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Magento Design Trends for 2018
But the things that made a good design 10 years ago may not hold up nowadays. Design features evolve over the years, and some elements that made a brilliant homepage when it was first designed may slowly become outdated and lose their sparkle over time.
So, if you want to stay ahead of the curve and prevent your Magento web store from being considered a relic of the past, read on and find out our predictions for the most trendy design features of 2018.
Mobile Performance
We know this is not exactly a design feature per se, but we’re starting off with it because it is probably the most important aspect of web design nowadays. If you were to focus on a single topic from this list, this should probably be it.
Mobile traffic, as we all know, has been growing over recent years. It has already surpassed desktop traffic in the percentage of total web traffic, and it is going to rise even more. So, in a way, mobile users should be given even more relevance than desktop users.
As we’ve noted before, users of mobile devices are quite impatient and they expect results (almost) instantly. Therefore, the main things to focus on are mobile-responsive pages, making sure you show all the main elements on smaller screens, and, most importantly, having pages that are quick to load. You should keep these mobile guidelines in mind even when implementing the other elements that we mention in this article.
Negative Space
Minimalistic designs have been in vogue recently, and this trend will likely continue in 2018. It is not so hot anymore to stuff your pages with images, text and other items all over the place. Instead, if you remove some elements, you can give more emphasis to those that are left, like call-to-action buttons, by letting them breathe and clearing up the background. Sometimes, if a design is really cool, it can even use the whitespace itself as part of the design, by embedding text or an illustration into it.
Leaving plenty of empty space also means there will be a shorter number of heavy elements, like images, to display, which will make your pages load faster. Again, visitors will thank you for that, especially mobile ones.
Call-to-Action Buttons
Call-to-Action buttons are the bread and butter of eCommerce business owners, and Magento users are no exception. The key here is consistency: buttons like "Add to Cart" and "Proceed to Checkout" should be easily recognizable and be exactly in the same spot for every product page.
Other things to keep in mind are to use vivid colors for these buttons, possibly use a bold font and place them in an intuitive area, like next to the product image. Make it stand out but remember, don’t go overboard. Go for a clean and minimalistic approach.
Typography
We’re already seeing a lot of designs based on daring usage of fonts, and this tendency is likely to increase next year. Depending on the context, text can convey an idea even better than an image, and design-wise it can look even better. Try to mix up font sizes or even font types.
Using more text in detriment of images is also in line with the minimalistic trend. Another advantage of text relative to images is that it is a lot lighter and faster to load, yet another thing that benefits mobile users.
Animations
With the advances in web browsers and the appearance of technologies like HTML5, it is now much simpler to add smooth and lightweight animations to your web store. Feel free to do so, as you can expect to see much more of them in 2018, opposed to the flashy, distracting animations we had some years ago.
Besides being a pleasant visual element, animations can also be useful to display some extra content, like fading an image to display some text behind it, or even animating a logo between different forms to transmit the identity of the company. These actions can be automatic or triggered by a page scroll or by hovering the mouse over the item.
Cinemagraphs
You’ll likely hear a lot more about cinemagraphs in the upcoming year. They are like a hybrid between image and video, combining the ease of use of the first with the motion element from the second.
Cinemagraphs are quite peculiar, and not exactly like GIFs. Usually, they consist of a still image where only part of it is moving and have almost a magic feel to it. You can also program them to run only when a certain action is performed, like a scroll.
More than being used just to capture visitors’ attention, especially because they add some weight to the page, cinemagraphs can be used to convey relevant information, such as a 360-degree view of a certain product. Introducing one or more of these is a great way to add a modern twist to your web store.
Cards
Card or grid-based designs have been growing in popularity, and this trend does not show any signs of slowing down. The most successful example of a card-based design is probably the giant web and mobile application Pinterest.
First of all, grouping products or other areas of your business into cards help our brains quickly grasp how the website is organized. This makes navigation easier and more intuitive.
