Magento is the premier platform for all things eCommerce. It is packed with tons of powerful features and extensions to streamline your eCommerce business. The flexibility, scalability, security, payment solutions, etc., make Magento the most well-renowned eCommerce platform. Magento gives merchants all the necessary features at their fingertips to create a successful ecommerce store.
There is practically no limit to what you can achieve from the robust Magento ecosystem. The community support, open-source code, stunning themes, customer support, and more make Magento superior to any platform out there. The best part, Magento, supports all business types, regardless of the industry.
Start your eCommerce store on Magento and create a flawless eCommerce portal for your customers. The tons of built-in functionalities and secure solutions allow every store owner the power to create an impressive eCommerce hub. If you're not convinced yet, read on to find out why you should pick Magento for your eCommerce business.
Magento Edition - Open Source and Commerce
Open Source Edition
It is free and open-source installation which is the preferred choice for small to medium-sized businesses. Everyone can download, customize, and self-host this Edition. The limited features may be a concern. However, with expert developers, you can easily navigate the problem. Owners can change the source code and personalize their store with ease. It delivers all the fundamental eCommerce capabilities that allow you to build a unique online store from the ground up.
Commerce Edition
Magento Commerce is more advanced in terms of features, and naturally very expensive as well. The license fees start from $24,000 a year. This Edition is more suited to large enterprises, which operate with thousands or even millions of customers and have a massive inventory. If you want your store to have more capacity, a broad range of functionalities, and 24/7 support, opt for Magento Commerce. The tons of built-in features in Magento Commerce mean you won't need to rely on third-party extensions at all.
Importance of an eCommerce Partner
The process of creating an eCommerce store on Magento is quite complicated. Adjusting the store to your eCommerce business is vital. You cannot allocate this project to a freelancer. The software engineering required on a Magento website is quite challenging. From integration, optimization to customization, all tasks require meticulous planning and implementation.
You can only trust a premier eCommerce company like Virtina to handle an eCommerce project on Magento. Our certified experts have managed numerous eCommerce projects in various industries. The developers, designers, and managers possess expert familiarity with different business types and are the most reliable partner for your Magento store. We will create the perfect roadmap and suggest the best solutions for your Magento store.
What Are the Benefits of Magento?
Flexibility
Magento provides merchants with unparalleled flexibility and control over every aspect of their store. Owners can modify the look, content, functionality, and more. This helps them to create a unique and stunning user interface. Get complete control over all the functions of your eCommerce website. The next-generation architecture allows owners to customize and innovate however they want.
Owners can make changes to the front-end or the back end. The intuitive, powerful, and easy to use features give owners the liberty to create stores tailored to their business needs. You get complete control over the store's functionalities. Get unparalleled flexibility to bring your eCommerce vision to life.
Modular
Modularity is the core architectural principle of Magento. A module will extend a particular functionality and show the least bit of dependency on other modules. Each module executes separately, so adding or removing a module does not affect the other modules. This gives you the flexibility to enable or disable one of the modules at will.
The self-contained modules of discrete code reduce each module's external dependencies. In other words, configure any of the modules without interfering with the core code. If a module is self-contained, you can modify or replace it without affecting any other code. PHP and XML files make up each module that addresses a specific business feature.
SEO-friendly
Magento includes several features to boost your SEO presence. Owners can easily modify the sitemap to improve the way search engines index the store. Owners only need to configure, enable, generate the sitemap, and submit the same to search engines. Furthermore, the URL Rewrite tool lets owners change URLs associated with a product, category, or CMS page.
Owners even get to add and enhance keyword-rich meta for their store. Magento allows modification of meta title, keywords, canonical tags, rich snippets, and more. By default, the schema is already added to the store's product template. Magento also offers out-of-the-box SEO tools. Such SEO tools aren't often readily available on other platforms.
Support
Store owners can reach out to the customer support team at any hour. They get round the clock assistance to resolve any issue on their Magento store. Merchants can even submit a support ticket or use any technical resources to resolve the matter themselves. Magento support offerings ensure that every issue gets fixed to the merchant's satisfaction.
