Magento is one of the hundreds of eCommerce platforms available in the market today. However it is also one of the most popular due to it being budget friendly. It also has great features. So let’s explore what is Magento.
What is Magento – The Beginning
Open source allows you to personalize the online store as per your brand and products.
Magento started because the eCommerce software at the time came with a lot of limitations for online stores. With the help of volunteers a US based company, Varien Inc, created an easier eCommerce program. An out of the box solution which creates online stores.
The Versions
Community
- It is free with no yearly license and no product or order limitations.
- Small and medium businesses love this version.
- Can handle 500 orders per day.
- Customers between 1,000 and 2,000 can browse the shop easily.
- And finally especially relevant support is available only via the forums and through other Magento developers.
Enterprise
- It has a pricey yearly license.
- Most Fortune 500 companies use this version.
- Also, can easily handle over 5,000 orders per day.
- Visitors over 50,000 can be surf the store with ease.
- 24 x 7 dedicated Customer Service is available.
What is Magento – The Features
- Comes with a Basic Magento Theme that you can use.
- Configure your shop as you require using easy dropdown menus in the admin side.
- Setup your products in single, configurable, bundles or groups.
- Connect with shipping couriers so that your customers can see the shipping charges at the time of checkout.
- Pay in different ways.
- Abandoned shopping cart notification system in place for customers.
- Flexible price rules for discounts and promotions.
- Newsletter subscription
- Furthermore messages can be added by customers to products who wish to gift them.
What is Magento for eCommerce owners
Magento is a program which needs hosting services. Due to this, you have the flexibility to choose a host according to your requirements, locality and budget.
Magento is open source. What this means is that the blueprint of the Magento code is open to the general public. Therefore developers from all over the world can use and alter the code as they wish. Hence this helps in catching bugs faster and updating the Mage code.
Because of the way Magento has been created, you can customize your shop as you see fit. Choose from tons of themes from sites like ThemeForest. Or you can even create your own theme for branding purposes.
You can also add extensions for advanced features. For example, search engine optimization. In the same way you can also add incentives for customers like loyalty programs and store credits.
And finally you can easily upgrade your Community store to Enterprise. If you need help with this, Contact our Magento Experts.