
Mobile commerce not only works for the preferences of modern consumers but also empowers businesses to enter the vast potential of the mobile market. This contributes to the overall growth and success of eCommerce businesses.
Built-in Upsells and Cross-sells Capabilities
Magento’s Topmost Shares more than 1 million websites have a global market share of 1.03%. This shows how solid a hold Magento has in the eCommerce industry.
However, with the cross-sell and upsell features of Magento, you can accelerate your average order value by suggesting related products to the customers at checkout. For example, if a customer purchases a laptop, then your website can suggest upselling options for a better version of the same laptop. Also, it can provide cross-selling items such as laptop accessories.
Your business can increase revenue and boost customer satisfaction by suggesting upgraded and complementary products. Also, you can encourage cross-categories and impulse purchases with strategically placed product recommendations.
In addition to this, you can also personalise upsells and cross-sells based on purchase history and customer behaviour
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Creates User-friendly Experiences
Magento Web assists in creating user-friendly websites. Any non-technical person can manage the inventories and improve your online store’s navigation without any support. In addition to this, it also comes with a page builder that offers the freedom to users to design their pages as they want.
Moreover, the customers using a site on Magento will be able to find the products promptly with increased elastic search. These robust features of the Magento satisfy customers and boost their loyalty to the brand.
Magento also offers out-of-the-box templates that offer a website’s responsiveness. Various paid and free themes are also available in the Magento store. Not only this but all those templates can be customised as well. You can also design themes from scratch to match your business needs.
SEO Capabilities
Making sure that your online store ranks well on search engines can impact your organic traffic and visibility. Magento understands this and equips the users with a comprehensive suite of built-in SEO tools and features help to boost sales of your magento ecommerce store.
From customisable URLs and meta tags to structured data markup and automated sitemaps, Magento empowers businesses to fine-tune every aspect of their site for maximum search engine performance.
In addition to this, it also provides for managing canonical tags and optimising the images; offering required tools to make SEO-friendly content and increase the discoverability of products. With Magento’s SEO capabilities at your disposal, your eCommerce store can effectively climb the search engine rankings, getting more organic traffic and increasing the chances of converting visitors into loyal customers of your Magento Store.
Responsive Websites
You can design responsive websites using Magento. A website with a slow loading problem does not get the expected traffic. That is why Magento ensures that websites are well-optimised for quick performance. Its cloud-based services enable the websites to deploy various tools for powering the performances.
For instance, the content delivery network tool guarantees consumer satisfaction. Businesses can satisfy their customers with these tools without worrying about the slow speed. In addition to this, full-page caching in Magento also ensures top-site performance.
All in all, it also enhances customer experience and reduces cart abandonment rates. Small businesses generally face these issues. So, Magento eCommerce for small businesses will be very effective.
Rich in Features
Among the vast landscape of eCommerce platforms, Magento stands out with its comprehensive suite of diverse and rich features. This empowers the store owners with an unparalleled level of control over each aspect of online business. From crafting an exceptional checkout experience to seamless product creation and even executing dynamic promotions or marketing campaigns, Magento’s strong functionalities leave no stone unturned.
Moreover, the eCommerce platform is designed to abridge the complex workings of a complete business. Magento comes with a wide variety of essential tools and capabilities. They streamline the operations from the beginning stage to the final stage of the sales process. This holistic approach not only ensures an efficient and seamless workflow but also gives freedom to business owners to leverage the diverse offerings of the platform. This all leads to better efficiency and store management.
Seamless third-party integration
One of the main benefits of Magento is that it integrates well with various third-party integration applications. You can integrate any software with the help of this platform.
It includes AI and personalisation tools, payment gateways, marketing tools, and other tools. This integration capability streamlines the operations. This way, your business becomes more efficient. It saves you from the headache of dealing with scattered data and disparate systems.
As Magento is one of the most famous eCommerce platforms, there are various applications for integrating with it. There is an extension available for everything. So, you can save the cost and time necessary for the development.
Magento Editions: Magento Community and Magento Enterprise
Magento Community
This is a free version of the Magento eCommerce platform. Small and medium-sized businesses generally prefer this edition of Magento. The open-source nature of the Magento community allows for extensive customisation, providing all your important needs for developing an eCommerce website.
