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Is there still room for you to make millions in e-commerce?
Amazon, Alibaba, and similar e-commerce giants handle billions of transactions on an annual basis. These purchases translate into an equally huge amount of profit. However, deep learning experts speculate that these represent only a tiny portion of all possible orders.
Inspired by e-commerce pioneers, many businesses have been founded over the past couple of decades. As much as it may seem that the market is saturated, there’s still room for you to make it, at least that’s what people would like to believe.
Theoretically, your online shop could make millions in e-commerce business. But there is more to it than meets the eye. Developing an engaging, responsive, and high-converting website demands a very specific skill set.
The software at your disposal makes mastering these skills easier than ever before. It allows you to analyze and tweak your designs as you go to ensure optimal performance. Check out the steps that could land you the first million.
So you need to get a solid grasp of who your customers are and whether they would be willing to make a purchase on your website. The software that can help you optimize your website and get all the relevant data is Magento. It features one of the most comprehensive range of services for businesses large and small.
Many people believe the misconception that you need a large investment to start an e-commerce business from scratch. This doesn’t have to be the case. If you are familiar with the market, and the needs of your potential consumers, you can make millions in e-commerce with just about any initial investment.
On the other hand, Reuters reports that e-commerce whales in China are investing heavily in niche markets. Billions of dollars are being thrown left and right targeting small to medium-sized online shops and platforms. And even these shops make millions in e-commerce. Although the Chinese tech industry may be notoriously hard to penetrate, it’s not impossible.
The reason for this is that this is a very large market, so no matter how many players there are, you can still take your piece of the cake. Don’t be discouraged by the number or size of existing e-commerce businesses. Instead, find a way to join in, as there’s always an angle in the online game that hasn’t been fully tapped.
The best thing about this is that you don’t need to have experience in order to find the one for you. Of course, it’s easier if you do, but all it takes is some research to gain a basic understanding of your product and how best to reach the target consumers.
For example, a wholesale model is great for everyone that wants to invest a bit more at the start and have a warehouse full of products. This can be pretty risky, but it lets you diversify your business. On the other hand, you can choose one product that you want to sell and white label it, so you have your own brand to sell your product under.
These are only a couple or myriad examples out there. So go ahead and do your research and think a little until the light bulb goes on.
When you do, you need to get familiar with your target audience and understand what it is that they need. This is where your analytical skills and software come into play. Remember, Magento is a leading e-commerce platform.
Keep in mind that this may require some trial and error, as starting an e-commerce business is by no means a simple task. But if you want to make millions in e-commerce, arm yourself with patience and perseverance and take full advantage of the best software packages that are available to you.
The product for your niche store might be lying around nearby, without you being aware of it. A good example of such niche e-commerce is the online store of luxury bed and bath linen founded by an ex-marine. In 10 short years it has grown into a full-blown online business with millions of dollars in revenue.
The whole thing started in a garage in Indiana while the founder was still in active duty. So your professional background and location should not hinder your e-commerce venture.
The takeaway
Your gut feeling may be telling you to start an e-commerce business, and it’s probably right. You shouldn’t worry about lack of experience. If you are willing to learn and put in the long hours, it’s still possible to make millions in e-commerce.
There are many people out there that have successfully found their niche and expanded their business far beyond their initial offering. With the right mindset and the right tools, you could be one of them.
June 28, 2018Inspired by e-commerce pioneers, many businesses have been founded over the past couple of decades. As much as it may seem that the market is saturated, there’s still room for you to make it, at least that’s what people would like to believe.
Theoretically, your online shop could make millions in e-commerce business. But there is more to it than meets the eye. Developing an engaging, responsive, and high-converting website demands a very specific skill set.
The software at your disposal makes mastering these skills easier than ever before. It allows you to analyze and tweak your designs as you go to ensure optimal performance. Check out the steps that could land you the first million.
- Understanding the market
So you need to get a solid grasp of who your customers are and whether they would be willing to make a purchase on your website. The software that can help you optimize your website and get all the relevant data is Magento. It features one of the most comprehensive range of services for businesses large and small.
Many people believe the misconception that you need a large investment to start an e-commerce business from scratch. This doesn’t have to be the case. If you are familiar with the market, and the needs of your potential consumers, you can make millions in e-commerce with just about any initial investment.
- Time to move east?
On the other hand, Reuters reports that e-commerce whales in China are investing heavily in niche markets. Billions of dollars are being thrown left and right targeting small to medium-sized online shops and platforms. And even these shops make millions in e-commerce. Although the Chinese tech industry may be notoriously hard to penetrate, it’s not impossible.
The reason for this is that this is a very large market, so no matter how many players there are, you can still take your piece of the cake. Don’t be discouraged by the number or size of existing e-commerce businesses. Instead, find a way to join in, as there’s always an angle in the online game that hasn’t been fully tapped.
- Finding the right business model
The best thing about this is that you don’t need to have experience in order to find the one for you. Of course, it’s easier if you do, but all it takes is some research to gain a basic understanding of your product and how best to reach the target consumers.
For example, a wholesale model is great for everyone that wants to invest a bit more at the start and have a warehouse full of products. This can be pretty risky, but it lets you diversify your business. On the other hand, you can choose one product that you want to sell and white label it, so you have your own brand to sell your product under.
These are only a couple or myriad examples out there. So go ahead and do your research and think a little until the light bulb goes on.
- Your own place under the sun
When you do, you need to get familiar with your target audience and understand what it is that they need. This is where your analytical skills and software come into play. Remember, Magento is a leading e-commerce platform.
Keep in mind that this may require some trial and error, as starting an e-commerce business is by no means a simple task. But if you want to make millions in e-commerce, arm yourself with patience and perseverance and take full advantage of the best software packages that are available to you.
The product for your niche store might be lying around nearby, without you being aware of it. A good example of such niche e-commerce is the online store of luxury bed and bath linen founded by an ex-marine. In 10 short years it has grown into a full-blown online business with millions of dollars in revenue.
The whole thing started in a garage in Indiana while the founder was still in active duty. So your professional background and location should not hinder your e-commerce venture.
The takeaway
Your gut feeling may be telling you to start an e-commerce business, and it’s probably right. You shouldn’t worry about lack of experience. If you are willing to learn and put in the long hours, it’s still possible to make millions in e-commerce.
There are many people out there that have successfully found their niche and expanded their business far beyond their initial offering. With the right mindset and the right tools, you could be one of them.
How to choose between Magento and OpenCart
It’s safe to say that the e-commerce market is huge, and that’s not likely to change. In fact, statistics continue to predict steady growth for the next couple of years. There are so many players in this game, from small niche shops to huge platforms worth billions of dollars.
This kind of competition is very beneficial to consumers. Due to the expansion of e-commerce, there has been an increase in the variety of platforms that you can use to start your own business. Today, there are dozens of them out there and finding the right one may seem like a confusing task.
To help you with your search, we’ve decided to compare two of the most highly acclaimed platforms that are available to you – Magento and OpenCart. We’ll show you their features, compare them, and give you an idea of what to look for in an e-commerce platform that can anchor and help you grow your business.
What they have in common
Let’s start by explaining the similarities of these programs to show you what it is that they actually do. Both Magento and OpenCart are open-source CMS’s (Content Management Systems), which allow you to build your company website.
They’re both highly customizable, so no matter what kind of business you own you can use these platforms for your e-commerce store or other types of company website. They also offer you different tools, such as different analysis programs, and ways to boost your sales.
So why would you choose one over the other? Here are some of the key metrics that you should take into account when considering Magento versus OpenCart:
OpenCart has a clean UI that is easy to understand. This means that it won’t take you long to master and you’ll have more time to focus on other things related to your business. This is one of the main advantages of OpenCart, since even beginners can get acquainted with it easily.
On the other hand, Magento is a bit more complex. If you don’t have any experience with CMS, it might take you some time to understand it, let alone to get the hang of it. However, there’s a good reason behind the complexity.
Magento offers a much wider range of features than OpenCart, which we’ll talk about in depth later. It also adapts to new patterns consumer behavior more quickly.
For this reason, there is more to learn with Magento and it might be a bit tougher at the start, but there’s no doubt that it can pay off in the end. Since you’ll be spending a lot of time on whichever platform you choose anyway, devoting your time and energy to mastering Magento can be a smart investment.
Magento also offers a wide array of marketing and promotion features, such as up-sells, cross-sells, flexible coupons, and many more. You can divide customers into groups, create product bundles, and do a variety of other things that can bring you more sales.
This doesn’t mean that OpenCart doesn’t have a lot to offer. It just lacks some of the top features of Magento. In any event, OpenCart still offers a decent number of customization options and a good user management system.
Like Magento, OpenCart also gives you insights into important data and analytics, so you can tweak your sales strategies according to the results. It also allows you to manage multiple stores using one interface, which adds to the aforementioned simplicity.
Magento is completely search engine friendly, so you can tweak everything SEO-related. It supports metadata for all your products and pages, as well as Google Site Maps, fully customizable URLs, and many other important SEO features. There’s no doubt that it’s very capable, but it’s also pretty pricey.
On the other hand, OpenCart is free to use but it doesn’t offer nearly as many options as Magento. The advantages are that it’s easier to use, and that the extensions are cheap. But the downside is that a lot of SEO functions aren’t available without the extensions. It also doesn’t support individual URLs.
Since OpenCart is newer than Magento, the community isn’t as large. Nevertheless, there are still hundreds of people behind OpenCart, should you need any assistance. There are also many resources that you can turn to, and since this program is pretty easy to use you won’t have any issue finding help (and you might even figure it out yourself).
So which one is better?
Even though both of these platforms can be a great option, Magento is far more capable than OpenCart. On the other hand, it’s harder to use and costs more. It all boils down to whether you prefer to keep things simple or if you demand full control over every aspect of your e-commerce business.
OpenCart is great for freelancers, due to its cost (or lack thereof) and ease of use. It’s good for a small or medium-size business. On the other hand, if you’re dead serious about your business and want to keep growing it in the long run, Magento ought to be the better long-term solution.
June 14, 2018This kind of competition is very beneficial to consumers. Due to the expansion of e-commerce, there has been an increase in the variety of platforms that you can use to start your own business. Today, there are dozens of them out there and finding the right one may seem like a confusing task.
To help you with your search, we’ve decided to compare two of the most highly acclaimed platforms that are available to you – Magento and OpenCart. We’ll show you their features, compare them, and give you an idea of what to look for in an e-commerce platform that can anchor and help you grow your business.
What they have in common
Let’s start by explaining the similarities of these programs to show you what it is that they actually do. Both Magento and OpenCart are open-source CMS’s (Content Management Systems), which allow you to build your company website.
They’re both highly customizable, so no matter what kind of business you own you can use these platforms for your e-commerce store or other types of company website. They also offer you different tools, such as different analysis programs, and ways to boost your sales.
So why would you choose one over the other? Here are some of the key metrics that you should take into account when considering Magento versus OpenCart:
- User interface
OpenCart has a clean UI that is easy to understand. This means that it won’t take you long to master and you’ll have more time to focus on other things related to your business. This is one of the main advantages of OpenCart, since even beginners can get acquainted with it easily.
On the other hand, Magento is a bit more complex. If you don’t have any experience with CMS, it might take you some time to understand it, let alone to get the hang of it. However, there’s a good reason behind the complexity.
Magento offers a much wider range of features than OpenCart, which we’ll talk about in depth later. It also adapts to new patterns consumer behavior more quickly.
For this reason, there is more to learn with Magento and it might be a bit tougher at the start, but there’s no doubt that it can pay off in the end. Since you’ll be spending a lot of time on whichever platform you choose anyway, devoting your time and energy to mastering Magento can be a smart investment.
- Features
Magento also offers a wide array of marketing and promotion features, such as up-sells, cross-sells, flexible coupons, and many more. You can divide customers into groups, create product bundles, and do a variety of other things that can bring you more sales.
This doesn’t mean that OpenCart doesn’t have a lot to offer. It just lacks some of the top features of Magento. In any event, OpenCart still offers a decent number of customization options and a good user management system.
