When it comes to eCommerce there are plenty of content management systems available on the market; including Opencart, Woocommerce, Shopify and many more. Magento is the most dominant eCommerce platform however, and of all the eCommerce websites currently operating, the majority of them are built on the Magento platform.
Magento encompasses virtually everything an eCommerce website owner would want today, from the display of products and customer service to effective online transactions and security. Let’s have a look at few things that prove why Magento is the most preferred platform today.
Open for All
Magento is a powerful and flexible eCommerce platform with a whole range of options built in as standard. It is also an open source platform, which means it can be modified by any professional Magento developer to suit whatever requirements the owner has. Magento Community is free to download and install and would suit most small to medium businesses. When businesses grow and require additional performance, features and control, Magento extends its services with the paid version – Magento Enterprise Edition.
Customisation at its peak
The concept and operation of one eCommerce business is usually very different from another. One cannot just simply implement the design and services of a home furnishing site for their clothing store, and one would not want to simply copy another clothing store’s design, as this would cause massive brand confusion, as well as legal implications!
Magento is an open source platform and was created essentially for eCommerce so it is extremely modular and customisable. The Magento platform makes it easy to customise your website based on your branding rules and eCommerce business requirements.
With Magento you can design the front end the way you want it as well as altering the backend of the site as per your business needs; thereby building a site that is both user-friendly, easy to manage and efficient.
Fit for smartphones and tablets
Mobile phones and tablets have been growing in popularity for years, so it’s no surprise that more and more people are using their mobile devices to surf online and purchase the items they need through mobile websites.
Because of this, it has become all the more important to build a site that is responsive to the device it appears on. The Magento platform has mobile friendly technologies bound to it, thanks to its HTML5 capabilities. Magento optimises your site for mobile phones by extending drag and drop features, scalable images and gesture-based controls for all kinds of screen sizes.
Third Party App Integration
Your eCommerce store will likely need to run applications for processes such as payment, shipping and tracking to ensure your business runs efficiently. Magento has a huge marketplace of apps and extensions that can easily be added to your website to enhance it’s functioning, streamline your operation and make life easier for your customers.
Host of your choice
If we compare it to other eCommerce platforms like Shopify, the Magento platform enables you to choose the host and hosting package you want for your website. This means you have the freedom to select the host that suits both your budget and your site’s needs. The bigger and more powerful your website gets, the better hosting and support package you’ll need to ensure optimum performance for your customers.
No more waiting
The majority of users today demand a site that loads instantly. If a site takes too long to load the users will simply choose to leave the site and will likely spend their money elsewhere. With site loading time being so important, not just for usability but also for SEO, retailers need to rely on a platform that will load their eCommerce offering without delay. Magento has a few site speed extensions, but we like to use an extension called varnish, which quickly caches the pages of your site. It retrieves information from the database within seconds and loads the page much faster so that customers don’t leave your site due to it not loading.
Multiple Stores on One System
Unlike other eCommerce platforms, Magento lets you run multiple stores from the same backend system. Having the same backend doesn’t mean you have to have identical storefronts or compromise on design however; you can design completely different layouts and looks for each store using the system.
Magento is safe and secure
One of the most important factors when running an online store is safety and security. Protecting your business information and the data of your customers is a big topic, but one that Magento takes care of. Both Magento Community and Magento Enterprise have inbuilt security measures, and there are a range of security extensions you can add to increase safety if required. One of the big selling points of the paid Magento Enterprise version is that it has more advanced and powerful security features, providing that extra level of confidence for owners dealing with huge numbers of transactions.
Wrapping it up
We (and a large number of the world’s biggest online retailers) feel Magento is one of the most flexible and customisable open source systems available that has the capability to run even the most intricate eCommerce website effectively. We also love it because it was built with the intention of giving a great experience to its owners and users alike. We hope we have given you enough reasons to give it a try. If you are looking for Magento experts to take you on your next eCommerce journey, we are happy to help. Contact us today.