Moreover, online store owners can secure their online store by integrating third-party extensions. This free edition of Magento is indeed very adaptable. It caters to all searching for an affordable solution without compromising the essential features.
Features of Magento Community Editions:
- Mobile friendly configuration
- Marketing tools
- Product management
- Customer account
- Catalog management
- Order management
- Reporting tools etc.
Magento Enterprise
This edition of Magento is also known as Adobe Commerce, a paid version of the Magento eCommerce platform. It provides some other additional features as well as benefits in comparison with the standard version.
Magento Enterprise is made specifically for the larger business and high-traffic websites. The advanced tools, exclusive features, and the ability to manage high traffic volume support the requirements of large eCommerce websites. All in all, Magento Enterprise is a robust platform offering extraordinary features to its customers.
Features of Magento Enterprise Edition:
- Return management authorisation
- Functional order management
- Gift cards
- Banners
- Abandoned cart reminder emails
- Reward points
- Content stagging
- Analytics and Reporting
- Technical support
- Two-factor authentication
- Security scanning tool
- Content security policies etc.
What are the features of Magento?
The following are the notable features of Magento.
Customisation and Adaptability
Magento is very flexible and adaptive to any type of customisation that you want to make in your online store. The adaptability feature in Magento arises from its open-source nature that lets the developers customise online stores without any limitations.
That means the power to make advanced customisation is on the developer; Magento does not put a limit on anything. The more skilled and experienced Magento developer you hire, the more chances are you will get a feature-rich and unique online store.
Theme Library
Magento provides a huge library of themes with wide variety and excellent versatility. These themes are designed by the topmost theme vendors of the world as well as by Magento as well. You can choose and adjust the themes whichever suits the structure and style of your eCommerce store.
By using these themes, your website will work smoothly on all browsers and platforms, all thanks to the excellent responsiveness and compatibility of Magento themes.
Reporting and Analytics
Magento provides a wide variety of capabilities to assist users in analysing their shop performance, including analytics dashboards, reporting, and consumer segmentation. These features also include some built-in reports for keeping a check on the online store’s success, like revenue, best-selling goods, orders, new customers, and so on. The store owners can also use the dashboard to get an overview of their business’s performance, which includes basic indicators and charts like order volume, revenue, and conversion rates.
Moreover, integrated Magento Analytics to other analytics systems, such as Google Analytics, allowing users to track and evaluate the performance of their virtual business.
Security
Security comes first, and it is most necessary in the eCommerce industry where financial transactions and sensitive customer data are involved. To tackle this issue, Magento provides strong security features to protect businesses as well as their customers.
The data protection feature in Magento helps in securing customer data. This includes the use of secure protocols and strong data encryption to prevent data breaches and unauthorised access.
In addition to this, the secure payment bridge of Magento offers a secure pathway for transaction data. This reduces the risk of financial data being compromised. This Magento feature is PCI compliant, offering peace of mind to the customers and businesses during the transactions.
Order Management
Magento provides a broad set of tools for order fulfilment. They include designing, editing, viewing, and fulfilling the orders from the admin panel. Also, they offer support for printing invoices, packing slips, and shipping labels. Not only this, but this system also sends notifications and lets you create one or more credit memos, invoices, and shipments per order.
This feature is very important for the smooth operation of a virtual store. It enhances customer satisfaction by ensuring flexible, convenient, and cost-effective delivery.
Easy Checkout
The checkout process is the final stage in the customer’s journey, and Magento provides various options to make it as seamless as possible. The features such as SSL security support, shipping the products to multiple addresses in one order and an address book for the checkout are included.
Moreover, the platform also provides saved shopping carts and options to set an expiry time, making the shopping experience much more convenient for the customers.
Conclusion
No doubt, Magento is a robust and versatile eCommerce platform that provides a wide range of benefits and features tailored to fulfil the needs of online businesses. From its scalability and open-source flexibility to its strong SEO-friendly and product management capabilities, Magento offers everything necessary to create and grow a successful online store. So, whether you are just starting or want to upgrade your current platform, then Magento is the one for you! It is worth considering for your eCommerce business.
In case you need any help, as a Leading, Magento Agency we are here to help you out! We are only one call away!