Fill up a form, call a number, or drop an email. Magento's technical support team is available to assist store owners on any medium. Magento Commerce merchants can even request a live demo or chat with the professional services team. Store owners can even report a bug or submit a feature request. They'll always find the desired help from a technical support analyst.
Performance
Magento Commerce provides enterprise-grade top-notch performance for your eCommerce store. Merchants can accelerate their site performance using built-in integration with a content delivery network (CDN) based on Varnish. They can even write custom rules to handle web requests using Varnish Configuration Language to manage all aspects of caching and content delivery.
Merchants can even optimize their front-end by minifying JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and compressing images to reduce file size for faster loads. Furthermore, optimize images and serve them closer to the visitor's location, without impacting the origin server. Merchants can even archive orders after a specific period to increase store performance.
Scalability
If we are talking about performance, scalability can't be too far. Merchants can add as many products as they want. The site will load and function as seamlessly as it did on day one. Magento is perfect for stores that have high volumes of traffic and lots of SKUs. The optimum performance characteristic gives Magento the ability to support all business sizes.
Merchants can even choose to run multiple stores. Regardless of the number of stores you have, all the data is stored, controlled, and monitored from a single backend. The high-performance architecture of Magento ensures your store will never see any diminished performance. Merchants can maintain optimal speed and user experience.
Security
Magento offers one of the best security solutions. Magento Commerce Cloud is Level 1 PCI certified. Outside threats are bare minimal, as they get limited ability to inject PHP or JavaScript code into the system or modify the files. Magento has enhanced the prevention of cross-site scripting attacks. It protects your store from clickjacking attacks by using an X-Frame-Options HTTP request header. Store owners get superior protection from Remote Code Execution (RCE) attacks.
Furthermore, the automated security patching ensures up to date security measures for your eCommerce site. Magento even provides 2-factor authorization for Admin logins, which cannot be disabled. Furthermore, buyers also get SSL security support for orders at checkout. Magento even offers a security scan tool. The tool helps to monitor the site for security risks and detect unauthorized access.
Mobile-friendliness
Mobile eCommerce sales form a significant portion of your overall revenue. In this scenario, it's hard to disregard the worth of mobile devices. Magento platform supports HTML5 to maximize the shopping experience on mobile. Fortunately, the themes available in the Magento marketplace are built using a responsive web design approach.
The responsive themes adapt according to a device. They adjust how menus, images, checkout, and other features get displayed on desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile device screens. Themes are touch-friendly and easily customizable. This helps the content to align accurately on different devices.
Furthermore, the Progressive Web App (PWA) Studio enables developers to create reliable, fast, and engaging mobile experiences. Merchants can create app-like capabilities perfectly tailored to the small screens.
Analytics
Magento helps you gather extensive business insights. It's tracking and reporting features help merchants analyze sales, traffic and generate detailed reports. Out-of-the-box Magento allows you to acquire vital metrics. These key metrics make it easy to monitor your business performance, customer behavior, and much more.
Harness the power of business analytics to gather actionable insights for superior user experience and bottom line. Use Magento's cloud-based business intelligence, Google Analytics, Magento extensions, and other third-party tools. Such tools help to extract valuable customer insights expertly. Use the actionable data to keep decision-makers and stakeholders informed at all times.
Integrations
Whether it is payment gateways, database applications, shipping extensions, and more, there is no limit to what you can achieve in Magento. It is quick and easy to integrate any functionality you want with Magento. The store owners get endless opportunities to develop the finest store possible.
Magento provides the least amount of resistance when it comes to integrating CRM, inventory management apps, accounting apps, POS, MailChimp, ERP, or any other software solution. Streamline your business operations, improve your internal processes, and elevate the user experience. The right integration can give your business the push it needs to be successful. Businesses can easily integrate their Magento store with any other third-party applications to gain that extra edge.
Migration to Magento
If you are thinking of migrating your eCommerce business, then there can't be a better platform than Magento. Magento 2.x is equipped with all the latest features and functionalities to help you get started. The revolutionary integrations, innovative solutions, themes, and marketplace variety is second to none. Magento will no doubt maximize your ROI.
