Is Magento Really the Best eCommerce Platform? By James Tredwell on September 27, 2021 Over the last few years, the global eCommerce landscape has continued to change and grow as more and more people purchase their needs online. According to Statista, an average of 80% of consumers globally shop online. Businesses must create an eCommerce site to meet their customer’s demands and not lose business. Building an eCommerce site is accessible with all the available beginner-friendly platforms like Shopify. But if you are not acquainted with technology and the internet, looking for the best eCommerce platforms may be difficult. It might be overwhelming to find the perfect one with all the pool of options online. You might need to weigh the price, pros and cons, and features. However, one platform is considered the best by many web developers and business owners, Magento. This eCommerce platform is excellent, that big corporations like Nike, Nestle, and Ford use it for their eCommerce websites. This article will help you understand why we consider Magento as one of the best. What Is Magento? Magento is an open-source eCommerce CMS platform available on the market. It is considered one of the best eCommerce platforms as it provides online merchants with the option to customize their online stores. The platforms offer flexibility and control in the design and overall functionality of the website. Originally, Magento was developed by Variend Inc. in 2008. It was later acquired by Adobe Inc. in 2018. Up to this date, more than 100,000 online stores have been created on this platform, selling $155 billion worth of products. Why is Magento the best eCommerce Platform? Many developers and business owners try to compare different eCommerce platforms like Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Magento. Still, Magento is considered one of the top eCommerce platforms. Magento, remarkably, is the go-to platform of many merchants and web developers. To this date, 12% of online retails stores use Magento. But why is it trendy? As mentioned earlier, Magento offers a competitive edge that is not available on other platforms. It is flexible and helps merchants create powerful marketing campaigns, integrate SEO, and develop catalog-management tools. Understandably, many business owners might still not be convinced with this explanation. It is scary to commit some of the most common eCommerce mistakes, like choosing the wrong platform. Thus, here are some explanations for why Magento is considered the best platform. 10 Reasons Why Magento is the Best eCommerce Platform Being the best eCommerce platform for products and services, Magento helps companies deliver seamless shopper experiences and increase sales and revenue. As such, here is a more in-depth description of the features of Magento: 1. Magento is open source As above-mentioned, Magento is an open-source CMS that was built using PHP. You can use Magento to develop your own website and online stores for free. You just need to pay for web hosting, around $10 per month. In addition, Magento also has an enterprise edition that works well with large brands that offer more products. This version, however, costs $18,000 per year but covers more features than the free one. 2. Third-party components and extensions One feature that made Magento popular and successful is that it can easily be integrated with third-party tools, solutions, and frameworks. The platform supports integration for many third-party extensions and applications, making it easier for developers and owners to update their online stores. Might it be a secure payment gateway, shipping software, inventory management, or CRM software, Magento lets you add this to your website effortlessly? Aside from that, you can also perform an in-depth analysis using another programming language such as Python. All you need to do is load up the Magento data on a third-party cloud data warehouse and connect Python to this database. You can now analyze the data using Python or other best Python frameworks. 3. Tons of customization options Magento accommodates more than just extensions and plugins. The platform is highly customizable, and any merchant can tailor their online store that fits their needs and brand. With Magento, everything is customizable – from layout, designs, and colors to product details, payment gateways, and shipping methods. A poorly designed store can ruin your business’ image. Magento frontend provides highly extensible themes that can be customized and transformed in appearance. In addition, the platform offers several tools such as Magento Blank Theme, an overview of UI Components, and an admin pattern library. These tools can help you or your developers in the storefront customization process. With Magento, you can customize the user’s dashboard and design the perfect store. The customization options do not stop from there. Magento Backend customization is also possible to be implemented. The backend is your store’s data access layer where most information is being held. The backend contains product data, orders, customer information, terms and conditions, and more. It helps eCommerce websites to operate by processing and storing transferring data to and from the front end. Magento makes it easier for business operators to handle orders and shipping with its features like multiple product editing, orders management and fulfillment, targeted and integrated shipping, and more. 4. Great speed and highly scalable Magento is considered one of the fastest eCommerce platforms available online. The loading page of Magento eCommerce sites is impressive even when the website receives a high volume of traffic. The loading speed of web pages is vital for traffic, conversions, and SEO. Both customers and merchants would want an online store that loads fast. No customer would visit an online store that takes ages to load, which could affect business sales. In addition, slow loading pages can increase your website’s bounce rate, which affects your SEO. Magento is great for any kind of store, from tiny starting businesses to huge established companies. The platform is entirely scalable. You can add more features and products anytime without affecting the speed and performance of your website. 5. Security is easy SSL Security and dedicated IP can easily be implemented with Magento. It can help a customer feel safe when buying from you and when providing personal information. Magento is compliant with the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) and follows a global security standard with 14 vital protection criteria compared to other eCommerce platforms. PA-DSS is perfect for large businesses that sell products globally. 6. A great community One perk of using Magento is its vast global community of developers who share tips with each other. These individuals help each other in solving technical support issues through multiple forums and events. You don’t need to worry when you face any problems. The community can help you with bug fixes using the latest innovations. Aside from that, Magento has volunteers worldwide that create patches and plugins to make the software the best as possible. 7. Mobile-friendly and responsive design Mobile devices today are basically people’s extensions of their arms. They carry their mobile devices anywhere. In eCommerce, a large percentage of transactions are now being done via mobile devices. Due to this, online stores need to be mobile responsive for flawless continuous business. The Magento eCommerce features responsive web design (RWD) websites that provide users optimal UI/UX across any platform, from desktop computers to tablets to mobile devices. Magento ensures that all stores built on its platform can run and be viewed flawlessly on all handheld devices. 8. SEO uriented eCommerce platform SEO is important to all businesses. It helps enterprises increase traffic, leads, and sales. It can also help companies to establish their brand. As such, companies need to pick an eCommerce platform that is SEO-friendly. This way, you can take your search engine ranking to the next level. Magento created advanced SEO features that let business owners improve their page ranking in popular search engines. The platform enables you to optimize your web page URLs, develop a sitemap, create snippets, optimize keywords, add Alt tags for images, and more. With these built-in features, Magento is regarded as the most distinguished eCommerce platform SEO-wise as you can quickly integrate your SEO strategies into your website. 9. Multiple website option One of Magento’s key features is its multiple store management. You host and control many websites in just one backend account. Business owners who operate numerous brands can create as many online stores as possible and handle them in a single admin panel. This feature can also help businesses that cater worldwide and have customers using various languages. Magento allows developers to expand and extend their platforms and create multiple versions of your current website with different languages and currencies. In this way, Magento benefits business owners and shoppers of all kinds. 10. It can be integrated with CRM To top up its own powerful features, Magento allows CRM integration to efficiently manage the business processes. With CRM integration, you can generate high-quality customer insights and enhance your customer’s support quality and marketing campaigns. Good customer experience can help businesses to upgrade and gain even more consumers. In addition, features like contact management, marketing automation, social media channels, and email marketing can be integrated into your Magento CRM. A great CRM solution can help retailers with their businesses and make things easier for their team. The Bottom Line! Magento is an excellent and one of the best multi-channel eCommerce platforms available out there. It provides outstanding features that can help online store owners create their dream eCommerce website that is fast, optimized, and user friendly. It offers features that other platforms do not such as CRM, SEO, and tools. So, before you miss out, try and leverage Magento and create the best eCommerce website. Author Bio. :- Roque Pospos is a digital content specialist for Flexisource IT Outsourcing, a team of Agile experts and certified professionals committed to improving traditional outsourcing practices.