Secondly, this type of hierarchy works really well with mobile devices. Since the screen sizes are smaller, you can just swipe through the cards to find the one you’re interested in, and then click on it to expand and reveal what is in that category. The second level may also be divided into cards, and so on and so forth, making navigation in smartphones and tablets a breeze.
Personalized Experience
To wrap it up, we’d like to talk about offering your customers a personalized experience. As a web store owner using Magento or any other platform, it is important that your customers feel well treated and that they are special to you.
One way to do this is to give product recommendations like "Recently Viewed" or "Best Selling". These features may be incorporated into a product slider that can even allow swiping through in mobile devices. Once again, this is similar to the card-based navigation that we’ve talked about.
The main thing to keep in mind is to really make it a joy for customers to navigate through your website. If you follow these tips that will be trending in 2018, you will be well on your way to do that.
How to Use Web Design to Boost Conversions This Holiday Season
A poor design will not transmit the idea that your company is reliable and trustworthy. And if the pages are too cluttered or confusing, it will distract visitors from the main call-to-action buttons and they will leave without finishing what they were there to do.
Now that the holiday season is coming, a remarkable presentation is more important than ever. During this period, you will get more new visitors than at any other time of the year. So this is not so much about maintaining your regular customers as it is about convincing new ones that you’re the business to go to.
People are more willing to spend money during the holiday so they can give their loved ones something they like. Your task is to capitalize on that spirit and offer them a reliable service. Let’s see how you can do that with some design improvements.
1. Make Sure Your Design is Fully Responsive Your website should behave consistently across all devices, not just desktops, but also smartphones, tablets, and even smartwatches, if possible. During the holiday season, people will always be looking for good deals and gift ideas, whether they are at home, at work or on the subway.
So, make sure they can check out your deals by giving them easy, user-friendly access to your web store from any device. Invest some time in making your design extra-responsive, if it isn’t already.
2. Use White Space White space is not just unused space, it is also an important design feature. In art, the empty space around an image is usually called negative space, and sometimes it is even the main feature itself. For your website, using white space well could mean, first of all, clearing your pages of useless clutter and make them feel clean and spacious.
Then, it can also be used to make some elements on the page pop out. For example, you might have some awesome Christmas deals now that Christmas is coming. You can use white space around the "Christmas Deals" section on your web store to make it really stand out from the other elements.
3. Use Red-Colored Elements Coloring some elements with red, as well as other colors that stand out, is always a good design technique to use. Good examples would be the "Add to Cart" or "Proceed to Checkout" buttons, which are usually colored in lively colors like red or green throughout the whole year.
But during the holiday season, people are imbued with a different spirit. You can take advantage of that by using a lot of red in all areas of your website. This not only reminds people of Christmas, but it is also the color normally used when shops are on sale.
It is proven that people respond well to red, maybe because it creates a sense of urgency, or maybe because it is the color of passion and it also increases heart rate.
So don’t be afraid to use the red color. Perhaps combine it with some other elements like snowflakes to really give your website that Christmas-y feeling. You can also carefully and sparingly use other colors in a couple of sections to create a color contrast. This technique is useful when you want to draw attention to certain elements of your page.
4. Make Special Deals Stand Out Sometimes, when people are browsing the web for gifts, they aren’t sure about what they’re going to get yet. Sometimes they even have no idea, and are out there looking for inspiration. If this type of visitors stumbles upon your website, it is important that you captivate them right away and show them that this could be what they are looking for.
You’ll probably have some Christmas deals, daily deals or other kinds of special offers available, so you should showcase these offers clearly. Use product sliders or carousels and place them in a strategic spot so they stand out from other sections.
You can even create a dedicated page for "Christmas Offers" or "Gift Ideas". These special promotions might catch the eye of those undecided shoppers and hopefully offer just what they were looking for.
5. Use Video Features It is proven that having video elements on your page makes people more likely to perform the conversion action. It’s no surprise, either, given that so much of the total web traffic is accounted for by video files.
