Thirteen Reasons Why Magento Makes eCommerce Cents
Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform written in PHP that was initially released for general availability in 2008. Varien, Inc., a company out of California, was the original Magento developer. Early on, however, eBay acquired Magento from Varien and continued its development into the platform that it is today.
Two major versions of Magento have been released, the first in 2008, and the second in 2015. Magento 2.0 sought to improve user engagement, navigation, conversion rates, and overall revenue generation for store owners. The software user experience is vastly better in the newer version because user tools are now organized more organically for both new and experienced users. Other enhancements in Magento 2.0 include:
- Better code base, better performance
- Reduction in table locking issues
- Better page caching
- Scalability designed for enterprise application
- Structured data that leverages built-in rich snippets
- New, customizable file structure
- LESS & CSS URL resolver used for CSS Preprocessing
- Utilization of the entity–attribute–value model for storage
- Model-View-ViewModel pattern is used in front-end code
Magento has two unique platforms:
- Magento Open Source
- Magento Commerce (also available in an on-premise version)
Magento Open Source is an open-source version of the eCommerce platform that has been developed to be a free basic eCommerce platform that can benefit from community development. Magento Commerce is a service platform. The on-premises version of Magento Commerce has the same root files as Magento Open Source but with greater functionality and a corresponding cost. It’s designed for large businesses that need technical support related to installation, usage, configuration, and troubleshooting. Hosting is not included with either platform.
With a slew of awards to its name, including making it onto the 2017 Internet Retailer Top 1000, B2B 300, and Europe 500 lists, we’ll take a look at why Magento is a global power and the leading eCommerce platform.
- Flexibility. Magento is open-source and agile, givingyou the ability to create highly personalized user experiences that are dynamic depending upon the access device. The free version of Magento can be downloaded and changed in any way you’d like.
- Innovative. Globally, 150,000 developers are working to keep Magento secure, speedy, and ahead of the game. Common challenges are documented and solved through open forums. This community characteristic helps store owners overcome roadblocks without the use of a consultant, agency, or contractor. No IT team can keep up with this flexible, on-demand level of cutting-edge effort.
- Customizable. You have the ability to customize and extend your business’ platform to differentiate your brand. You can enhance your store’s features virtually any way you’d like with Magento Marketplace. They have the world’s largest selection of tested extensions and the ability to customize those extensions to meet your business’ needs.
- Solid implementation support. Magento has a Solution Partner Program that puts over 300 highly-trained and certified experts at your fingertips. These experts can help you create an amazing customer experience quickly.
- Impressive statistics. Merchants who use Magento typically grow three times faster and see a 50% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership than those using alternative platforms.
- It’s popular. In fact, it’s the most popular Content Management System (CMS) for eCommerce. Over 250,000 merchants across the world use Magento. Some of the biggest companies in the world, including Samsung, Fort, FoxConnect, Lenovo, Olympus, Men’s Health, Vizio, Nestle Nespresso, Fred Perry, Harvey Nichols, Warby Parker, and Nike all use Magento.
- eCommerce specific. There are plenty of CMS solutions out there, but few are built specifically for eCommerce like Magento is. The basic Magento solution comes with tons of out-of-the-box features and specs, so you can stand your business up quickly.
- Scalable. With Magento’s multiple platform options, it can deliver the features your business needs, no matter the size.
- Performance. Magento repeatedly delivers the fastest performance parameters, including page load speed and query processing, among others.
- Multi-tenant. You can have multiple online stores with all of the related management tools accessible from one dashboard.
- Integration ease. Magento plays nice with a bunch of third-party systems, including payment gateways and shipment tracking.
- SEO-friendly. Magento comes out-of-the-box with a number of SEO-friendly features, including URLs, sitemaps, layered navigation, URL rewrites and meta tags.
- Mobile commerce support. Both Magento platforms include HTML5 capabilities, ensuring fantastic mobile shopping experiences.
You can learn even more about Magento here. If you’d like help evaluating whether Magento is the right fit for your business, look to the experts at Nixa.ca. They are the most trusted firm for custom web development and strategy services that take advantage of all of the latest technology trends in the market.