Get all the best support to re-platform, grow, and scale your business on Magento. The community, Magento documentation, and technical customer support will guide you through the migration process. Merchants can then import products, customers, order data, and so much more from their earlier platform to Magento.
Requirements on a Magento Development Project
A Magento Open Source project would require hosting. It will influence the page speed, optimization and control the success of your store. You may also need to realize the best theme for your Magento business - would you like a pre-built theme or a custom theme. Before you do that, document the various features you require for your eCommerce business.
Check all the compatible payment solutions that can support your eCommerce transactions. Find a list of shipping providers that can handle all the logistics, show rates at checkout, give the ability to generate labels, and their premium. You may also want to plan your budget and timelines before starting a store on Magento.
Beyond this, list the Enterprise Resource Planning solution, Customer Relationship Management solution, Inventory Management software, and other such integrations you'd be using in Magento. In essence, check all the extensions you'd need and what you'd need to custom code from the ground up. Furthermore, address your content management and SEO needs. Audit your business carefully.
Challenges on a Magento Store
Magento Open Source can prove a little tricky for first-time users. The lack of PCI Compliance or quick security fixes can become troublesome for some store owners. Third-party extensions with bugs and updates can also create issues. Magento's extensions can sometimes feature glitches and very little support from the developer of the plugin.
Finding qualified and reliable support and maintenance for Magento will become a hassle. If not, store owners will be left to deal with all the issues on your own. The themes on Magento can also go haywire now and then. There will be responsive issues, and you may need to rely on external developers to customize the theme's structure.
Compatible With All Business Types
Whether large or small, all eCommerce businesses care about functionality, flexibility, scalability, security, and so on. When companies think about eCommerce platform selection, they often want one that provides the best of everything. They want an all in one solution for all their business needs.
They look for an affordable platform that will align with their business. Furthermore, boost their performance, and improve the bottom line. More often than not, this search to find the absolute best eCommerce platform leads every business owner to Magento. Magento is the ideal platform that every merchant envisions. Finally, it is Magento that ends up supporting their growing business.
Every business is different, yet their search for a perfect platform culminates in Magento. Irrespective of the business type (B2B or B2C). Regardless of the industry and business size. Magento is the one platform that can adjust to any business model. Established retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and even small start ups count on Magento to support their business operations.
Magento Commerce is ideal for companies trading in the B2B sector. Magento Commerce has many features to streamline the process of ordering and bulk purchases. Wholesale buyers can easily reorder products and automate their purchasing tasks. B2B buyers can even create a company account for multiple users.
Each user will have different roles and permissions. Sellers can set B2B pricing rules and marketing campaigns effortlessly. Merchants can even create accounts and assign them to customers. Besides, being able to set specific pricing rules, marketing campaigns, and shipping methods. The best part, Magento now offers a one-page checkout process.
Exclusive Features on Magento
Search Wizard
Magento has a superior search feature compared to other eCommerce platforms. Magento 2 Enterprise Edition now uses ElasticSearch. Since Magento 2.4.0, Elasticsearch is required for all installations. The Open Source Edition only supports MySQL. Magento also comes with a quick search option. Quick search lets visitors search for products using the full or partial product name.
Magento also supports advanced search, which gives users the ability to perform catalog searches with several parameters and values entered into a form. Magento even supports weighted search. In this, attributes allocated higher weight (priority) are shown higher in search results than those with a lower weight.
Store owners can also collect data about the popular search terms used by visitors. Popular Search Terms is enabled by default as an SEO tool. Owners can even search the orders grid to locate specific orders by keyword. Customers can also use the wishlist search widget to find wishlists of other customers.
Order Management
The order management section allows each merchant to manage quotes, invoices, returns, transactions, orders, and every other aspect of orders. The admin can view, access, and control the full order histories from the orders workspace. Merchants can access the lists of all the current and past orders.
The order arrangement can be adjusted, according to date, value, size, and other attributes. Admins can quickly sort, filter, find orders, and apply actions to any order. Merchants can export the entire order data into a document. In the Order workspace, merchants can create new orders or access archived orders.
Return Management
Magento Commerce users can manage their returns with ease. A simple dashboard in the backend lists all the initiated returns in an orderly arrangement. Merchants can assign a Returned Merchandise Authorization (RMA) to customers who request to return an item for replacement or refund.