Like Magento, OpenCart also gives you insights into important data and analytics, so you can tweak your sales strategies according to the results. It also allows you to manage multiple stores using one interface, which adds to the aforementioned simplicity.
- SEO
Magento is completely search engine friendly, so you can tweak everything SEO-related. It supports metadata for all your products and pages, as well as Google Site Maps, fully customizable URLs, and many other important SEO features. There’s no doubt that it’s very capable, but it’s also pretty pricey.
On the other hand, OpenCart is free to use but it doesn’t offer nearly as many options as Magento. The advantages are that it’s easier to use, and that the extensions are cheap. But the downside is that a lot of SEO functions aren’t available without the extensions. It also doesn’t support individual URLs.
- Community
Since OpenCart is newer than Magento, the community isn’t as large. Nevertheless, there are still hundreds of people behind OpenCart, should you need any assistance. There are also many resources that you can turn to, and since this program is pretty easy to use you won’t have any issue finding help (and you might even figure it out yourself).
So which one is better?
Even though both of these platforms can be a great option, Magento is far more capable than OpenCart. On the other hand, it’s harder to use and costs more. It all boils down to whether you prefer to keep things simple or if you demand full control over every aspect of your e-commerce business.
OpenCart is great for freelancers, due to its cost (or lack thereof) and ease of use. It’s good for a small or medium-size business. On the other hand, if you’re dead serious about your business and want to keep growing it in the long run, Magento ought to be the better long-term solution.
How to start a drop shipping business
A lot of people these days are trying to make it big in the world of e-commerce. However, most of you are probably unsure of what to sell, what niche to get into, how to manage inventory and so on.
What if there was an easy way to fix at least half of those problems from the start? There’s one business model you can follow that requires less marketing and financial knowledge and less capital investment to get started.
We’re of course talking about starting a drop shipping business. This is one of the most popular business plans you can follow and it was tailor made for e-commerce. You can take a lot of pressure of your back by acting as an intermediary between a customer and a wholesale supplier.
Understanding the business model
Here’s the quickest explanation of what drop shipping is all about:
Benefits of drop shipping
A drop shipping business has multiple benefits. It doesn’t cost much to set up and it’s easy to start an online store.
You won’t have to worry about inventory or inventory space as long as you find a steady supply of whatever it is you want to sell.
You can also operate a drop shipping business from anywhere. You’re not restricted by geography as you’re operating in an online medium.
It also allows you to be creative in terms of product selection. You can buy anything online these days from canned air to helicopters. You don’t have to stick to a particular niche if you know you can attract customers, although it is often advised to refrain from spreading too thin.
Here is how you get started
If you want to make the most out of your business you should try to find a niche you can relate to. That will give you a reason to stay interested and keep a close eye on the operations.
If not, you can always try to find an untapped market. Keep in mind though that starting a drop shipping business in uncharted territory can be risky. The financial risk is minimal but if too much time goes by without good sales it may be hard to regain customer’s interest in your store.
At this point you want to take a good look at what you want to offer and how many people can you attract. You should also research your competition and determine if you stand a chance. Going into an oversaturated niche is never a good idea.
Find your supplier
If you know what you want to sell, it’s time to find out who you can partner with. Wholesale suppliers are not that hard to find. There are many online directories with detailed lists that you can use.
You could also seek consultation from other distributors or financial advisors. Of course, if you’re going for minimal financial investment, just search online.
Once you found a couple of suppliers start talking numbers and delivery policies. Certain products demand a fast delivery speed. If the supplier can’t provide that for you and your customers, then maybe it’s a good idea to spend a few more bucks to ensure customer satisfaction.
Sales tax ID
It doesn’t matter if you’re operating an online store or not. Apart from very few states, most US states and foreign countries require businesses to have a sales tax ID. This is also known as reseller’s license or a retail ID.
This is not only important to avoid being held liable for your profits. Some wholesale suppliers might not even agree to do business with you until you have your sales tax ID.
What platform to use?
Although this seems a bit far down the list, it’s a very important step. Choosing the best e-commerce platform is important for a number of reasons.
Your customers should have a smooth experience when browsing your store. This means that you need something that’s fast-loading but also highly customizable so you can tailor it to your needs and brand.
Magento is among most popular platforms for e-commerce. It’s also mobile friendly so it can give you even more exposure to potential clients.
Another cool feature that makes Magento useful especially to startup businesses is its tracking features and algorithms. With Magento, you can keep tabs on your customers and use their tendencies and preferences to push new products. This will increase your chances of making sales.
With Magento, you can also further automate the order process. The platform supports drop shipping stores by allowing for an automated customer – store – supplier chain payment. It also allows multiple online payments and money transfer options which means you can attract customers worldwide.
Advertising
The final step is actually a 2-stage process. First, you’ll want to promote your store. You can do this by offering a referral program and building or buying an extensive email list. It’s one of the best ways of generating traffic when you’re starting out.
The second step involves in-store advertising. This means that ads and notifications should be enabled in order to alert customers of items you’re selling that they might have missed. Luckily with Magento, you can also use targeted advertising that’s less intrusive to the user interface. Call it passive advertising if you will.
Final word
Remember that you’re not the only one thinking of starting a drop shipping business. You might be doing the same thing as four other entrepreneurs at the same time.
Even worse, you might have a strong start and not notice that the business is slowly losing customers. Advertising and promoting are two issues you’ll have to deal with from day 1 and until you close down the shop.
This is what helps you stay ahead of the competition. Especially if you make good use of Magento’s tracking features and predictive algorithms.
May 31, 2018What if there was an easy way to fix at least half of those problems from the start? There’s one business model you can follow that requires less marketing and financial knowledge and less capital investment to get started.
We’re of course talking about starting a drop shipping business. This is one of the most popular business plans you can follow and it was tailor made for e-commerce. You can take a lot of pressure of your back by acting as an intermediary between a customer and a wholesale supplier.
Understanding the business model
Here’s the quickest explanation of what drop shipping is all about:
- A customer buys an item from your online store at a retail price
- You forward that order to your supplier and pay him a wholesale price
- The supplier will ship the item to the customer using your name
Benefits of drop shipping
A drop shipping business has multiple benefits. It doesn’t cost much to set up and it’s easy to start an online store.
You won’t have to worry about inventory or inventory space as long as you find a steady supply of whatever it is you want to sell.
You can also operate a drop shipping business from anywhere. You’re not restricted by geography as you’re operating in an online medium.
It also allows you to be creative in terms of product selection. You can buy anything online these days from canned air to helicopters. You don’t have to stick to a particular niche if you know you can attract customers, although it is often advised to refrain from spreading too thin.
Here is how you get started
If you want to make the most out of your business you should try to find a niche you can relate to. That will give you a reason to stay interested and keep a close eye on the operations.
If not, you can always try to find an untapped market. Keep in mind though that starting a drop shipping business in uncharted territory can be risky. The financial risk is minimal but if too much time goes by without good sales it may be hard to regain customer’s interest in your store.
At this point you want to take a good look at what you want to offer and how many people can you attract. You should also research your competition and determine if you stand a chance. Going into an oversaturated niche is never a good idea.
Find your supplier
If you know what you want to sell, it’s time to find out who you can partner with. Wholesale suppliers are not that hard to find. There are many online directories with detailed lists that you can use.
You could also seek consultation from other distributors or financial advisors. Of course, if you’re going for minimal financial investment, just search online.
Once you found a couple of suppliers start talking numbers and delivery policies. Certain products demand a fast delivery speed. If the supplier can’t provide that for you and your customers, then maybe it’s a good idea to spend a few more bucks to ensure customer satisfaction.
Sales tax ID
It doesn’t matter if you’re operating an online store or not. Apart from very few states, most US states and foreign countries require businesses to have a sales tax ID. This is also known as reseller’s license or a retail ID.
This is not only important to avoid being held liable for your profits. Some wholesale suppliers might not even agree to do business with you until you have your sales tax ID.
What platform to use?
Although this seems a bit far down the list, it’s a very important step. Choosing the best e-commerce platform is important for a number of reasons.
Your customers should have a smooth experience when browsing your store. This means that you need something that’s fast-loading but also highly customizable so you can tailor it to your needs and brand.
Magento is among most popular platforms for e-commerce. It’s also mobile friendly so it can give you even more exposure to potential clients.
Another cool feature that makes Magento useful especially to startup businesses is its tracking features and algorithms. With Magento, you can keep tabs on your customers and use their tendencies and preferences to push new products. This will increase your chances of making sales.
With Magento, you can also further automate the order process. The platform supports drop shipping stores by allowing for an automated customer – store – supplier chain payment. It also allows multiple online payments and money transfer options which means you can attract customers worldwide.
Advertising
The final step is actually a 2-stage process. First, you’ll want to promote your store. You can do this by offering a referral program and building or buying an extensive email list. It’s one of the best ways of generating traffic when you’re starting out.
The second step involves in-store advertising. This means that ads and notifications should be enabled in order to alert customers of items you’re selling that they might have missed. Luckily with Magento, you can also use targeted advertising that’s less intrusive to the user interface. Call it passive advertising if you will.
Final word
Remember that you’re not the only one thinking of starting a drop shipping business. You might be doing the same thing as four other entrepreneurs at the same time.
Even worse, you might have a strong start and not notice that the business is slowly losing customers. Advertising and promoting are two issues you’ll have to deal with from day 1 and until you close down the shop.
This is what helps you stay ahead of the competition. Especially if you make good use of Magento’s tracking features and predictive algorithms.
Potential e-commerce deal of the year? Adobe steps up its game by acquiring Magento
In a statement published on Monday, we learned that Adobe was in final stages of completing the $1.68 billion acquisition of Magento. This is the third-biggest purchase for Adobe. And can be regarded as an attempt to diversify its business in order to stay ahead of the competition.
The acquisition of Magento might be the e-commerce deal of the year because it sent ripples down the stock market. Namely, it caused a fluctuation of Shopify’s shares, Magento’s biggest competitor. When the news was announced on Monday the shares plummeted by more than 5%, but were projected to drop around 1.8% the next day.
Why is Magento so important?
Magento is a west-coast company which specializes in e-commerce software. The services they provide go beyond the design and management of online stores. Magento also deals with purchases, and helps its customers handle shipments and returns.
In 2017 Magento received a recognition as the leading e-commerce platform. The shopping experience they offer represents a bridge between digital and brick-and-mortar stores. All of this is neatly packed as a cloud based solution. Magento allows integration across multiple retail channels, and has a network of more than 1150 partners.
The volume of merchandise their technology caters to is estimated at more than $155 billion. The customers of Magento are Rosetta Stone Inc. and Canon Inc., to name but a few. After being sold in 2015 the company has been backed by Premira Holdings LLC, which is one of the leading private investment firms in the sector.
What is the takeaway for Adobe?
This promising e-commerce deal of the year should allow Adobe to create a more integrated online system. For almost ten years, Adobe made purchases outside the creative software industry. Similar was the acquisition of Omniture, an online marketing and analytics company, in 2009.
But, you may be wondering what is the reason for this shopping spree. Besides the obvious move away from the digital media software, they’ve been so good at, these business deals could ensure an online war for a piece of the cloud-based retail business. Other players in the field include SAP SE, Salesforce, and Oracle.
Adobe already has a cloud-based software called Experience Cloud. And with the integration of Magento the company should be able to provide an all-encompassing solution to its clients. Even though the profits coming from this segment are smaller compared to the creative software, we may assume it would grow more rapidly in the future.
What’s more, this deal could signal a stronger partnership between Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft, as of this writing, lacks an e-commerce service on their platform and both companies have a common enemy which is Salesforce. It is yet to be seen whether this acquisition will work out since Adobe and Magento have been targeting different customers.
Final signals
Whether this purchase is an e-commerce deal of the year is still debatable. But, no matter how things play out in the future, it would be interesting to see if our online retail experience would change in any way.
