Now, you might be thinking that if Magento is for big brands only? Should you choose Magento for your eCommerce website? Is Magento available for free? Is Magento better than other eCommerce platforms? Is Magento the best eCommerce platform for your online business? And all other similar questions. This curated blog will answer all these questions and give you a complete insight on the reasons to choose Magento for your online eCommerce store.
Why Magento is the best eCommerce platform
In the last few years, the number of eCommerce stores at the disposal of merchants have increased considerably. Merchants can choose from Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Volusion, Zen Cart, Prestashop, Neto etcetera. Given all these choices, why is it widely accepted that Magento is the best eCommerce platform? Let us look at the top reasons.
The Open Source (Free) nature of Magento
Magento comes in three versions:
- Community Edition which is free
- Enterprise Edition which is paid
- Go Edition which is paid and hosted by Magento servers.
Magento Community edition, as you might expect, is the most popular one and is fully open-source. It also has one of the largest developer community that is regularly highlighting security weaknesses and building new extensions for a smooth and seamless experience benefiting both merchants and customers.
Moreover, Magento Community edition is free to download and install for you eCommerce store. You, as a merchant, have the option to edit the source code of themes and install suitable extensions as per your desire. For this kind of theme customization, you will probably need to hire a Certified Magento Developer because it can be a complex task depending on the level of customization required by you. As for extensions, they can be installed at Magento Connect Marketplace.
In case, your requirement is a high-end platform with flawless security features (like Security Payment Bridge) then you can always opt for Magento Enterprise edition. Either way, Magento is a complete solution for your online store needs.
Magento is custom-designed for eCommerce
The unique thing about Magento is that the framework was built keeping in mind the eCommerce platform only. Other content management systems like WordPress and Drupal offer eCommerce functionalities via external plugins. However, Magento is solely made for building online stores so this gives it a competitive edge. Magento platform boasts features likes dashboards, consumer segmentation, enhanced shipping functionality, payment integrations like Paypal, inventory and product management.
Liberty to choose your own Hosting Service
Magento framework allows you to select a hosting of your choice, which means you have the liberty to select your own dirt-cheap or flexible hosting. This option is not available for other eCommerce platforms like Shopify. Moreover, switching to a different host is pretty smooth in Magento as well if you are not satisfied with your existing hosting provider. Users who want to upgrade to Magento Go can enjoy the benefits of a hosted platform, in addition to all the features included in Magento Community edition.
Easy App Integrations
As a merchant, you will need third-party integrations and plugins that will increase control over your online eCommerce store. For most eCommece platforms, the integration to third-party apps is under their control and often charge for some plugins and extensions. This is where Magento platform takes the lead again. Magento has an extensible API that allows for connection with payment gateways, shipment methods, analytics and so on. The additional benefit is that most of these plugins are free of cost and some premium extensions may cost just a couple of dollars.
Modular and Customizable
The modules and customization ability in Magento makes it most suitable for industries ranging from fashion to health to furniture. The modular technology of Magento enables the merchant to develop sleek user interfaces for improved customer experience. The right Magento expert will modify all plugins and templates to your specific requirements. Nothing in Magento cannot be altered. Both front-end and back-end code can be modified to suit your online store needs.
Lightning Fast
An average internet user will not wait for more than two seconds for your website to load. Hence, it is increasingly becoming important to have a super-fast online store. A customer who clicks on your website and leaves without even seeing the homepage results in a decrease in conversion rate.
Magento comes to the rescue yet again! Using Varnish to cache pages and fast query processing, this eCommerce platform loads at a lightning speed while keeping all the functionalities intact. Other database optimization techniques that make Magento stores fast include Memcached and Redis. All these facilities make sure that the customer receives swift gratification and does not wander off!
Multiple Websites – One Backend System
Magento allows its users to manage more than one online store using same back-end system. Each website can be built on a different design, color scheme and can have a separate domain. With the same admin panel, you can control inventory levels, customer orders, billing information, customer profile and much more. The unification of multiple stores in a single admin panel facilitates the merchants to manage and administer their multiple stores.
Enhanced SEO features
SEO is imperative if you want your online store to be noticed in Google and other search engines. Optimizing SEO features like URLs, meta tags, meta descriptions, category structures can be a daunting task for an eCommerce site with hundreds of pages.
However, with Magento this is automatically optimized as the source code comes with all the necessary features, that saves merchants’ time and efforts that they can put on their product and design. This Magento SEO optimization means that organic searches can find their way to your online store and increase your conversion rate. The more the visitors, the more the conversion.
Seamless Mobile Experience
Increasingly, people are using their mobile phones to browse, use social media and buy online. This brings a pressing need for the mobile experience to be responsive and seamless. The statistics of internet usage have recently titled in favor of cellphones leaving desktop PCs behind.
Magento makes sure that mobile experience of potential customers is way above par. Magento’s HTML5 ability makes is mobile-friendly to users by giving your website the option to incorporate audio visuals, drag and drop functionalities and enable other sizing and scaling capabilities.
Spread Worldwide with Magento
Merchants lose many customers when their website is hosted on different eCommerce platforms which do not support payments in international currency. Visitors from Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia are quite valuable, and not allowing international users to make a purchase from your online store is simply ‘money left on the table’.
Using Magento, merchants can overcome this problem as the framework allows for several currencies and tax rates. Various payment plugins can be integrated into a Magento website to accept payments worldwide. Plugins can also be installed to display your Magento store in the users’ local language or even text from right to left.
Conclusion
All in all, Magento is a power-house platform when it comes to building online eCommerce stores. It’s a top choice of famous brands in the world and has a rapidly increasing growth rate among merchants all around the globe. This blog tried to answer the question that, why you should choose Magento for your online store and has aimed to make the decision, of selecting the best eCommerce platform, for your online business, easier.
One last thing to note here is that Magento is not a ‘plug and play” solution, you need to hire an expert Magento developer who will build your online eCommerce store from scratch.