Even major brands like Apple use video features on their website during the Christmas season. Just watch out for a couple things. Make sure that the video has high quality, as a poor quality or blurry video can have the opposite effect and give users the impression that your brand is not reliable. Also, don’t use videos that are too long or with little movement, as it can make visitors impatient and drive them away.
6. Use a Card-Based Design Card-based designs have gained popularity over recent years. Pinterest is a good example of a successful card-based design. This type of design is effective because it divides the page into several areas, or "packages", each having a single theme or category. This makes it easier for visitors to quickly scan your website and identify all the features, giving them a sense of a more user-friendly experience.
Also, by clicking a card the user is instantly taken to the card’s category page, which makes for more intuitive navigation. This kind of approach makes, even more, sense when combined with mobile devices, which have smaller screen sizes by nature. It is simply easier to swipe through the cards and choose the one you’re interested in.
So divide your categories and deals into individual cards and give them a consistent, clean design to make your customers’ life easier.
7. Improve Your Website’s Search Function During the holidays, more than ever you are going to have people visiting your website that are not familiar with your web store. Usually, when people don’t know their way around they’ll resort to the Search Bar. And if this feature is not working properly, visitors will soon be discovered and go look elsewhere.
So make sure that your Search Function is responsive and provides relevant results. If this is not the case and customization is not helping, you can use one of the great Search Bar extensions available on the Magento Marketplace. If people are able to find what they were looking for, they are much more likely to buy from you.
Overall, this is all about providing a pleasant, exciting experience to your users. People are happy during the holiday season, so be part of that spirit, use cheerful design elements and help them find the awesome deals you have to offer.
Magento Extensions – How Many Are Too Many?
The already large number of available extensions on the Magento marketplace will only tend to increase, so whatever functionality you want to add to your store, there is probably an extension out there that implements it.
This can lead to the issue of Magento web store owners going on an extension frenzy and installing modules for every little reason. Some people can even have more than a hundred installed modules. You’d think that their store is great for being packed with features, but having so many extensions may also raise some problems. At some point, one might ask: how many extensions are too many?
We might be led to answer that having 2 or 3 extensions is fine and 20 is too many. However, it is not that simple. If you install only 2 modules, but those modules have some kind of compatibility issue that slows down your website, it is already too many.
Since this is a delicate issue with no straightforward answer, we’re going to point out some tips that will hopefully help you choose your extensions more carefully and give you some criteria to know when you’ve reached your limit.
1. Double Check if You Really Need an Extension
Sometimes, when they want to add a new functionality to their web store, people tend to automatically seek an extension that implements that functionality. However, there are two caveats here. First, the base version of Magento could have a setting that provides the feature the owner is looking for. Second, the extension probably implements more than what the owner wanted.
Vanilla (out-of-the-box) Magento is already feature-packed, so it may well provide the feature you are looking for. However, instead of spending some time doing a little bit of research, people find it easier to go for an extension straight away, especially if it is for free.
In doing this, they might find an extension that relates to what they were looking for, but also has some unneeded features. If it is free, this does not really concern them. However, they may be putting a bigger load than needed on the server, thus slowing down the website.
2. Inspect New Code before Installing
We understand that you may not be a code specialist in order to do this one, but you can also ask a developer to do it.
Our first tip for you is not to install new modules through the Magento Marketplace, but install them manually instead. We get that a one-click install is much more convenient, but a manual install that allows you to inspect the code first leads to a much smoother-running store in the long run. So let’s have a look at some warning signs you should look out for while inspecting the code.
But that’s not all. In many cases, a certain extension only implements a part of the functionality desired by the user. With an encrypted module, you won’t be able to extend its functionality or do any kind of code customization.
The Extension Modifies Magento Core Functionality If the extension you want to install modifies any files inside any of these folders:
- app/code/core - app/code/local/Mage - app/code/community/Mage Then, as a general rule, it is probably best not to install it. It could be nothing, but inside these folders is the core Magento functionality, so any changes here will alter the base behavior of your web store, which might give you some headaches later on.