May 24, 2018The acquisition of Magento might be the e-commerce deal of the year because it sent ripples down the stock market. Namely, it caused a fluctuation of Shopify’s shares, Magento’s biggest competitor. When the news was announced on Monday the shares plummeted by more than 5%, but were projected to drop around 1.8% the next day.
Why is Magento so important?
Magento is a west-coast company which specializes in e-commerce software. The services they provide go beyond the design and management of online stores. Magento also deals with purchases, and helps its customers handle shipments and returns.
In 2017 Magento received a recognition as the leading e-commerce platform. The shopping experience they offer represents a bridge between digital and brick-and-mortar stores. All of this is neatly packed as a cloud based solution. Magento allows integration across multiple retail channels, and has a network of more than 1150 partners.
The volume of merchandise their technology caters to is estimated at more than $155 billion. The customers of Magento are Rosetta Stone Inc. and Canon Inc., to name but a few. After being sold in 2015 the company has been backed by Premira Holdings LLC, which is one of the leading private investment firms in the sector.
What is the takeaway for Adobe?
This promising e-commerce deal of the year should allow Adobe to create a more integrated online system. For almost ten years, Adobe made purchases outside the creative software industry. Similar was the acquisition of Omniture, an online marketing and analytics company, in 2009.
But, you may be wondering what is the reason for this shopping spree. Besides the obvious move away from the digital media software, they’ve been so good at, these business deals could ensure an online war for a piece of the cloud-based retail business. Other players in the field include SAP SE, Salesforce, and Oracle.
Adobe already has a cloud-based software called Experience Cloud. And with the integration of Magento the company should be able to provide an all-encompassing solution to its clients. Even though the profits coming from this segment are smaller compared to the creative software, we may assume it would grow more rapidly in the future.
What’s more, this deal could signal a stronger partnership between Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft, as of this writing, lacks an e-commerce service on their platform and both companies have a common enemy which is Salesforce. It is yet to be seen whether this acquisition will work out since Adobe and Magento have been targeting different customers.
Final signals
Whether this purchase is an e-commerce deal of the year is still debatable. But, no matter how things play out in the future, it would be interesting to see if our online retail experience would change in any way.
Have you adopted e-commerce? This is why you should
Not many people understand the concept of e-Commerce. Even those that do have a hard time figuring out if it’s really worth the trouble. After all, not all websites are super popular and the internet is filled with shops.
Fortunately, how you can help your business improve is not all that difficult. In this article, we’ll lay out some simple concepts that prove why e-Commerce is the best option for the present and perhaps the future too.
We will discuss the benefits of getting online exposure, doing targeted advertising, simplifying the shopping experience and also making your brand more popular and better understood by customers. Stick around to see how e-Commerce can take you from rags to riches.
Global exposure
One of the main reasons why e-Commerce should be at the top of your to-do list is global exposure. Starting a website that can promote and sell your product is also cheaper than you might think. Getting wide exposure and brand awareness through multiple brick and mortar store locations is not something everyone can afford.
By adopting e-Commerce as a vital part of your business you’ll be better equipped to compete in today’s market. Consider Magento as your e-Commerce platform. It’s much more affordable than most competing platforms and it’s completely open-source.
Not only does this help cut down on the initial investment and on operating costs. It will also mean that you gain access to a large community of helpful developers and artists which can help you customize and optimize your website.
Easy sales
A good e-Commerce platform makes sales easier for you and your customers. With something like Magento, your shop cart feature will be among the best in the industry. It is easy to customize and easy to update.
There’s also something to be said about trend monitoring and passive advertising. Pushing products online is different from pushing products in a brick and mortar store. You don’t have to disrupt your customer’s shopping experience to present new items or to ask for their input.
Online shoppers can still be steered towards certain products. But, this is done much more efficiently. For instance, you can track your customer’s shopping trends. By doing this you can use selective adds to show them the newest deals that might interest them.
The customers are always more likely to buy something they know they’ll like than trying something new. This also makes the user experience smoother. Instead of refining searches or browsing through catalogs they can fill up the cart with the items they need in just a few clicks.
Brand and product descriptions
You know how they say that a picture makes 1000 words? It’s quite true and it applies perfectly to e-Commerce. You can give a lot more attention to detail when working on your product descriptions.
Think about it. How many employees can you have working in a shop? Can you hire one for each customer that walks in? Can you ensure that all of them are well-versed in all the product categories you sell?
That’s hardly attainable. With e-Commerce being a part of your business and using a specialized platform, you can offer your customers clear and extensive information.
You can even post tutorial videos on how to use products and post pictures taken from different angles. That’s another great way of highlighting the product’s best features, visual or otherwise.
Traffic optimization
Let’s say a couple hundred people walk in your store per week. Chances are not everyone is going to buy something of the shelves. What does e-Commerce do differently to help your business?
It’s all about traffic optimization. Because of the niche search engine ranking involved when operating an online store, you can make use of optimization features that come with a platform.
This allows you to draw in potentially thousands of customers on a daily or weekly basis. Therefore you have many more opportunities to close a deal and make a sale. You also won’t need dozens of employees to run around the shop, which should save you money.
Expanding your inventory
It might seem odd, but adopting e-Commerce is a good way of expanding your inventory. Because you’re on track to make more sales you can actually afford to store more products. It may even allow you to expand your range of product.
When coming up with new items for sale you can also use Magento’s tracking features or prepare polls and quizzes for your clients. That way you’ll make sure that what you put up for sale next month is actually something that’s in high demand.
It also shows customers that you value their opinion. Everyone can leave a website satisfied by the customer support, item choices, and user-interface. The same can’t be said about people that go into brick and mortar shops.
There’s just not enough workforce or hours in a day to give the same level of attention to every customer. By using e-Commerce you can take care of all your customers at the same time. No one feels left out or treated differently. In this day and age, this matters a lot.
E-commerce is the current and future trend
With so many people staying connected from the moment they wake up and until they go to bed, it’s no surprise that operating an online store can bring in serious money. You just have to be in touch with what people need and make sure to offer them just that.
If you have a mobile-friendly website it’s even better. Many of us shop directly from our phones these days. E-Commerce is pretty much the standard for small and large vendors from food to expensive jewelry.
If you want to maximize your profits by getting more recognition and customers far beyond your immediate neighborhood, you should probably adopt e-Commerce as soon as possible. And, if you’re going to do it, do give Magento a try as it’s the most popular e-Commerce platform for a couple of years running.
May 17, 2018Fortunately, how you can help your business improve is not all that difficult. In this article, we’ll lay out some simple concepts that prove why e-Commerce is the best option for the present and perhaps the future too.
We will discuss the benefits of getting online exposure, doing targeted advertising, simplifying the shopping experience and also making your brand more popular and better understood by customers. Stick around to see how e-Commerce can take you from rags to riches.
Global exposure
One of the main reasons why e-Commerce should be at the top of your to-do list is global exposure. Starting a website that can promote and sell your product is also cheaper than you might think. Getting wide exposure and brand awareness through multiple brick and mortar store locations is not something everyone can afford.
By adopting e-Commerce as a vital part of your business you’ll be better equipped to compete in today’s market. Consider Magento as your e-Commerce platform. It’s much more affordable than most competing platforms and it’s completely open-source.
Not only does this help cut down on the initial investment and on operating costs. It will also mean that you gain access to a large community of helpful developers and artists which can help you customize and optimize your website.
Easy sales
A good e-Commerce platform makes sales easier for you and your customers. With something like Magento, your shop cart feature will be among the best in the industry. It is easy to customize and easy to update.
There’s also something to be said about trend monitoring and passive advertising. Pushing products online is different from pushing products in a brick and mortar store. You don’t have to disrupt your customer’s shopping experience to present new items or to ask for their input.
Online shoppers can still be steered towards certain products. But, this is done much more efficiently. For instance, you can track your customer’s shopping trends. By doing this you can use selective adds to show them the newest deals that might interest them.
The customers are always more likely to buy something they know they’ll like than trying something new. This also makes the user experience smoother. Instead of refining searches or browsing through catalogs they can fill up the cart with the items they need in just a few clicks.
Brand and product descriptions
You know how they say that a picture makes 1000 words? It’s quite true and it applies perfectly to e-Commerce. You can give a lot more attention to detail when working on your product descriptions.
Think about it. How many employees can you have working in a shop? Can you hire one for each customer that walks in? Can you ensure that all of them are well-versed in all the product categories you sell?
That’s hardly attainable. With e-Commerce being a part of your business and using a specialized platform, you can offer your customers clear and extensive information.
You can even post tutorial videos on how to use products and post pictures taken from different angles. That’s another great way of highlighting the product’s best features, visual or otherwise.
Traffic optimization
Let’s say a couple hundred people walk in your store per week. Chances are not everyone is going to buy something of the shelves. What does e-Commerce do differently to help your business?
It’s all about traffic optimization. Because of the niche search engine ranking involved when operating an online store, you can make use of optimization features that come with a platform.
This allows you to draw in potentially thousands of customers on a daily or weekly basis. Therefore you have many more opportunities to close a deal and make a sale. You also won’t need dozens of employees to run around the shop, which should save you money.
Expanding your inventory
It might seem odd, but adopting e-Commerce is a good way of expanding your inventory. Because you’re on track to make more sales you can actually afford to store more products. It may even allow you to expand your range of product.
When coming up with new items for sale you can also use Magento’s tracking features or prepare polls and quizzes for your clients. That way you’ll make sure that what you put up for sale next month is actually something that’s in high demand.
It also shows customers that you value their opinion. Everyone can leave a website satisfied by the customer support, item choices, and user-interface. The same can’t be said about people that go into brick and mortar shops.
There’s just not enough workforce or hours in a day to give the same level of attention to every customer. By using e-Commerce you can take care of all your customers at the same time. No one feels left out or treated differently. In this day and age, this matters a lot.
E-commerce is the current and future trend
With so many people staying connected from the moment they wake up and until they go to bed, it’s no surprise that operating an online store can bring in serious money. You just have to be in touch with what people need and make sure to offer them just that.
If you have a mobile-friendly website it’s even better. Many of us shop directly from our phones these days. E-Commerce is pretty much the standard for small and large vendors from food to expensive jewelry.
If you want to maximize your profits by getting more recognition and customers far beyond your immediate neighborhood, you should probably adopt e-Commerce as soon as possible. And, if you’re going to do it, do give Magento a try as it’s the most popular e-Commerce platform for a couple of years running.
Magento: a beginner's guide
Understanding the subtleties between Magento and a platform such as WordPress doesn’t come easy for everybody. Although both are popular, there are clear differences that set them apart.
Magento was designed to be the go-to CMS for e-commerce. A Magento website can handle a lot of work in the background while still maintaining a smooth responsiveness. It might not be the best CMS overall, but it is the best when it comes to e-commerce.
To help you better understand what Magento has to offer, here are some important facts about the platform. Why it’s recommended for marketplaces and what you can do with it.
Open source
An open source CMS has multiple benefits. Consider the Magento community edition. This allows you almost complete freedom to edit the code and personalize your website.
Of course, you might need a Magento specialist to ensure proper optimization. There are so many developers worldwide that constantly try to improve Magento’s coding.
Community support is important when working with any CMS platform. And, unlike other communities, Magento’s is a lot more welcoming to beginners.
It has plenty of guides, tips, and in-depth specialty tutorials. You will need to use those if you want to make a splash on the ecommerce scene.
The beauty of a community rich in information extends to the security and maintenance aspects too. It’s becoming increasingly easier to protect Magento sites against attacks.
Not only that, but it is also getting easier to perform maintenance or restore the site to a backup. Maintenance can involve anything from updating product descriptions, to integrating new SEO content.
The reason this is important is that your content should always be fresh when trying to attract new customers. Making sure it’s relevant is up to you. That said, because of how easy it is to track trends and customer preferences, implementing these changes is simple in Magento.
Performance
Why is Magento a better ecommerce CMS? A large part has to do with its superior page load speed. The query processing time also factors in.