The RMA number is allocated to identify a returned product. The Returns grid in this section lists all the pending RMA requests. Admins can also use it to create new return requests. RMAs can be issued for simple, grouped, and bundle product types. However, RMAs are not available for virtual products, downloadable products, and gift cards.
Email Reminders
In Magento Commerce, merchants have the option to trigger email reminders to their customers. Email reminders can be automatically sent to customers when a specific set of preset conditions are met. E.g., merchants can send a reminder when a customer has added something to his cart. Similarly, send a reminder when an item gets added to the wishlist.
Merchants can use email reminders to encourage customers to return to the store. They can even include a coupon code as an incentive. The feature is so sophisticated that admins can send emails a few days after a customer has abandoned his cart. Merchants can even define other conditions like cart value, quantity, items in cart, and much more.
Customer Segmentation
Magento allows every store owner to split and categorize their customers. Merchants can dynamically display content and promotions to specific customers. Admins can base this on customer address, order history, shopping cart contents, and so on.
Merchants can even optimize their marketing campaigns based on targeted segments and set special shopping cart price rules. Not only that, but merchants can also generate detailed reports and export the list of targeted customers. Store owners could even start collecting and analyzing rich customer data.
Using this feature, merchants can improve the way they target their customers with messages and promotions. Segmentation allows them to create more personalized and meaningful conversations with each buyer. Successful customer segmentation helps merchants to increase profits and overall customer satisfaction.
Rewards and Loyalty
In Magento Commerce, merchants can implement a unique reward points program to drive customer engagement and elevate customer loyalty. Merchants can award points for transactions or other activities. Merchants can even configure the system to control the point allotment, balance, and expiration. Customers can then redeem the points at checkout.
Customers can receive points based on shopping cart rules set by the admin. The admin could even modify the reward point balances of every customer. Customers can also view the details of their points balance. Orders placed using reward points can also be refunded to the customer's credit once approved by the admin.
Admin
Unlike other platforms, Magento Commerce offers the ability to let multiple admins work and simultaneously edit the website. This feature is present by default in all versions after Magento 2. Admins can also use a custom Admin URL, rather than the obvious "Admin" or "Backend."
Not only that, for increased security, two-factor authentication is enabled to verify the identity of the admin with a one-time password. Admins can even require passwords to be case sensitive, limit the time spent in each session, the lifetime of passwords, and the number of login attempts before an admin account is locked.
Admins can configure the length of keyboard inactivity before a session expires. They can even set the username and password to be case-sensitive. For additional security, an admin can configure a login to require a CAPTCHA.
Content Management
Magento store owners can create and manage quality content effectively, which helps distinguish their store from others, increases the visibility to search engines, and supports their customers. Merchants can promote their products and business by providing valuable information.
Merchants can create pages with text, images, blocks, and widgets. Admins can then link all this to other pages. Admins can even create blocks of content without writing any code. A block could contain text, images, and videos and be integrated into any part of the page layout. Merchants can create templates using the Page Builder. This helps to save time and effort when building or replacing content.
The content staging option in Magento gives every store owner the ability to create, preview, and schedule a wide range of content updates. Admins can automatically vary how their pages will look throughout the year on schedule. Admins can even create multiple versions of the same content for future updates.
Conclusion
Major eCommerce businesses, like Samsung, Nike, Ford, etc., have already placed their trust in the Magento ecosystem. There are more than 88,000 active websites in the United States alone that run on the Magento platform. When it comes to eCommerce, Magento is one of the most dominant names.
Magento is the perfect eCommerce solution that supports every business type. It is reliable, secure, flexible, scalable, high-performing, and so much more. The powerful built-in features of Magento Commerce assist every facet of your business. The customer support and variety of apps are second to none.
Magento leaves no stone unturned to ensure that your eCommerce website has all the functionalities it needs to succeed. Magento assures the smoothest browsing sessions for buyers. The Magento ecosystem comes with all the functionalities to lift your store to unimaginable heights. The quality user experience in Magento websites will only lead to more sales and revenue.