The Extension Overwrites Core Classes Generally speaking, an extension should not overwrite any of the core classes unless it is strictly necessary. Although this is not a reason to discard the extension straightaway, it is something to pay attention to.
Some of the most often rewritten classes are checkout/cart, sales/order, sales/quote, catalog/product, and checkout/type_onepage. So keep your eyes open for rewrites involving these classes and make sure there is a legitimate reason behind them.
Another behavior that should make you suspicious is if an extension modifies a class that seems completely unrelated to the functionality it implements.
Bad Programming Practices This is not a decisive factor, but it is always preferable to install code that follows programming best practices, as well as being well documented.
The Developer Has a Low Reputation Check the reviews for other extensions from the same developer, if possible. Don’t just rely on the score: see how the developer responds to issues. Sometimes a module may have a low star rating, but if you check the customers’ complaints you’ll notice that the developer was quick to respond and solve the identified bugs.
Usually, if you find any problems in the code, you can either notify the developer and hope he makes the necessary changes, modify the code yourself or look for a different extension that fulfills the same purpose.
3. Check for Extension Conflicts
The more extensions you install, the more likely it is that two or more of them conflict with each other. That will keep at least one of the extensions from functioning properly. But prevention is key here: it is best to spot conflicts before they happen.
Conflicts are usually originated by extensions that modify the same core class. Even if you aren’t a code specialist, you can use the following rule of thumb: if two extensions provide the same or similar functionality, you should only install one of them.
There are also some modules designed to detect conflicts between other modules, like Firegento and Magento Extension Conflict.
If you detect a conflict between two extensions, contact the developers. They may implement some changes to make their extensions compatible or give you instructions on how to do so. If that is not possible, you’ll have to choose the most important extension for you and discard the other.
4. Examine All Previously Installed Extensions
It may not do you much good to start following these steps for new extensions if you already have a bunch of them installed on your server. Repeat all the previous steps for the modules you have installed in the past. There is a good chance you’ll even uninstall some of them if you notice that you’ve never used them.
5. Reserve Time and Budget for Upgrades
When a new Magento version is released, it will probably break compatibility with some of the extensions you have installed. Developers might release updates for them, but this may take them some time. It is even possible that you’ll have to spend some update fees, depending on the extension.
If developers are no longer providing support, you’ll have to inspect and maintain the code yourself to ensure all is working well. Remember that the more extensions you have installed, the longer this process will take you, so this time should already be accounted for every time a Magento upgrade is coming.
How to Improve Product Presentation in a Magento Web Store
To do that, the presentation of your products must be spot-on. It should immediately grab the attention of potential customers and make them interested in what you have to offer. But what is the best way to achieve this? Today, we’ll give some insight on several areas of your website that you can work on to begin improving your conversion rates.
1. Product Title
The product title needs to be short, clear and concise, not only to catch customers’ attention but also due to SEO issues. If it is longer than 65 characters, it will not be entirely displayed in Google Search Results, therefore the chances of anyone clicking that link is reduced.
Also, make sure you include all the keywords that match that specific product in the title. Remember that the title will appear not only in that product page URL but also in several other places like product category pages or features like "recently viewed", if you have them on your website.
Sometimes it is best not to include brand names in the title, unless it is a well-known brand and you are certain it will help attract more customers. Also, make sure that no two product titles are the same and each title uniquely describes the product it is associated to.
2. Product Image
We are all highly responsive to visual cues, so product images are arguably the most important factor as to whether someone buys a product or not. When someone is out to buy something, they want to see it, touch it and even try it, if possible.
Since the last two can’t be done in a web store, at least you have to make sure visitors are able to take a good look at what they’re buying. Present high-quality images that showcase the product in detail. Low-detail or blurry images are one of the biggest buying deterrents.
You’ll probably not want to occupy all the page space with a huge image, so you can use small thumbnails along with a module that allows zooming in for a detailed view. Also, if possible, don’t just show generic images of a product. Instead, try to capture it in action; for example, if it is a piece of clothing show someone wearing it. This will give buyers an idea of what the product will really look like.