Any slight delay on an ecommerce site has the potential to turn away visitors. Whatever it is you’re selling, you want to ensure that you get plenty of repeat customers as well as new traffic. This is why banking on Magento’s high performance is better than the alternatives.
While it may not come with as many templates and plugins as other CMS platforms, Magento is quite flexible. The customization factor scores through the roof because it has the advantage of an open system architecture.
With the help of a specialist, there’s no end to how you can design your UI. Instead of relying on multiple heavy-loading plugins, extensions, and themes, you can offer a smoother experience to your customers by reducing the lines of code.
Integration
Of course, the design and performance factors are just parts of what makes a successful ecommerce site. Magento offers you an easy way of integrating payment gateways, database applications, orders and shipping tracking and much more.
Now, this may not sound like anything new but it’s the way you can control these applications that’s impressive. All it takes is one admin dashboard for you to check everything from inventory to customer records.
This allows you to quickly asses purchasing trends, product popularity trends, and plan for the future. Because the maintenance and operational aspects are easier to handle in Magento, you can focus more on improving your brand and advertising new products.
You also get to use a responsive shopping cart system, multiple marketing tools, and complex catalog-management. It’s also easy to notify customers and display discounts, promotions, and other deals on the check-out page.
Mobile friendly
It’s hard to imagine an ecommerce site enjoying success if it doesn’t offer a smooth UI for its mobile users. Magento is a mobile friendly CMS regardless if you choose the Community or Enterprise edition.
The simple and effective themes can be modified to improve your site’s score among mobile users. This means better performance, optimized content, efficient product placement, and higher search ranking.
Although Magento 2 is also making quite a name for itself, the Magento API still works well enough today. In fact, many of the optimizations found in the new API can be applied to the old API. If you collaborate with an experienced developer that is.
So, not only are you able to offer the same level of support and responsive UI to both desktop and mobile users but you’re also likely to increase your rankings across all platforms. Needless to say, this can help your business grow.
Keep in mind that responsiveness is now a big part of determining rankings for mobile friendly sites. That’s why using slow APIs and themes from other CMS platforms, is not efficient for ecommerce sites.
SEO friendly
These days almost any CMS has at least decent SEO integration. Magento doesn’t exactly outclass every other CMS out there. However, considering all the other advantages it has, this can also be considered a bonus.
Most themes come with preloaded SEO features like URL rewrites, descriptions, sitemaps, layered navigation, and meta tags. By securing the services of a Magento expert developer you can add even more SEO features and of course, customize the existing ones.
Reputation
Last but not least, one must consider Magento’s reputation among top ecommerce businesses. The CMS is popular among Fortune 500 companies which generally use complex ecommerce designs.
Consider that Magento can be adapted just as well for small ecommerce sites just as well as it can be used for enterprise solutions. The ability to link and operate multiple online stores for different locations simultaneously is a massive bonus.
Verdict
There are plenty of reasons why Magento is the most flexible CMS for ecommerce sites. The open source architecture allows it to be used on small and large sites alike. Playing around with layouts and plug-ins is easy enough even without too much experience.
However, after working with an experienced developer, you can be sure that you’re running a stable, fast-loading, mobile-friendly ecommerce site that will draw new customers and create many repeat customers too.
April 26, 2018Magento was designed to be the go-to CMS for e-commerce. A Magento website can handle a lot of work in the background while still maintaining a smooth responsiveness. It might not be the best CMS overall, but it is the best when it comes to e-commerce.
To help you better understand what Magento has to offer, here are some important facts about the platform. Why it’s recommended for marketplaces and what you can do with it.
Open source
An open source CMS has multiple benefits. Consider the Magento community edition. This allows you almost complete freedom to edit the code and personalize your website.
Of course, you might need a Magento specialist to ensure proper optimization. There are so many developers worldwide that constantly try to improve Magento’s coding.
Community support is important when working with any CMS platform. And, unlike other communities, Magento’s is a lot more welcoming to beginners.
It has plenty of guides, tips, and in-depth specialty tutorials. You will need to use those if you want to make a splash on the ecommerce scene.
The beauty of a community rich in information extends to the security and maintenance aspects too. It’s becoming increasingly easier to protect Magento sites against attacks.
Not only that, but it is also getting easier to perform maintenance or restore the site to a backup. Maintenance can involve anything from updating product descriptions, to integrating new SEO content.
The reason this is important is that your content should always be fresh when trying to attract new customers. Making sure it’s relevant is up to you. That said, because of how easy it is to track trends and customer preferences, implementing these changes is simple in Magento.
Performance
Why is Magento a better ecommerce CMS? A large part has to do with its superior page load speed. The query processing time also factors in.
Any slight delay on an ecommerce site has the potential to turn away visitors. Whatever it is you’re selling, you want to ensure that you get plenty of repeat customers as well as new traffic. This is why banking on Magento’s high performance is better than the alternatives.
While it may not come with as many templates and plugins as other CMS platforms, Magento is quite flexible. The customization factor scores through the roof because it has the advantage of an open system architecture.
With the help of a specialist, there’s no end to how you can design your UI. Instead of relying on multiple heavy-loading plugins, extensions, and themes, you can offer a smoother experience to your customers by reducing the lines of code.
Integration
Of course, the design and performance factors are just parts of what makes a successful ecommerce site. Magento offers you an easy way of integrating payment gateways, database applications, orders and shipping tracking and much more.
Now, this may not sound like anything new but it’s the way you can control these applications that’s impressive. All it takes is one admin dashboard for you to check everything from inventory to customer records.
This allows you to quickly asses purchasing trends, product popularity trends, and plan for the future. Because the maintenance and operational aspects are easier to handle in Magento, you can focus more on improving your brand and advertising new products.
You also get to use a responsive shopping cart system, multiple marketing tools, and complex catalog-management. It’s also easy to notify customers and display discounts, promotions, and other deals on the check-out page.
Mobile friendly
It’s hard to imagine an ecommerce site enjoying success if it doesn’t offer a smooth UI for its mobile users. Magento is a mobile friendly CMS regardless if you choose the Community or Enterprise edition.
The simple and effective themes can be modified to improve your site’s score among mobile users. This means better performance, optimized content, efficient product placement, and higher search ranking.
Although Magento 2 is also making quite a name for itself, the Magento API still works well enough today. In fact, many of the optimizations found in the new API can be applied to the old API. If you collaborate with an experienced developer that is.
So, not only are you able to offer the same level of support and responsive UI to both desktop and mobile users but you’re also likely to increase your rankings across all platforms. Needless to say, this can help your business grow.
Keep in mind that responsiveness is now a big part of determining rankings for mobile friendly sites. That’s why using slow APIs and themes from other CMS platforms, is not efficient for ecommerce sites.
SEO friendly
These days almost any CMS has at least decent SEO integration. Magento doesn’t exactly outclass every other CMS out there. However, considering all the other advantages it has, this can also be considered a bonus.
Most themes come with preloaded SEO features like URL rewrites, descriptions, sitemaps, layered navigation, and meta tags. By securing the services of a Magento expert developer you can add even more SEO features and of course, customize the existing ones.
Reputation
Last but not least, one must consider Magento’s reputation among top ecommerce businesses. The CMS is popular among Fortune 500 companies which generally use complex ecommerce designs.
Consider that Magento can be adapted just as well for small ecommerce sites just as well as it can be used for enterprise solutions. The ability to link and operate multiple online stores for different locations simultaneously is a massive bonus.
Verdict
There are plenty of reasons why Magento is the most flexible CMS for ecommerce sites. The open source architecture allows it to be used on small and large sites alike. Playing around with layouts and plug-ins is easy enough even without too much experience.
However, after working with an experienced developer, you can be sure that you’re running a stable, fast-loading, mobile-friendly ecommerce site that will draw new customers and create many repeat customers too.
Is Magento 2 mobile friendly?
Operating an online shop these days requires more focus on mobile users. Why? There are simply so many people that prefer using their smartphones or tablets to place online orders than ever before. This is also the reason that Google introduced its mobile-first index to do a better job at sorting out mobile websites.
Optimizing a shop to be mobile-friendly is not as hard as you may think. The Magento 2 ecommerce platform is one of the best suited for the task. It offers more tools for mobile optimization while still providing you with everything you need to create a desktop oriented website should you need one.
This article will go over the improvements made over Magento 1 and highlight the features that make Magento 2 mobile-friendly even though it is not a mobile specific platform. This way you will have a better understanding of what is important to have on your shop in order to keep your recurring customers and attract new ones as well.
Mobile suitable API
The new internal API in Magento 2 is better for both creating mobile apps and managing them. As a developer, you can reveal core modules individually to see their functions. You can even expose them as REST or SOAP, as WebAPI is supported by Magento 2.
Along the lines with improved design and responsiveness for the UI, there is also some improvement with generating files. For instance, the WSDL files in Magento 2 are given only for essential services. The days of parsing lots of WSDL files with countless methods for no reason are long gone.
Magento 2 is not only mobile friendly in regards to having a well optimized mobile API but it is also better equipped to aid java developers of different skill levels. Creating a mobile app with the new API is easier said and easier done.
Improved design
Having a successful online shop demands a great UI. Often this doesn’t happen on mobile websites because of how many features and content end up being dropped in favor of a smoother experience. While you may want users to get around faster on a small screen device it’s not a good idea to compromise on browsing customization and product information.
Magento 2 is more of a mobile-first oriented platform. It still focuses on displaying just the essential features but it helps you do a better job at figuring out what they are. This way, smartphone users won’t feel misinformed or have trouble finding the products they want.
With Magento 2 you can also have a more consistent UI between your initial website and your mobile version of it. The differences between the physical and software capabilities of a device are easier to asses in Magento 2. Because of this, your mobile site is easier to adapt for multiple user devices.
Now, there’s another issue that needs to be addressed. In the past a lot of mobile sites still had responsiveness problems even though they were stripped down iterations of the parent website. Magento 2 has a lot more responsive themes available with many more in development.
Caching also sees a big improvement in Magento 2. The advanced caching that was only available previously for Enterprise Edition users is now available for all Magento 2 users. This has a dramatic impact on the user experience. No longer will your shop be at the mercy of the user’s connectivity.
The implementation of Magento 2 responsive themes is also a bit easier if you’re at all familiar with the platform. At least from a customization perspective, Magento 2 is very mobile friendly. With more and more users steering towards the use of tablets and smartphones, Magento 2 is certainly the future of ecommerce when compared to Magento 1.
Universal analytics optimization
Another reason why Magento 2 is mobile friendly is the interaction it offers with Google Universal Analytics. It allows the use of a new tracking code to improve data collection and monitoring. This works for both online and offline devices.
Google Universal Analytics lets you customize your parameters for tracking in Magento 2. It’s as simple as signing up for the tool and then configuring it in your Magento admin panel. Currently, this is one of the easiest ways to track user behavior on mobile devices. This is essential if you want to really improve your website with every new update.
Payment gateways and services
You can’t have an online store without at least a few payment methods available. One of the most popular online payment gateways is still PayPal. Magento 2 has full support for the PayPal Payment standard which means your customers can get a convenient alternative to credit cards on the checkout page.
There’s an even more interesting feature for shops outside the US. It’s called the ‘PayPal Website Payments standard’ and it introduces the swipe option on mobile devices. This means customers can swipe a credit card. Currently only Visa, Discover, American Express, and MasterCard are accepted.
The responsiveness of the checkout procedure is also vastly improved compared to Magento 1. Precious seconds have been shaved off the time it takes to make a purchase. This should help not only with generating more return customers but also in acquiring new ones.
There is also a feature that can generate price offers based on the customer’s browsing history. Depending on how much information is given, facts such as age, location, gender, and more can be taken into account when creating offers and promotions with Magento 2.
Conclusion
Magento 2 is not a mobile only ecommerce platform. However, it does have plenty of new features that improve the development of mobile apps. The themes start out optimized for smaller screens. Mobile-specific features are easier to implement than on previous Magento iterations.
The new internal API and the focus on website responsiveness help deliver a better overall UI for both mobile users and desktop users. With all of this taken into account, Magento 2 is certainly mobile-friendly and should help you attract more customers as well as get more relevant feedback to make further improvements.
