Silly question: is your business online easy? Okay, here are more, then: Is your business living up to its full potential online? Do you have all the tools and support you need to make this happen? This is where things get much more complicated. How does one calculate success? What signs should one watch out for to distinguish a business that is highly successful online from one that just isn’t? One of these signs is the presence/absence and level of development of the company’s ecommerce presence, its online store or distribution platform. If you have done research on this, you know that while those purporting to provide “the” ecommerce system number in the thousands, more often the “Ah!”-factor is either an expensive add-on or a feature they are still working to develop. Don’t despair – there is a solution for you that should put all of these “ifs” and “buts” to rest. It’s called Magento Ecommerce – a solution already discovered and recognized for its worth by such household names as Nike, Paul Smith, Oneida, Papyrus, and Vizio, among dozens and dozens others.
Released in 2008, Magento Ecommerce is, in essence, a highly scalable and adjustable platform that actually provides its code to developers in open source, i.e. for free. This means that a professional that knows what they are doing can quickly work to add or enhance the features – those would-be-nice-to-have features that you have been waiting for. It also means that you can customize the product to meet your needs and specifications. Yes, it is that simple to finally bring your ecommerce to a brand new level: a trained expert in Magento can truly create miracles for you and your business.
Why is Magento Better?
Based on thorough research into this and other platforms out there, Magento Ecommerce is unmatched in terms of the level of sophistication, integration with both payment gateways (PayPal, Google Checkout, ePay – you name it) and shippers (including the big three of UPS, DHL and FedEx). A secure portal is combined with an easy-to-use interface that displays pricing and taxes for the specific region, real-time shipping rates and flat rate shipping information, complex functionality allowing for multiple addresses in the same order, and the option to activate discounted or free shipping.
The potential of Magento Ecommerce for your business is limited by imagination itself. Through a complex system of analytics, reporting and even customer service, Magento clearly wins the race. While online businesses may have grown accustomed to sales and tax reports, but no other platform provides the close integration with Google Analytics and SEO that one sees here. A rich customer experience is made more likely through a system of user-friendly customer accounts, order emails, customized orders and efficient order tracking. As a result, not only would you be happy with the product, but it would ensure the satisfaction of your clients and their appreciation of the effort your company has put into top-notch online customer service.
Different Magento Ecommerce for Different Businesses
As you ponder on how it is possible to include such a rich network of features into the same product, perhaps it would interest you to know that Magento Ecommerce exists in three distinct forms: Magento Go, a low cost model designed primarily for smaller start-up businesses, Magento Community, the next step that allows for faster growth and more complex business processes, and Magento Enterprise, the full version with a large library of pre-developed enhancements to the more basic ones that also comes with ongoing product support and training. The word is that Magento Enterprise also comes in a “premium” package that includes multiple licenses and professional code review.
When deciding on the version that would benefit you most, consider not only the initial cost factor, but also the level of expertise that you can involve in the transition to this exciting system. While your in-house IT specialist may be able to set up Magento to execute its bare-bones functions, it is highly recommended to contract an expert with specific knowledge and training in Magento Ecommerce if you would like this to be not only a step in the right direction, but a visible and successful step at that. After all, why would you want to stop half-way to a breakthrough in your online sales and customer service?
About the Author: This article was written by Ira Quijas, who knows that Magento ecommerce platform has a lot of potential that people need to tap into.