3. Product Description
For the short product description, use 2 or 3 clear and catchy sentences. Sometimes this is the only straightaway visible product description, whereas the detailed description is below the fold, so it should quickly catch visitors’ attention.
Write down a couple of main reasons why they should buy this product. Another recommendation is that it should answer a couple of important questions, like what use does the buyer have for the product, or what makes this product different from others.
For the long description, you should avoid a generic description or spec list copied from somewhere else. The customer should feel as if he was being given information by a brick and mortar shop assistant. So instead of calling out a memorized list of specifications, try to give your personal twist to it. But don’t overdo it - you don’t want to sound as if you’re advertising the product.
4. Customer Reviews
Customer reviews help build customer confidence in what you’re selling. People trust and feel reassured reading the opinions of fellow buyers, so don’t be afraid to showcase this information. There are several modules that can help you fulfill this purpose. One example is the Kiyoh reviews module that integrates with Kiyoh, the most used product review network of the Netherlands.
5. Overall Design
Your main focus should be on simplicity. A product page should contain all the essential information that we’ve mentioned here, and not much more. Every extra link and button makes the page too full and confusing, and distracts the customers from what the main focus should be, which is the "Add to Cart" button.
Speaking of it, this button should stand out and be really clear, and be consistent across all your product pages, as should the "Proceed to Checkout" button. Give it a clean design but color it in an eye-catching tone like green or red, and place it next to the product image, either to its right or below it.
Also give some emphasis to the price, possibly with a larger, bold font and a different color, and place it near the "Add to Cart" button. And since we’re talking about price, shipping costs are also an important factor.
Shipping costs shouldn’t be given as much emphasis as the price, but should still be clearly pointed out, as you’ll want to make sure your customers know what they can count on. Better yet is to eliminate shipping costs entirely or, if that is not possible, eliminate them only for orders higher than a certain value.
For configurable products, it is important to present all the shape and size options with a nice design. You can look for some suggestions on how to do that or use an extension that automatically optimizes these settings for you.
6. Mobile Design
All we’ve said about a simple and clean presentation is even more true for mobile websites. Since smartphone screens are small, there are not a lot of things you can show at the same time, so you should really focus on the essentials.
Try to divide your products into categories as best as possible. Also, instead of showing your entire product list, you can show only the products that have a higher chance of conversion, like "Top Sellers" or "Related Products".
Use a clean background and don’t cram the mobile pages with too much information. Also, you should use swiping features as much as possible for easier navigation, and zoom features for product images just like with desktop versions.
Hopefully, what we’ve said here can give you some insight and inspiration to make some positive changes to your web store. Follow these tips, but also get creative and use your imagination and conversion rates are sure to increase.
Understanding Machine Learning in Magento 2
Some people might think about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as upcoming events that could mean an uncertain future for humankind. But the truth is they are not so much a thing of the future as they are of the present.
Artificial intelligence is already present in multiple areas of our daily lives, performing tasks for us in the backstage, even if we don't realize it. It is used in our smartphones' virtual assistants, for example. Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, and Alexa all make use of machine learning to perform speech recognition and learn to recognize your voice better the more you talk to them.
AI is even starting to be used in other areas such as science, healthcare, and banking. Even video games have been using AI for a long time. In technology, besides smartphones, which we've already covered, AI is also used in smart home devices and smart cars, with companies such as Tesla making a huge investment in this field.
This also applies, of course, to eCommerce. Human eyes can't do much with the incredible amounts of data generated by consumers' searches and purchases, and yet this data is begging to be analyzed by machine learning algorithms to improve the user experience. Even Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos has referred to AI as the "fuel" that drives the company's success.
And we can't talk about eCommerce platforms without mentioning probably the most popular one, which is Magento. In Alexa's top 1M eCommerce stores (Alexa Internet, not to be confused with Amazon Alexa), Magento was ranked #1 out of 384 e-commerce platforms, holding 19% of the market share.