April 12, 2018Optimizing a shop to be mobile-friendly is not as hard as you may think. The Magento 2 ecommerce platform is one of the best suited for the task. It offers more tools for mobile optimization while still providing you with everything you need to create a desktop oriented website should you need one.
This article will go over the improvements made over Magento 1 and highlight the features that make Magento 2 mobile-friendly even though it is not a mobile specific platform. This way you will have a better understanding of what is important to have on your shop in order to keep your recurring customers and attract new ones as well.
Mobile suitable API
The new internal API in Magento 2 is better for both creating mobile apps and managing them. As a developer, you can reveal core modules individually to see their functions. You can even expose them as REST or SOAP, as WebAPI is supported by Magento 2.
Along the lines with improved design and responsiveness for the UI, there is also some improvement with generating files. For instance, the WSDL files in Magento 2 are given only for essential services. The days of parsing lots of WSDL files with countless methods for no reason are long gone.
Magento 2 is not only mobile friendly in regards to having a well optimized mobile API but it is also better equipped to aid java developers of different skill levels. Creating a mobile app with the new API is easier said and easier done.
Improved design
Having a successful online shop demands a great UI. Often this doesn’t happen on mobile websites because of how many features and content end up being dropped in favor of a smoother experience. While you may want users to get around faster on a small screen device it’s not a good idea to compromise on browsing customization and product information.
Magento 2 is more of a mobile-first oriented platform. It still focuses on displaying just the essential features but it helps you do a better job at figuring out what they are. This way, smartphone users won’t feel misinformed or have trouble finding the products they want.
With Magento 2 you can also have a more consistent UI between your initial website and your mobile version of it. The differences between the physical and software capabilities of a device are easier to asses in Magento 2. Because of this, your mobile site is easier to adapt for multiple user devices.
Now, there’s another issue that needs to be addressed. In the past a lot of mobile sites still had responsiveness problems even though they were stripped down iterations of the parent website. Magento 2 has a lot more responsive themes available with many more in development.
Caching also sees a big improvement in Magento 2. The advanced caching that was only available previously for Enterprise Edition users is now available for all Magento 2 users. This has a dramatic impact on the user experience. No longer will your shop be at the mercy of the user’s connectivity.
The implementation of Magento 2 responsive themes is also a bit easier if you’re at all familiar with the platform. At least from a customization perspective, Magento 2 is very mobile friendly. With more and more users steering towards the use of tablets and smartphones, Magento 2 is certainly the future of ecommerce when compared to Magento 1.
Universal analytics optimization
Another reason why Magento 2 is mobile friendly is the interaction it offers with Google Universal Analytics. It allows the use of a new tracking code to improve data collection and monitoring. This works for both online and offline devices.
Google Universal Analytics lets you customize your parameters for tracking in Magento 2. It’s as simple as signing up for the tool and then configuring it in your Magento admin panel. Currently, this is one of the easiest ways to track user behavior on mobile devices. This is essential if you want to really improve your website with every new update.
Payment gateways and services
You can’t have an online store without at least a few payment methods available. One of the most popular online payment gateways is still PayPal. Magento 2 has full support for the PayPal Payment standard which means your customers can get a convenient alternative to credit cards on the checkout page.
There’s an even more interesting feature for shops outside the US. It’s called the ‘PayPal Website Payments standard’ and it introduces the swipe option on mobile devices. This means customers can swipe a credit card. Currently only Visa, Discover, American Express, and MasterCard are accepted.
The responsiveness of the checkout procedure is also vastly improved compared to Magento 1. Precious seconds have been shaved off the time it takes to make a purchase. This should help not only with generating more return customers but also in acquiring new ones.
There is also a feature that can generate price offers based on the customer’s browsing history. Depending on how much information is given, facts such as age, location, gender, and more can be taken into account when creating offers and promotions with Magento 2.
Conclusion
Magento 2 is not a mobile only ecommerce platform. However, it does have plenty of new features that improve the development of mobile apps. The themes start out optimized for smaller screens. Mobile-specific features are easier to implement than on previous Magento iterations.
The new internal API and the focus on website responsiveness help deliver a better overall UI for both mobile users and desktop users. With all of this taken into account, Magento 2 is certainly mobile-friendly and should help you attract more customers as well as get more relevant feedback to make further improvements.
Turning visitors into customers by optimizing your Magento web store
The way you design and operate your UI (user interface) can make or break your Magento web store. If you want to run a successful shop you want to make sure that all visitors get a smooth browsing experience and that they can access all the information they desire.
It’s not the easiest thing in the world, to balance product placement with customers support, but it is worth it when done right. Sometimes it’s as easy as starting with the perfect catchy title that draws viewers and doesn’t upset search engines. Of course, once that’s done there’s a lot more that needs optimizing, so here are some more advanced tips on how to turn visitors into happy customers.
Product showcase
When you’re selling something out of a web store your potential clients won’t be able to touch it or test it. People are wired to try and find flaws in everything so they usually want as much information as possible when buying something new.
Because you’re not able to give potential customers more than a peak into what you’re selling you have to make sure that peak shows the full story. It all starts with the images you choose and how you display them on your site.
It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you should always give away as much detail as possible. This means that high resolution pictures are a must have feature on any product page. You should also try to give customers views from different angles and allow them to zoom in and out on whatever feature they might be interested in.
Furthermore, it doesn’t hurt if you can display your product in action. If you’re selling clothes online feature them on models. If you’re selling fridges or large electronics take pictures of them being used and again, from multiple angles.
This allows your site’s visitors to get a sense of how the product performs and it also lets them gauge the size and potential fit a lot better. If you want to convert your visitors into customers you have to give them enough information so that they are satisfied and don’t feel the need to go into a brick and mortar shop.
Showcase your reviews
No one has a perfect track record in the online world. Whatever you’re selling chances are someone will complain at one point and it doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong. You should still assume that the customers are always right and let them voice their complaints.
By allowing others to browse through your history of reviews on your business, services, and products, you have a better chance of gaining their trust. You want to convey transparency in the way you conduct your business. Only then will your Magento web store be optimized for attracting new buyers.
Presenting the information
In developer circles this would be referred to as design. However, just using the term ‘design’ is meaningless if you’re unclear on what it means. Making a product page look pretty may not be enough to get new customers.
Simply displaying the price in a large font doesn’t offer enough information. When you’re trying to sell something you want to convince people to press the ‘Add to cart’ button. This often times leads to two different trains of thought.
One focuses on distracting people from the purchase button so they don’t feel pushed towards it. The other one emphasizes on a simplistic design with very little distractions away from the purchase button. In most cases, you want to hit the sweet spot which is right in the middle.
Showing too much additional information on screen is never a good idea because it forces the potential customer to read that much more text. By the time he or she is done taking in all the info it’s possible they lose interest.
However, making the product page simplistic is also a trap. Not sharing enough information about a product such as highlighting features, giving manufacturing details, presenting customization options (if any) may not give enough information to convince someone they need it.
No one said it was easy to get things right. Luckily this is where you can rely on customer feedback as well as expert advice. Listening to constructive criticism is one of the easiest things you can do to begin improving your Magento web store. That, and acting upon said criticism of course.
Don’t mistake product information with product description
They may sound similar but the two notions are very different. The product information must be clear and concise as it will determine whether or not it is right for a customer. The product description, on the other hand, leaves room for creativity.
Using a few catchy phrases to hint as to what the product can do and who simply can’t live without it will draw visitors to the product page. From there they should be able to see facts on how the product operates, what it can do, how much it costs, if it can be customized, and how long the delivery would take.
Embellishing on the product information page is not a great idea. It may work on a few people but remember that you want to maximize your profits. So, only present information that has value and that can be verified from exterior sources.
Optimizing your mobile site
More and more people like to shop directly from their smartphones. The screens are getting bigger and bigger so clicking links and reading fine prints is becoming easier. That being said, you can’t and shouldn’t use the same design for your web store when targeting mobile users.
You want to keep things even simpler and highlight your biggest sellers when possible. Pick a few important categories and make sure they’re showcased above everything else. Think ‘Top Sellers’ or ‘Most Popular’, or ‘What Others are Buying Right Now’.
You should also try and limit the use of ads in your mobile design. Anything that crowds the screen and makes the site harder to navigate can turn away potential clients. Remember to also allow zooming in options for pictures.
If you follow these guidelines you’ll have a better chance of maximizing your profits. People like catchy text and fancy pictures but they also need relevant information if they’re going to make a purchase. Remember that you can’t physically interact with online shoppers so you must do everything in your imagination to make them feel as informed and as important as if they were walking into your shop.
March 29, 2018It’s not the easiest thing in the world, to balance product placement with customers support, but it is worth it when done right. Sometimes it’s as easy as starting with the perfect catchy title that draws viewers and doesn’t upset search engines. Of course, once that’s done there’s a lot more that needs optimizing, so here are some more advanced tips on how to turn visitors into happy customers.
Product showcase
When you’re selling something out of a web store your potential clients won’t be able to touch it or test it. People are wired to try and find flaws in everything so they usually want as much information as possible when buying something new.
Because you’re not able to give potential customers more than a peak into what you’re selling you have to make sure that peak shows the full story. It all starts with the images you choose and how you display them on your site.
It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you should always give away as much detail as possible. This means that high resolution pictures are a must have feature on any product page. You should also try to give customers views from different angles and allow them to zoom in and out on whatever feature they might be interested in.
Furthermore, it doesn’t hurt if you can display your product in action. If you’re selling clothes online feature them on models. If you’re selling fridges or large electronics take pictures of them being used and again, from multiple angles.
This allows your site’s visitors to get a sense of how the product performs and it also lets them gauge the size and potential fit a lot better. If you want to convert your visitors into customers you have to give them enough information so that they are satisfied and don’t feel the need to go into a brick and mortar shop.
Showcase your reviews
No one has a perfect track record in the online world. Whatever you’re selling chances are someone will complain at one point and it doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong. You should still assume that the customers are always right and let them voice their complaints.
By allowing others to browse through your history of reviews on your business, services, and products, you have a better chance of gaining their trust. You want to convey transparency in the way you conduct your business. Only then will your Magento web store be optimized for attracting new buyers.
Presenting the information
In developer circles this would be referred to as design. However, just using the term ‘design’ is meaningless if you’re unclear on what it means. Making a product page look pretty may not be enough to get new customers.
Simply displaying the price in a large font doesn’t offer enough information. When you’re trying to sell something you want to convince people to press the ‘Add to cart’ button. This often times leads to two different trains of thought.
One focuses on distracting people from the purchase button so they don’t feel pushed towards it. The other one emphasizes on a simplistic design with very little distractions away from the purchase button. In most cases, you want to hit the sweet spot which is right in the middle.
Showing too much additional information on screen is never a good idea because it forces the potential customer to read that much more text. By the time he or she is done taking in all the info it’s possible they lose interest.
However, making the product page simplistic is also a trap. Not sharing enough information about a product such as highlighting features, giving manufacturing details, presenting customization options (if any) may not give enough information to convince someone they need it.
No one said it was easy to get things right. Luckily this is where you can rely on customer feedback as well as expert advice. Listening to constructive criticism is one of the easiest things you can do to begin improving your Magento web store. That, and acting upon said criticism of course.
Don’t mistake product information with product description
They may sound similar but the two notions are very different. The product information must be clear and concise as it will determine whether or not it is right for a customer. The product description, on the other hand, leaves room for creativity.
Using a few catchy phrases to hint as to what the product can do and who simply can’t live without it will draw visitors to the product page. From there they should be able to see facts on how the product operates, what it can do, how much it costs, if it can be customized, and how long the delivery would take.
Embellishing on the product information page is not a great idea. It may work on a few people but remember that you want to maximize your profits. So, only present information that has value and that can be verified from exterior sources.
Optimizing your mobile site
More and more people like to shop directly from their smartphones. The screens are getting bigger and bigger so clicking links and reading fine prints is becoming easier. That being said, you can’t and shouldn’t use the same design for your web store when targeting mobile users.
