Is Magento the Best Ecommerce Platform Out There?
Ecommerce, or online buying and selling, is at an all-time high and still growing. At the beginning of this year, Insider Intelligence reported that US ecommerce sales were expected to cross $1 trillion for the first time in 2022. There is no doubt about it: ecommerce is big business.
When you are starting or scaling an ecommerce business, there are numerous different things you will need to consider and juggle. As well as choosing the best products to sell and setting prices, you will also need to do market research, understand your competition, make branding decisions, and market your business. One vital decision you’ll need to make early on is this: which ecommerce platform should I use?
What is Magento?
There are now many different ecommerce platforms on the market. Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shift4Shop are just some of the names you may have heard of. Another tremendously popular platform is Magento.
First released in 2008, Magento is an ecommerce tool built on open source software using PHP. Magento 2.0 was released in 2015, and Adobe Inc. acquired the platform for $1.68 billion in 2018. To date, more than 150,000 online shops have been created using the platform. According to Rolustech, the platform now accounts for 12% of ecommerce stores and 1.2% of the entire internet.
So is Magento the best ecommerce platform out there? We think so! Here are just a few of the reasons why.
Magento is Cost-Effective
As an open source software platform, Magento itself is free of charge. If you’re in the early stages of starting your business, cost is likely to be a huge factor in your business decisions, making Magento a great choice.
The money you save by using an open source ecommerce platform like Magento will free up more capital to be invested into Magento web development services, marketing efforts, research and development of your products, and so on. This makes it a smart choice for new and growing ecommerce businesses.
Magento is a High-Performing, Feature-Rich Platform
Despite its relative cost-effectiveness, Magento more than matches up to its more expensive counterparts in terms of performance. Just some of Magento’s great features include an intuitive user interface, detailed client accounts, an array of features to help you improve the customer experience, promotional and marketing tools, advanced reporting, and multiple options for accepting payments.
Magento is Completely Flexible
Every business is unique, and Magento puts your ecommerce store in your hands. From completely customizable themes to the fantastic Custom Development Module, Magento allows you to customize and personalize every single aspect of your store.
Magento has a strong community of users and developers who will be happy to offer any troubleshooting advice you might need. So if you want to do something with your site but you’re not sure how best to approach it, there is sure to be someone out there in the Magento community who can help.
Magento is SEO-Friendly
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is vital if you want to break through all the noise online and reach the right customers at the right time. Magento understands this and comes equipped with all the features you need to make an impression in search engine results.
Just some of the built-in SEO features include SEO-friendly URLs, meta information for products, Google sitemaps, title tags, and structured data. The blogging functionality also allows you to post articles that provide value to your site users while filling your site with the kind of search-optimized content that Google loves.
Magento is Fast
One of the biggest issues for ecommerce store owners comes in the form of cart abandonment. This is when a customer puts items in their basket on an ecommerce site, but does not check out.
According to Baymard, studies show that just under 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. That’s a lot of potential sales missed. And according to Kinsta, a slow website can increase cart abandonment by up to 75%. This means it is vital that your website performs reliably and loads quickly.
Fortunately, Magento is a fast platform and, as it is completely customizable, there are many optimizations you can do to ensure the best loading speed possible. This will reduce the number of abandoned carts you have to contend with. It will also keep your customers happy and ensure they return again and again.
Magento is Responsive
Responsive design refers to websites that work equally well across different devices, from desktop and laptop computers to smartphones and tablets. Once considered a nice-to-have, responsive design is now an essential.
Mcommerce, or online shopping using a mobile device such as a smartphone, is growing at an astonishing rate. Mcommerce retail sales reached $359 billion in 2021, a growth of 15% over the previous year, and are expected to account for around 44% of all US ecommerce sales by 2025. As you can see, if your site is not responsive you will be missing out on a lot of potential sales.
Fortunately, Magento is a fully responsive platform. Its various extensions and plugins allow you to switch between themes depending on the device visitors are using, convert your site into a fast-loading mobile version, or add a mobile-friendly live chat function.
Magento Allows You to Manage Multiple Sites
If you are an aspiring entrepreneur and considering the possibility of running multiple different ecommerce sites, Magento allows you to manage all your sites from one simple dashboard. This can save a huge amount of time and make your life much easier by reducing the administrative headaches that can come with running a business.
Where to Learn More
Here at Monogo, our team is committed to helping our clients grow by using the best and most reliable technologies on the market. Since 2011, we have worked across numerous industries and built a proven track-record of success. If you would like to learn more about how we can support you with your Magento ecommerce project, please get in touch and we will be pleased to have a no-obligation chat about your needs.
