Having an online store is a major part of any business' success. Many companies have taken to the web as a way to reach more people and expand their opportunities. In doing so, many have turned to open source ecommerce solutions such as Magento.

What is Magento?

Since its launch in 2014, Magento has been one of the most popular e-commerce platforms available in the market. Magento is a popular platform used by online businesses to create e-commerce sites. It can help with tasks such as displaying products, processing orders, and managing customer relationships. In addition, the many extensions available for Magento allow you to integrate various third-party software into your site if necessary.

Benefits of using Magento

Using a content management system like Magento can provide several key business benefits for your business:

Reduce costs

With a CMS, updates that would otherwise have been handled by in-house or contracted developers become much simpler.

Improved security

A CMS provides better security procedures than most small businesses can develop themselves, reducing the risk of hackers gaining access to your site and data.

Improved search engine optimization (SEO)

Most CMS's provide built-in tools which make it much easier for search engines to crawl and index your site, meaning you'll likely achieve a higher ranking more quickly than with a non-CMS site.

Content delivery

A CMS allows multiple people within and outside of your business to contribute to and publish content on your website without affecting the underlying code, as long as those users have appropriate permissions.

Customizable design

Choosing an out-of-the box design is great for getting started quickly, but eventually you might want or need a custom design that better fits the look, feel and function of your website. A CMS allows you to tailor your site's design.

Low cost of ownership

A CMS may have a higher initial license fee, but there are usually additional long-term savings due to the low cost of software updates and maintenance.

Support

Top Magento development companies offer some form of support with their CMS license, either through an annual support contract or an online knowledge base. And since more people use these systems than proprietary code, there is also a larger pool of developers who can help resolve issues that arise.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

There are many "SEO-friendly" features built into the best CMS platforms, such as the ability to create descriptive URLs and meta tags.

Community support

Since there are multiple CMSs available for use, chances are that more people have experience with one than any single proprietary solution — which means you'll find it easier to get help when you need it.

Why Magento can be the best for your online business?

There are many reasons why Magento can be the best for your online business. It has become one of the most popular shopping cart solutions in today's market. From small businesses to large enterprises, it takes care of their requirements efficiently.

Let us have a look at some compelling features that make Magento the first choice of businessmen all over the world.

Easy to Use Interface

With Magento's user-friendly interface, your website can be up and running within minutes after installation, without any complicated configurations or programming skills required. And it works on all modern browsers, including Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 3+, Safari 5+ and Chrome 4+. You can simply customize the look of your website using tools like "theme builder".

Even though Magento is open source, there are lots of things that set it apart from other eCommerce platforms. One such thing is its user-friendly interface which allows users to manage their store very easily without any prior experience either in programming or website design/development. Nowadays, people do not have much time to spare – they do not want to go through a long learning curve before actually starting their business.

Magento also offers beginners a great opportunity to set up the Magento Web store of their dreams without any hassle. It provides easy navigation options and at the same time, gives enough scope for professional practitioners to make it more responsive and effective.

Multiple Payment Options

Like most other ecommerce platforms, Magento can accept a number of payment options including PayPal, ApplePay and credit card transactions.

There are several payment options available, which make the process of online shopping secure and reliable for users. Merchants can offer multiple payment options with each product page. For example, they can provide different payment options like PayPal, Cash on Delivery etc., when selling a particular product. Also, there are many extensions that help merchants add more features to their websites. The modules are very easy to install and use.

One-Page Checkout

The one-page checkout process makes it easier for customers to check out from your website. This will make them add more items to the cart and thus increase your sale. In this respect too, Magento is miles ahead of many ecommerce platforms which force people to add items one by one while making the purchase.

In order to increase your sales, you need to make your customers feel really good about purchasing from your website. And one way to achieve this is by offering them a smooth shopping experience with just a one-page checkout option! Magento understands that speed is required in eCommerce websites these days and therefore, it allows users to process multiple orders simultaneously on a single page. Moreover, it lets users save their credit card details too.

SEO Enhancements

With its built-in SEO features like URL rewrites, meta tags and a robots .txt file, you could easily promote your business in the search engines without paying someone else to do it.