You want to keep things even simpler and highlight your biggest sellers when possible. Pick a few important categories and make sure they’re showcased above everything else. Think ‘Top Sellers’ or ‘Most Popular’, or ‘What Others are Buying Right Now’.
You should also try and limit the use of ads in your mobile design. Anything that crowds the screen and makes the site harder to navigate can turn away potential clients. Remember to also allow zooming in options for pictures.
If you follow these guidelines you’ll have a better chance of maximizing your profits. People like catchy text and fancy pictures but they also need relevant information if they’re going to make a purchase. Remember that you can’t physically interact with online shoppers so you must do everything in your imagination to make them feel as informed and as important as if they were walking into your shop.
Building a site around Google’s mobile-first index
Since it was first announced, the Mobile-First index has been received with mixed feelings by the developer community. The recent acknowledgement from Google that the feature has been implemented once again stirred up some controversy and debate over how quickly should websites be optimized to not lose rankings.
The situation is not as dire as some may think. In fact, chances are that most mobile websites won’t be affected by the mobile-first index. Here are some things you should know as a Magento developer about the interaction with Google’s new indexing trend. This article will help guide you towards making any necessary adjustments without losing the site’s identity and ranking.
Be sure you want to be mobile ready
If there’s one thing that’s not up for debate with Google’s mobile-first index is that doing a poor job on your mobile site might very well ruin your ranking. In fact, the company said that the simplest solution could be the best for some developers. That means that it would be better for your business to not have a mobile site at all than to have one that’s not optimized.
Sure it may sound like overkill but not everyone can handle reworks. Tweaking a site that you felt was perfect just to optimize it for a new search index may seem like too much of a hassle. If you do decide to do it, you have to make sure it’s done right and not rushed.
Chances are that you’ll still be getting plenty of visitors on a desktop optimized website. The mobile-first index doesn’t favor mobile websites so you don’t have to worry about losing business. It only tries to better gauge a site’s value and assign merit-based rankings.
Keeping track of content
Often times websites have two versions, one for desktop and one for mobile users. While that may not be ideal in most cases, it doesn’t mean it can’t work. It just means there’s almost double the maintenance work that needs to be put in by the development team.
If you’re running a dual website operation then you need to be paying extra attention to your content. Leaving out too much information from the desktop site to accommodate your mobile version can end up hurting your rankings. Because of the mobile-first indexing a lot of content won’t be taken into account if it’s not found on the mobile version.
To make sure this doesn’t happen you might need to reevaluate both sites in comparison. The Google Search Console can be your most important tool in these types of scenarios.
Responsiveness is not overrated
You may think that the mobile performance won’t hurt your site too much. After all, if you have a loyal customer base or fan base they’re likely to look past slower loading times. While that may be true, the mobile-first index will take the page responsiveness into account when assigning rankings.
Now, not only do you have to be up to date with your content, you have to worry about the coding more than ever before. Luckily, as a Magento web developer you have some tools that can help you speed up a mobile site.
You can make use of Accelerated Mobile Pages. This project is backed by Google and its sole focus is to bring more websites up to speed.
There are even more things you can do to make sure the mobile-first index will favor your site. You can use lighter fonts like open web fonts and rearrange the loading priority of the content. What the latter does is let you not only display the most important information first but it also gives the impression that your website is actually loading faster than it actually is.
Mobile is already the new trend
It’s important to realize that the mobile-first index isn’t changing the importance of mobile ready websites. In fact, this concept was introduced because of how popular mobile sites were already becoming. Up to 55% of internet traffic doesn’t come from desktop devices anymore, which is why the new index was introduced.
If you’re a Magento developer but don’t have much experience with optimizing mobile-friendly sites you’re not in as much trouble as you may think. Although all of this talk of customization and index-pleasing designs can be scary, there are plenty of mobile-responsive Magento themes ready to be used.
Conclusion
More are sure to come now that Google has officially recognized that it implemented the mobile-first index. Using what’s already available can be a good starting point when you’re building up a new website. But what can you do if you have to tweak your old one, without losing your site’s identity?
It’s quite simple. Follow the our tips and start with reorganizing your content. Put more important text into your mobile site version than you previously had. Keep in mind that you might need to do that either way. As it so often happens, we can all get complacent with a site’s design and forget that adjustments are needed from time to time.
So, whether you’re trying to give your mobile site an edge in rankings, responsiveness, or just a fresh new look, there’s no better time to do so than the present. Every bit of text, interaction, and choice of color pattern can now determine how high up in rankings a mobile site will show. It may seem like hard work but unlike a few years ago the reward is actually worth the time.
For those that handle two separate website versions, the mobile-first index can also be a blessing in disguise. No longer will your too sites look too different and no longer will your mobile site bring in less customers. It shouldn’t have been the case before the new index anyway, but now you have one more reason to do your best and keep the brand identity clear across multiple platforms.
At the end of the day, the new index doesn’t demand anything outside the realm of common sense and good marketing. Besides, Google should notify you on whether or not your site meets the new ranking criteria or if you need to do adjustments. That being said, it’s always better to be prepared.
March 15, 2018The situation is not as dire as some may think. In fact, chances are that most mobile websites won’t be affected by the mobile-first index. Here are some things you should know as a Magento developer about the interaction with Google’s new indexing trend. This article will help guide you towards making any necessary adjustments without losing the site’s identity and ranking.
Be sure you want to be mobile ready
If there’s one thing that’s not up for debate with Google’s mobile-first index is that doing a poor job on your mobile site might very well ruin your ranking. In fact, the company said that the simplest solution could be the best for some developers. That means that it would be better for your business to not have a mobile site at all than to have one that’s not optimized.
Sure it may sound like overkill but not everyone can handle reworks. Tweaking a site that you felt was perfect just to optimize it for a new search index may seem like too much of a hassle. If you do decide to do it, you have to make sure it’s done right and not rushed.
Chances are that you’ll still be getting plenty of visitors on a desktop optimized website. The mobile-first index doesn’t favor mobile websites so you don’t have to worry about losing business. It only tries to better gauge a site’s value and assign merit-based rankings.
Keeping track of content
Often times websites have two versions, one for desktop and one for mobile users. While that may not be ideal in most cases, it doesn’t mean it can’t work. It just means there’s almost double the maintenance work that needs to be put in by the development team.
If you’re running a dual website operation then you need to be paying extra attention to your content. Leaving out too much information from the desktop site to accommodate your mobile version can end up hurting your rankings. Because of the mobile-first indexing a lot of content won’t be taken into account if it’s not found on the mobile version.
To make sure this doesn’t happen you might need to reevaluate both sites in comparison. The Google Search Console can be your most important tool in these types of scenarios.
Responsiveness is not overrated
You may think that the mobile performance won’t hurt your site too much. After all, if you have a loyal customer base or fan base they’re likely to look past slower loading times. While that may be true, the mobile-first index will take the page responsiveness into account when assigning rankings.
Now, not only do you have to be up to date with your content, you have to worry about the coding more than ever before. Luckily, as a Magento web developer you have some tools that can help you speed up a mobile site.
You can make use of Accelerated Mobile Pages. This project is backed by Google and its sole focus is to bring more websites up to speed.
There are even more things you can do to make sure the mobile-first index will favor your site. You can use lighter fonts like open web fonts and rearrange the loading priority of the content. What the latter does is let you not only display the most important information first but it also gives the impression that your website is actually loading faster than it actually is.
Mobile is already the new trend
It’s important to realize that the mobile-first index isn’t changing the importance of mobile ready websites. In fact, this concept was introduced because of how popular mobile sites were already becoming. Up to 55% of internet traffic doesn’t come from desktop devices anymore, which is why the new index was introduced.
If you’re a Magento developer but don’t have much experience with optimizing mobile-friendly sites you’re not in as much trouble as you may think. Although all of this talk of customization and index-pleasing designs can be scary, there are plenty of mobile-responsive Magento themes ready to be used.
Conclusion
More are sure to come now that Google has officially recognized that it implemented the mobile-first index. Using what’s already available can be a good starting point when you’re building up a new website. But what can you do if you have to tweak your old one, without losing your site’s identity?
It’s quite simple. Follow the our tips and start with reorganizing your content. Put more important text into your mobile site version than you previously had. Keep in mind that you might need to do that either way. As it so often happens, we can all get complacent with a site’s design and forget that adjustments are needed from time to time.
So, whether you’re trying to give your mobile site an edge in rankings, responsiveness, or just a fresh new look, there’s no better time to do so than the present. Every bit of text, interaction, and choice of color pattern can now determine how high up in rankings a mobile site will show. It may seem like hard work but unlike a few years ago the reward is actually worth the time.
For those that handle two separate website versions, the mobile-first index can also be a blessing in disguise. No longer will your too sites look too different and no longer will your mobile site bring in less customers. It shouldn’t have been the case before the new index anyway, but now you have one more reason to do your best and keep the brand identity clear across multiple platforms.
At the end of the day, the new index doesn’t demand anything outside the realm of common sense and good marketing. Besides, Google should notify you on whether or not your site meets the new ranking criteria or if you need to do adjustments. That being said, it’s always better to be prepared.
10 must-have Magento extensions
If you’re using Magento, you’re probably aware of what a good, efficient e-commerce platform can do for your online sales. However, using Magento with nothing more than its core functionalities is barely scratching the surface – to truly unlock the full potential of your e-shop, you may want to look into some useful Magento extensions.
Whether you want to increase sales, improve customer experience, or add a shipping option to your website, you can find an extension that addresses these issues and helps you customize your platform.
But, with thousands of extensions in the Magento Marketplace you can choose from, how do you know which extensions are right for you? To help you make the right decision, we created a list of the best Magneto extensions that could help you improve your e-shop.
1. Ajax Shopping Cart
Browsing through products and categories and adding them to the shopping cart is an important part of the online shopping process. With this revolutionary module, you can eliminate unnecessary page reloadings, enabling your customers to add products to the cart right from the category page. This increases the chances of multiple purchases, as your users can keep browsing and adding new products to the cart easily.
Furthermore, this extension enables your customers to compare products by putting them on the Comparison list and save favorite products by putting them on their Wishlist.
2. Social Login Pro
With the number of social media users worldwide rising steadily, by not optimizing your e-shop for social networks you could miss out on a lot of potential customers. Social Login Pro allows your users to create an account using their social media profiles. A good thing about this extension is that it covers 50 social networks, including the most popular ones like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
This extension can also give you some valuable insights, like your customers’ email addresses, age, and gender.
3. MailChimp
A well-targeted, personalized email marketing campaign can help you increase sales and, more importantly, maintain relationships with your users and transform them from mere customers into loyal fans. One of the world’s leading email marketing platforms, MailChimp, provides a great Magento extension that lets you use purchase data to create precisely targeted newsletter campaigns. You can also set up marketing automation, track customers, view results, and analyze ROI.
You will have to create a MailChimp account to get this extension (if you don’t already have one), but it’s well worth it if you’re interested in email marketing.
4. LiveChat
A good live chat extension can really show your users you’re willing to go the extra mile to provide them with the best customer experience. It can also help you reduce the number of potential emails and calls, giving your customers a chance to engage with you directly while browsing products and categories.
LiveChat does just that, and it is present on every page in your customer’s purchasing experience, including the checkout. It also comes with Android and iOS apps that allow you to chat with your users on the go and make sure they have the support they need at all times.
5. Shipping Rules
Coming up with an effective shipping plan that doesn’t discourage your customers from making a purchase but at the same time doesn’t put you out of business can be stressful.
The Shipping Rules extension enables you to set your shipping rates based on many different conditions: unit weight, location, or even customer attributes (for example, you can give lower shipping rates to customers who created an account on your website more than a year ago).
6. Multi Warehouse Inventory
Managing your inventory can be a nuisance if you hold stock in only one warehouse, but if you have your products in several warehouses – it’s virtually impossible. That’s where the Multi Warehouse Inventory comes in – it allows you to split your inventory between different warehouses and manage product stock per each warehouse separately.
