The world of eCommerce solutions has been crowded for a while. Businesses can choose from custom proprietary shopping carts, hosted ecommerce solution and of course our favorite open source solutions. There are positives and negatives like in anything else and choosing the backend for your store is no easy task. In the open source work Magneto is being used more often than any others for some specific reasons we will cover bellow.
Usability, available extensions, and the ability to scale up as your business grows. While other solutions may be easier to use for beginners, Magento is a great choice for those who have a realistic plan for sustained growth. There are couple different options in Magento world, but will will be focusing here on open source commerce.
Usability
The Magento back end can be intimidating to the new users. It may not be as intiuitive as other solutions, but it offers better functionality and has more room for customizations. Working with a designer who is experienced in Magento web design can alleviate many of the headaches that new users may experience when trying to get their stores launched. The great news is that Magento has hundreds of extensions, that can be customized to fit a specific store owner’s needs.
Extensions
Extensions on eCommerce platforms work in a similar way as plugins do for content management systems like WordPress. These are developed in a way to enhance a store’s sales funnel. They include extensions that add countdown timers, discount offers, tax calculators and even stock indicators to show the availability of a particular product.
For store owners who do not have the budget to have a custom platform designed, Magento is the best solution. The platform itself is open source. This allows web design company, independent developers or freelancers, to customize the code to the specific needs and the end result can be a professional looking site at a fraction of the price when compared to a custom platform built from the ground up.
Scalability
The knock on many platforms and content management systems alike is that they limit the growth of the sites they power. Magento works well for both smaller operations as well as enterprise level eCommerce stores. The software is resource intensive, requiring more robust hosting capabilities, but the room to grow is ideal for any company that has a plan to grow into the undisputed leader in their market.
A Nearly Unrivaled Solution
Investing in solid Magento web design is a good choice for those with the vision to see their stores succeed at the highest level of online commerce. For any of its drawbacks, there are significant positives that make it worth every penny.