Launched in 2008 and developed since, Magento is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, with a 34% share in the market. That being said, Magento is not a solution for everyone: good knowledge of Java and PHP Zend Framework are mandatory to create e-commerce solutions with Magento. However, in the hands of a professional Magento allows to design high quality e-commerce websites and compete with the biggest retailers online. Ready to check why Magento is simply the best shopping cart out there?
Here is our list of the main advantages of Magento:
Flexibility and Customization
Magento is an open-source platform and it is continuously developed by its users. Magento developers are free to implement core files and add new modules to improve the software functionality. The result is enhanced flexibility of Magento and its adaptability to all kinds of requirements and needs.
Unlimited Options
Magento provides its users with hundreds of plug-ins and themes. You can create functional e-commerce solutions out-of-the-box, without any additional extensions, however if you need any plug-ins you can easily find and purchase them for an affordable price.
Reliability and Support
Professional technical support is available only to the customers, who have purchased Magento Enterprise Edition. The lack of official support in Community Edition (offered for free to all users) could be a major disadvantage, however if you consider how large the community of Magento users is and how dedicated they are to developing the most effective e-commerce solutions, the problem becomes less troubling.
If you experience any difficulties when working with Magento software, you can easily find the solutions by becoming an active member of the Magento community, regularly checking Magento forums.
Customer Friendly e-commerce
Last, but not least, Magento delivers what every customer shopping online wants: safe and easy solutions, which translate into secure and quick shopping. The Magento community continues to work on developing user interface, which is customer friendly and follows current trends in e-commerce. Good news for marketing managers: Magento uses Google Analytics, as well as other popular marketing tools, increasing the chances of success for your online venture. Magento is also SEO friendly, providing useful features for search engine optimization experts.
Advantages Over the Competition
To sum up, unlike many other free e-commerce platforms, Magento is totally customizable and based on an open-source core system. Magento provides its users with hundreds of useful features and has been developed by a large community for the last 5 years, which is an important advantage over new shopping carts. Advanced SEO options and the ability to support more than one website and one online store at a time are also the reasons why users choose Magento over other e-commerce platforms.
The main disadvantages of Magento are paid features and customer support, as well as the high level of expertise required to use the software to its full potential. However, Magento offers enough free features to respond to your needs and is highly recommended as the next step for businesses, which have already outgrown the popular hosted shopping carts.
Written by Marta Gromadzka, a blogger, a copywriter, a marketing specialist.