Each warehouse receives its own order notifications and you split orders from each warehouse into separate shipments. It may be one of the most expensive extensions on our list, but if you’re familiar with the hassle of running a business from different warehouses – you know that the Multi Warehouse Inventory is worth the price.
7. Google Shopping Feed
Setting up your e-shop is an important first step, but once you get it up and running, it’s time to get some traffic. An easy way to do this is through Google, and one of the best services Google offers to marketer is Google Shopping which enables you to display product ads within Google search results.
To do this, you first need to export all your products to Google Shopping, which can be a tiring experience. The Google Shopping Feed makes this process much easier by automatically uploading the products and allowing you to create proper product descriptions for each item.
8. Refer a Friend
Research shows that 92% of people trust other people’s recommendations, even if they don’t know them personally. So, why not reward a customer that refers you to their friends, thus potentially providing you another customer.
Refer a Friend lets you do exactly that, while enabling you to set the bonuses as you wish – either as fixed amounts or percentage discounts. You can also see detailed statistics of your referral sales.
9. A/B Testing
The only way to see if something will work is to test it. With A/B Testing by Amasty, you can run several experiments at a time and find out which one converts the best. You can also choose what qualifies as a conversion, between four possible goals: Product purchased, Product Added to Cart, Product Added to Wishlist, and Page Visited.
The best thing about this extension is that you don’t have to create duplicate product pages – you can just select various attributes and they will be randomly shown to your customers.
10. Quick Search
If a customers know exactly what they’re looking for, a good search bar is crucial for their shopping experience. Quick Search improves your website’s search capability by giving your customers suggestions and auto-complete options while they type their search.
You can also add search filters and customize sorting of the results from the admin panel.
Conclusion
With the e-commerce industry experiencing an almost dramatic growth, getting a competitive advantage in the market is crucial. If you see an extension you like on this list try it out and give your users the experience that will have them coming back to sour website again and again.
February 25, 2018Whether you want to increase sales, improve customer experience, or add a shipping option to your website, you can find an extension that addresses these issues and helps you customize your platform.
But, with thousands of extensions in the Magento Marketplace you can choose from, how do you know which extensions are right for you? To help you make the right decision, we created a list of the best Magneto extensions that could help you improve your e-shop.
1. Ajax Shopping Cart
Browsing through products and categories and adding them to the shopping cart is an important part of the online shopping process. With this revolutionary module, you can eliminate unnecessary page reloadings, enabling your customers to add products to the cart right from the category page. This increases the chances of multiple purchases, as your users can keep browsing and adding new products to the cart easily.
Furthermore, this extension enables your customers to compare products by putting them on the Comparison list and save favorite products by putting them on their Wishlist.
2. Social Login Pro
With the number of social media users worldwide rising steadily, by not optimizing your e-shop for social networks you could miss out on a lot of potential customers. Social Login Pro allows your users to create an account using their social media profiles. A good thing about this extension is that it covers 50 social networks, including the most popular ones like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
This extension can also give you some valuable insights, like your customers’ email addresses, age, and gender.
3. MailChimp
A well-targeted, personalized email marketing campaign can help you increase sales and, more importantly, maintain relationships with your users and transform them from mere customers into loyal fans. One of the world’s leading email marketing platforms, MailChimp, provides a great Magento extension that lets you use purchase data to create precisely targeted newsletter campaigns. You can also set up marketing automation, track customers, view results, and analyze ROI.
You will have to create a MailChimp account to get this extension (if you don’t already have one), but it’s well worth it if you’re interested in email marketing.
4. LiveChat
A good live chat extension can really show your users you’re willing to go the extra mile to provide them with the best customer experience. It can also help you reduce the number of potential emails and calls, giving your customers a chance to engage with you directly while browsing products and categories.
LiveChat does just that, and it is present on every page in your customer’s purchasing experience, including the checkout. It also comes with Android and iOS apps that allow you to chat with your users on the go and make sure they have the support they need at all times.
5. Shipping Rules
Coming up with an effective shipping plan that doesn’t discourage your customers from making a purchase but at the same time doesn’t put you out of business can be stressful.
The Shipping Rules extension enables you to set your shipping rates based on many different conditions: unit weight, location, or even customer attributes (for example, you can give lower shipping rates to customers who created an account on your website more than a year ago).
6. Multi Warehouse Inventory
Managing your inventory can be a nuisance if you hold stock in only one warehouse, but if you have your products in several warehouses – it’s virtually impossible. That’s where the Multi Warehouse Inventory comes in – it allows you to split your inventory between different warehouses and manage product stock per each warehouse separately.
Each warehouse receives its own order notifications and you split orders from each warehouse into separate shipments. It may be one of the most expensive extensions on our list, but if you’re familiar with the hassle of running a business from different warehouses – you know that the Multi Warehouse Inventory is worth the price.
7. Google Shopping Feed
Setting up your e-shop is an important first step, but once you get it up and running, it’s time to get some traffic. An easy way to do this is through Google, and one of the best services Google offers to marketer is Google Shopping which enables you to display product ads within Google search results.
To do this, you first need to export all your products to Google Shopping, which can be a tiring experience. The Google Shopping Feed makes this process much easier by automatically uploading the products and allowing you to create proper product descriptions for each item.
8. Refer a Friend
Research shows that 92% of people trust other people’s recommendations, even if they don’t know them personally. So, why not reward a customer that refers you to their friends, thus potentially providing you another customer.
Refer a Friend lets you do exactly that, while enabling you to set the bonuses as you wish – either as fixed amounts or percentage discounts. You can also see detailed statistics of your referral sales.
9. A/B Testing
The only way to see if something will work is to test it. With A/B Testing by Amasty, you can run several experiments at a time and find out which one converts the best. You can also choose what qualifies as a conversion, between four possible goals: Product purchased, Product Added to Cart, Product Added to Wishlist, and Page Visited.
The best thing about this extension is that you don’t have to create duplicate product pages – you can just select various attributes and they will be randomly shown to your customers.
10. Quick Search
If a customers know exactly what they’re looking for, a good search bar is crucial for their shopping experience. Quick Search improves your website’s search capability by giving your customers suggestions and auto-complete options while they type their search.
You can also add search filters and customize sorting of the results from the admin panel.
Conclusion
With the e-commerce industry experiencing an almost dramatic growth, getting a competitive advantage in the market is crucial. If you see an extension you like on this list try it out and give your users the experience that will have them coming back to sour website again and again.
10 free Magento modules you should check out
We all know that platforms like Magneto can help you run your e-shop efficiently, but upgrading it with some useful extensions really gives your website a competitive edge. And, with the e-commerce market showing steady growth, having a competitive edge seems crucial now more than ever.
Unfortunately, some Magento extensions can be quite expensive, so you can end up spending more money on them than on the development and design of your website. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t find some great free extensions that can help you improve your customers’ shopping experience and your website management.
That’s why we created this list of the best free Magento modules. We made sure to include a wide spectrum of extensions – from social media plug-ins and blog extensions to search and checkout modules.
1. MatrixRate table rate shipping
A good shipping strategy is crucial if you want to avoid people abandoning their carts due to high shipping costs or unclear shipping information. MatrixRate allows you to customize your shipping options and offer your customers various rates based on cart price, weight, and quantity. You can also set different shipping prices for different countries, states, and even zip codes.
One of the most popular Magento shipping rates extensions, MatrixRate is a great free solution that will make the creation of a viable shipping strategy much easier.
2. Facebook Reviews
Underestimating the potential of social networks in 2018 wouldn’t be a smart move, considering how much marketing potential these networks have. Facebook alone has more than 2.2 billion active users, and this number is growing daily.
One of the ways you can engage with Facebook users is by letting them know how much you appreciate their opinion. With the Facebook Reviews extension, your users can post Facebook reviews directly from the product page on your website. Facebook comments about certain products can also be displayed on the product page, giving the product credibility and making the page look more truthful.
3. Easy Lightbox
After working so hard to stock up your inventory and create an array of special products, you want to make sure they all stand out, right?
Easy Lightbox lets you do just that – it replaces the default image zoomer and presents your product in a nice lightbox window, which allows the users to see the product better. It’s also very customizable – you can change image size, thumbnail, and the lightbox itself.
4. LiveAgent live chat & helpdesk
Writing an email or calling an e-shop to ask questions about a product can be an unpleasant, time-consuming experience. LiveAgent Live chat eliminates the need for this, as it gives your customers an opportunity to contact you directly via a live chat button on your website.
Possibly the best thing about this extension is that it also enables you to connect with Facebook and Twitter, and respond to Facebook messages, comments, and posts, as well as tweets directly from LiveAgent. If your support is not online, your users can always leave you an offline message which you can later answer by email.
5. Banner Slider
A great solution for on-site promotion, with Banner Slider you display banners on your homepage or any of the 36 available positions. This can come in handy if you have a promotional offer, a discount, or a special category you want to promote by giving it a prominent position on your website.
Banners are customizable – you can edit their effects and showing time. You can even insert custom codes and create your own slider. If you want to know how your banners are performing, you can get detailed reports on clicks and impressions.
6. Instant Search +
A fast and efficient search extension, Instant Search + has a great AutoComplete feature that kicks in as soon as your customer types in the first letter of their query. Even if they misspell, this extension will recognize the mistake and correct it in the dropdown.
Search results are also personalized, meaning that if two different people type in the same word, they will get different results, according to their preferences.
7. Clever Google Adwords
Even the best website in the world doesn’t mean anything if there’s no one to visit it. Google Adwords campaigns are a great way to get more traffic to your website, but creating and optimizing these campaigns can be a tough ask if you don’t have the necessary experience.
Fortunately, Clever Google Adwords can do this for you, creating text and image ads automatically, based on your products and categories.
8. Awesome Blog
Another great way to get more traffic is Search Engine Optimization. As of 2018, Google searches account for more than 74% percent of all searches worldwide – one more reason why your e-shop would benefit from a blog section optimized by modern SEO standards.
With the Awesome Blog extension, you can create blogs, assign them to categories, and add tags. The extension also has a couple of nice features like blog comments, infinite scroll, social share, and multi-language support. All blogs also have Friendly Permalinks that help with SEO.
9. Image Optimizer
Nothing can ruin an online shopping experience like a slow website that takes more than five seconds to load a product or category page.
Image Optimizer solves this problem to a certain extent by helping you reduce image size, which affects loading speeds and helps your website run more smoothly. However, this size reduction doesn’t affect image quality, so your products will be as prominently and clearly displayed as they were before. The extension is easy to install and use, and it supports three image formats – JPG, PNG, and GIF.
10. MailChimp
You can use all of your valuable e-commerce data to launch an effective, precisely targeted email campaign. MailChimp allows you to sync your purchase data with your email lists and send your customers personalized emails.
This extension also enables you to segment users based on purchase history and set up marketing automation that can remind them about items they left in their shopping carts. Everything is measurable, as you can easily see all results and measure your ROI.
Conclusion
All of these free Magento modules can help you upgrade your e-commerce website and improve your customers’ shopping experience. But, the best thing about them – they’re all free. Feel free to try some of them out. There is no doubt that at least one of them will benefit your business and help your e-shop grow.
February 15, 2018Unfortunately, some Magento extensions can be quite expensive, so you can end up spending more money on them than on the development and design of your website. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t find some great free extensions that can help you improve your customers’ shopping experience and your website management.
That’s why we created this list of the best free Magento modules. We made sure to include a wide spectrum of extensions – from social media plug-ins and blog extensions to search and checkout modules.
1. MatrixRate table rate shipping
A good shipping strategy is crucial if you want to avoid people abandoning their carts due to high shipping costs or unclear shipping information. MatrixRate allows you to customize your shipping options and offer your customers various rates based on cart price, weight, and quantity. You can also set different shipping prices for different countries, states, and even zip codes.
One of the most popular Magento shipping rates extensions, MatrixRate is a great free solution that will make the creation of a viable shipping strategy much easier.