One of the best features of Magento is that it has a super-friendly search engine optimization functionality. It means you don't have to make changes in your website's coding every time you want to publish something on a different page, say blog or FAQ section. Users can easily find what they are looking for on an eCommerce website using this feature. Further, it improves the site speed and makes the site more user-friendly as well!

Powerful Admin Panel

The admin panel in Magento is quite powerful and there are many features that can be accessed through it. This makes system management easier.

The admin panel provided by this software is one of its kind. In fact, Magento provides 16 times more power compared to its closest competitor. It has an inbuilt feature to create powerful reports. You can easily monitor your business processes using this software.

Social Media Integration

Magento allows you to connect your online store with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin etc. There is no need to pay yet another service provider to do this job for you.

Integrating a social media login on your website allows users to log into their existing account/s on popular platforms such as Facebook or Google+, providing a seamless transition from browsing on your site to sharing with friends. Two standout technologies in this area are Magento Enterprise Edition and Shopify Plus. In general, Magento has more flexibility in building custom interfaces and deep integrations with external applications.

Unlimited Customization

One of the key benefits of Magento is its flexibility for tailoring and customization. Magento Community Edition provides a flexible platform to build unique shopping experiences. Shopify, on the other hand, offers limited options for customizing your storefront design or user experience. Both platforms give you unlimited access to support staff who are available 24/7 via phone or email in case you need help updating your site or resolving any issues that may arise.

If none of the pre-defined templates meets your requirement, you can create your own design or use one created by someone else and import everything into Magento including products, categories, pages etc. You could even upload custom images with the help of different extensions like lightbox popup image gallery etc.

Free Technical Support

Magento comes with a dedicated site for user documentation and download. The support is also provided through Magento connect and paid enterprise support program. There are several YouTube tutorials available. This makes it easy to get started and learn more along the way.

Another plus for Magento is that it offers free technical support without time limits whereas Shopify Plus has monthly fees for unlimited access to technical support staff. Depending on what type of ecommerce website you are looking to build, Magento's flexibility may be preferable for your business. Some users also prefer using Magento because it is an open-source platform that has been around since 2008, compared to the relative newcomer Shopify Plus which launched in 2014.

When it comes to security standards, both platforms utilize SSL certificates for user authentication and security purposes. However, according to a review by Aptoide, Magento offers better enterprise-level security than Shopify does.

High Security Standards

Magento has been named as "most secure open-source shopping cart" in 2013 by the G2 Crowd survey. It's PCI compliant, encrypts cardholder data at the time of swipe & tokenization, provides advanced security options like two-factor authentication, IP whitelisting etc.

Compared to other platforms out there, Magento has some of the strictest security standards in place for protecting your site and data. The software is updated constantly with security patches so hackers can't get in. A strong encryption system protects all credit card numbers during transactions. It also prevents users from accessing pages they do not have permission to use.

Advanced Marketing Tools

Finally, one of the areas where Magento really shines is the availability of multiple free marketing tools that can help you promote your store and boost sales. Since Shopify Plus is focused on ecommerce stores only, its range of marketing tools is more limited. Magento understands the importance of marketing. It has advanced features like personalization, site search, product recommendations to help you develop a customer base through relevant content and experience that they are looking for.

It's true--you really can sell more when using Magento. For starters, the platform offers built-in SEO tools, making it easier for search engines to crawl your site. You can optimize content for mobile devices. You can even track your Google Adwords campaigns through an automated system.

Best Features of Magento

To sum up, it can be concluded that Magento is one of its kind eCommerce platform created by professionals keeping all the user requirements in mind. It's a complete package for online business owners with all the tools, features and functionalities that are required to run a successful eCommerce website. It is very intuitively designed so that new users don't have any issues understanding it's working even if they are shopping for the first time.

Also, There are many Extensions available in the market which makes it easier for merchants to use more features on their websites. Also, since Magento is open source you can always customize Magento according to your need without having to pay anything extra. However, there is always room for improvement as it sometimes proves difficult to upload large files sizes on the platform but this problem has been addressed by developers of Magento through constant updates.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a professional shopping cart to take care of all your eCommerce needs, consider Magento Commerce Open Source as it is the best available platform to suit your online business not only in terms of features but also price. You can also try this free demo before making any commitment. It will help you understand this amazing eCommerce solution better.