2. Facebook Reviews
Underestimating the potential of social networks in 2018 wouldn’t be a smart move, considering how much marketing potential these networks have. Facebook alone has more than 2.2 billion active users, and this number is growing daily.
One of the ways you can engage with Facebook users is by letting them know how much you appreciate their opinion. With the Facebook Reviews extension, your users can post Facebook reviews directly from the product page on your website. Facebook comments about certain products can also be displayed on the product page, giving the product credibility and making the page look more truthful.
3. Easy Lightbox
After working so hard to stock up your inventory and create an array of special products, you want to make sure they all stand out, right?
Easy Lightbox lets you do just that – it replaces the default image zoomer and presents your product in a nice lightbox window, which allows the users to see the product better. It’s also very customizable – you can change image size, thumbnail, and the lightbox itself.
4. LiveAgent live chat & helpdesk
Writing an email or calling an e-shop to ask questions about a product can be an unpleasant, time-consuming experience. LiveAgent Live chat eliminates the need for this, as it gives your customers an opportunity to contact you directly via a live chat button on your website.
Possibly the best thing about this extension is that it also enables you to connect with Facebook and Twitter, and respond to Facebook messages, comments, and posts, as well as tweets directly from LiveAgent. If your support is not online, your users can always leave you an offline message which you can later answer by email.
5. Banner Slider
A great solution for on-site promotion, with Banner Slider you display banners on your homepage or any of the 36 available positions. This can come in handy if you have a promotional offer, a discount, or a special category you want to promote by giving it a prominent position on your website.
Banners are customizable – you can edit their effects and showing time. You can even insert custom codes and create your own slider. If you want to know how your banners are performing, you can get detailed reports on clicks and impressions.
6. Instant Search +
A fast and efficient search extension, Instant Search + has a great AutoComplete feature that kicks in as soon as your customer types in the first letter of their query. Even if they misspell, this extension will recognize the mistake and correct it in the dropdown.
Search results are also personalized, meaning that if two different people type in the same word, they will get different results, according to their preferences.
7. Clever Google Adwords
Even the best website in the world doesn’t mean anything if there’s no one to visit it. Google Adwords campaigns are a great way to get more traffic to your website, but creating and optimizing these campaigns can be a tough ask if you don’t have the necessary experience.
Fortunately, Clever Google Adwords can do this for you, creating text and image ads automatically, based on your products and categories.
8. Awesome Blog
Another great way to get more traffic is Search Engine Optimization. As of 2018, Google searches account for more than 74% percent of all searches worldwide – one more reason why your e-shop would benefit from a blog section optimized by modern SEO standards.
With the Awesome Blog extension, you can create blogs, assign them to categories, and add tags. The extension also has a couple of nice features like blog comments, infinite scroll, social share, and multi-language support. All blogs also have Friendly Permalinks that help with SEO.
9. Image Optimizer
Nothing can ruin an online shopping experience like a slow website that takes more than five seconds to load a product or category page.
Image Optimizer solves this problem to a certain extent by helping you reduce image size, which affects loading speeds and helps your website run more smoothly. However, this size reduction doesn’t affect image quality, so your products will be as prominently and clearly displayed as they were before. The extension is easy to install and use, and it supports three image formats – JPG, PNG, and GIF.
10. MailChimp
You can use all of your valuable e-commerce data to launch an effective, precisely targeted email campaign. MailChimp allows you to sync your purchase data with your email lists and send your customers personalized emails.
This extension also enables you to segment users based on purchase history and set up marketing automation that can remind them about items they left in their shopping carts. Everything is measurable, as you can easily see all results and measure your ROI.
Conclusion
All of these free Magento modules can help you upgrade your e-commerce website and improve your customers’ shopping experience. But, the best thing about them – they’re all free. Feel free to try some of them out. There is no doubt that at least one of them will benefit your business and help your e-shop grow.
What Is the Repository Pattern in Magento 2?
A lot of articles can be found out there describing repository design patterns, but not all are necessarily clear in the explanation. The description varies from one programming language to another, so it can get confusing sometimes.
Here, we’ll try to begin with the basics, explaining how applications are layered, what a repository is and introduce the repository pattern. Then we’ll talk about how it was implemented in Magento 2 and what does it mean for users of this platform.
Layered Application Design
Let’s suppose you have any application. It could be a web application, a multimedia application, and so on. Applications are usually conceptually divided into layers, not only for better understanding but also for better design and to make the developers’ life easier.
No matter what type your application is, it most likely has to interact with some sort of persistent data. It could be in the form of a hard drive, a network, the cloud, or some other form. This is called the data source. The application also has a presentation layer, which is responsible for end-user interaction and displaying all relevant information.
Underneath the presentation layer is the business layer. This layer is also sometimes called business logic or domain logic. Essentially, it is responsible for translating the real-world specification of the business to programming rules and data conditions.
For example, it may force a product called object A to have a certain X attribute, or some action to be performed when an order for object B is placed. It determines how data can be created, stored and changed.
As you can see, the business layer needs to interact with the data source. But accessing this data directly is generally not a good idea. It makes it more difficult for developers to focus solely on implementing the logic correctly, since they have to understand how the data source is structured and how can data be retrieved from it.
This usually leads to problems like the appearance of duplicated code, poor implementation of the business logic, difficulties testing the logic and basically a higher chance of programming errors.
The Repository Pattern
The solution to this conundrum is to add another layer between the data source and the business layer. A repository is one of the ways to do this. Generally speaking, a repository is a central location where data is stored and maintained.
The repository pattern is a design pattern in which a repository forms an abstraction layer, which is the data layer, between the data source and the business layer. This basically removes the logic to retrieve and map the data to a model from the business layer and places it in the data layer.
This way, the business layer does not have to worry about the format the data is in. It could be a database, a Sharepoint list, or a web service.
Likewise, the repository is also in charge of the ORM implementation. ORM (Object-relational mapping) is responsible for mapping object-oriented language into relational database language. With the repository pattern, this mapping is now invisible to the business layer. It could be implemented with LINQ to SQL or even ADO.NET Entity Framework, but it is now the job of the repository to worry about this.
Introducing the Repository Pattern in Magento 2
Although the repository pattern concept has been around for awhile, it wasn’t used in Magento 1 and was introduced in Magento 2. It was introduced because some deep changes were needed in Magento’s API. Let’s take a quick look at these changes.
How Does it Work?
This small example shows how the business logic and data retrieval and storage is separated with the usage of the repository pattern. Basically, loading and saving the data is done through the repository, while accessing or changing a data field is done by the business logic. The repository maps the data from whatever format it is stored in the data source into the $model object, local to the business layer.
// Load data from persistent storage $model = $modelRepository->loadById($id); // Read data from model $name = $model->getName(); // Change data on model $model->setActive(true); // Save the changes to persistent storage $modelRepository->save($model); Note that this example is simplified. There are other samples that go in-depth on how to set up classes, create objects and using the repository. Our intent here is just to explain the repository pattern concept to Magento 2 users, who may find it new.
The repository pattern approach does have one drawback. There is a useful feature in web pages, especially for mobile devices, which is lazy loading. We call it lazy because elements like images are only loaded if they are within the screen area. For example, it means that when you visit a web store, only the top images are loaded, and the other ones are loaded as you scroll down on your device.
However, in Magento 2, as is illustrated in the example above, when we perform a load operation all the data is loaded, and not just the needed data. So, when you open a Magento 2 web store, it takes more time to load because all the images are being retrieved from persistent storage.
There are already some extensions that work their way around this limitation and allow for lazy loading in Magento 2. You can find some of them in the Magento Marketplace.
Conclusion
The introduction of the repository pattern improved the API standards in Magento 2. This has benefitted developers, who now have an easier job customizing and building extensions for the popular eCommerce platform.
Overall, this change has led to improved performance, functionality, security and stability in Magento 2 compared to Magento 1.
December 21, 2017Here, we’ll try to begin with the basics, explaining how applications are layered, what a repository is and introduce the repository pattern. Then we’ll talk about how it was implemented in Magento 2 and what does it mean for users of this platform.
Layered Application Design
Let’s suppose you have any application. It could be a web application, a multimedia application, and so on. Applications are usually conceptually divided into layers, not only for better understanding but also for better design and to make the developers’ life easier.
No matter what type your application is, it most likely has to interact with some sort of persistent data. It could be in the form of a hard drive, a network, the cloud, or some other form. This is called the data source. The application also has a presentation layer, which is responsible for end-user interaction and displaying all relevant information.
Underneath the presentation layer is the business layer. This layer is also sometimes called business logic or domain logic. Essentially, it is responsible for translating the real-world specification of the business to programming rules and data conditions.
For example, it may force a product called object A to have a certain X attribute, or some action to be performed when an order for object B is placed. It determines how data can be created, stored and changed.
As you can see, the business layer needs to interact with the data source. But accessing this data directly is generally not a good idea. It makes it more difficult for developers to focus solely on implementing the logic correctly, since they have to understand how the data source is structured and how can data be retrieved from it.
This usually leads to problems like the appearance of duplicated code, poor implementation of the business logic, difficulties testing the logic and basically a higher chance of programming errors.
The Repository Pattern
The solution to this conundrum is to add another layer between the data source and the business layer. A repository is one of the ways to do this. Generally speaking, a repository is a central location where data is stored and maintained.
The repository pattern is a design pattern in which a repository forms an abstraction layer, which is the data layer, between the data source and the business layer. This basically removes the logic to retrieve and map the data to a model from the business layer and places it in the data layer.
This way, the business layer does not have to worry about the format the data is in. It could be a database, a Sharepoint list, or a web service.
Likewise, the repository is also in charge of the ORM implementation. ORM (Object-relational mapping) is responsible for mapping object-oriented language into relational database language. With the repository pattern, this mapping is now invisible to the business layer. It could be implemented with LINQ to SQL or even ADO.NET Entity Framework, but it is now the job of the repository to worry about this.
Introducing the Repository Pattern in Magento 2
Although the repository pattern concept has been around for awhile, it wasn’t used in Magento 1 and was introduced in Magento 2. It was introduced because some deep changes were needed in Magento’s API. Let’s take a quick look at these changes.
- Modernizing the API with REST (Representational state transfer), while remaining backward-compatible for web stores using SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). Both REST and SOAP are web service communication protocols which provide interoperability between network systems.
- Maintaining functionality across the old SOAP API, the new REST API, and any potential future API.
- Refactoring the Magento ORM layer.
- Achieving this with a team that had gaps in terms of Magento 1 experience.
How Does it Work?
This small example shows how the business logic and data retrieval and storage is separated with the usage of the repository pattern. Basically, loading and saving the data is done through the repository, while accessing or changing a data field is done by the business logic. The repository maps the data from whatever format it is stored in the data source into the $model object, local to the business layer.
// Load data from persistent storage $model = $modelRepository->loadById($id); // Read data from model $name = $model->getName(); // Change data on model $model->setActive(true); // Save the changes to persistent storage $modelRepository->save($model); Note that this example is simplified. There are other samples that go in-depth on how to set up classes, create objects and using the repository. Our intent here is just to explain the repository pattern concept to Magento 2 users, who may find it new.
The repository pattern approach does have one drawback. There is a useful feature in web pages, especially for mobile devices, which is lazy loading. We call it lazy because elements like images are only loaded if they are within the screen area. For example, it means that when you visit a web store, only the top images are loaded, and the other ones are loaded as you scroll down on your device.
However, in Magento 2, as is illustrated in the example above, when we perform a load operation all the data is loaded, and not just the needed data. So, when you open a Magento 2 web store, it takes more time to load because all the images are being retrieved from persistent storage.
There are already some extensions that work their way around this limitation and allow for lazy loading in Magento 2. You can find some of them in the Magento Marketplace.
Conclusion
The introduction of the repository pattern improved the API standards in Magento 2. This has benefitted developers, who now have an easier job customizing and building extensions for the popular eCommerce platform.
Overall, this change has led to improved performance, functionality, security and stability in Magento 2 compared to Magento 1.
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