Being a leader in eCommerce, Magento is obviously the perfect platform for developers to explore with AI-driven algorithms and functionalities. We'll now take a look at some of the functionalities which are already being used, or might be in the near future, to improve the experience of users in Magento web stores all across the Web.
1. Targeted User Experience
This is one of the main features of many web stores where the power of AI is revealed without us even noticing. But most eCommerce websites are already showing users messages at the right time targeting their individual preferences. For example, they might suggest you products related to the ones you've recently bought. This is possible thanks to machine learning algorithms that take big data as input and use it to target the end user with personalized experiences.
Some people might think about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as upcoming events that could mean an uncertain future for humankind.
2. Context-Based Search
There are some good search bar extensions for Magento that can already save you some time. They do this by automatically showing some results in the search bar itself if there is an instant match between the keywords you are typing and the product database.
However, even these search engines may be limited if there is no match. A search that is only keyword-driven may show you no results, even if there are products in the database that don't fit the keywords but fit the intent of your search.
An AI-driven search will look beyond the keywords and try to understand the context of your search, which can generate more relevant search results. It is almost like going to a brick and mortar store and telling the assistant what type of product you are looking for.
3. Virtual Purchase Assistants
While this feature is not fully implemented already, there are some big things we can expect. Much like a physical store assistant, a virtual purchase assistant will be able to inform you of current or upcoming deals, make suggestions and even add products to your cart so you don't have to.
This can be combined with chatbots, which are basically programs designed to emulate a conversation with a human, to make the experience even more seamless. You can solve any problems you are having without having to resort to the phone or the e-mail.
In fact, e-mail newsletters may even be replaced with notifications from the virtual assistant. In the future it may even be able to make purchases on your behalf, should you instruct it to do so.
4. Visual Search
We're already witnessing applications of visual search with Google Assistant and Google Image search, for example. If you take a picture with your smartphone, it does a pretty good job in recognizing the object, animal or landmark in the photo.
Soon, the same may be possible with eCommerce stores. Perhaps you've seen a product you've liked and you don't know its name, or maybe you want to buy something similar to the one you've found online. No problem, someday you might be able to search a web store based on an image link or uploading your own image and get relevant search results right away.
5. Fraud Prevention and Protection
With the growth in online channels, it is much more difficult to control fraud and theft issues than in person. This is easy to understand, because online it is easy for an account to be taken over with neither the customer nor the dealer being aware of it.
For this reason, merchants have to rely on human reviews to have a more thorough look at suspicious orders. As they do not want to take risks, a reasonable percentage of customer orders is delayed, leading to some frustration.
Furthermore, reports have found that a considerable percentage of orders discarded due to assumed fraud was legitimate after all. These are called false positives, and are a growing concern among eCommerce owners. With AI and machine learning algorithms, behavior analysis could be done over large amounts of data that can help mitigate this, as well as other fraud-related issues.
Magento Extensions Making Use of Machine Learning
You can already find an array of extensions for Magento that make use of one or more of the features we've discussed here, so let’s take a look at some examples. Note, we're only mentioning Magento 2 extensions.
The personalized Products module by Steven Richardson uses PredictionIO, an open source Machine Learning Server, to recommend products to customers, much like the “Customers who viewed this product also viewed…” feature used by Amazon.
Another great extension is Chloe AI by Sundown AI. This one does the role of a virtual assistant, answering your requests just like if you were texting someone. You can do this from your computer or even from a mobile device.
Finally, we'll mention the Mollie module, by Mollie Payments, which is great to illustrate the topic of fraud prevention. Mollie uses a machine learning algorithm to do behavioral detection and reduce your false positive rates.
We've mentioned three AI-using extensions here, but there are several others. With the rising popularity of both Magento and machine learning, there are bound to be much more. We've already taken a peek at what the future holds in store, but who knows how many more great features you'll be able to include in your web store?
10 Tips When Buying Your First Premium Magento Template
Buying your first premium Magento template? That’s great - it means your web store is off to a good start or else meeting expectations. But don’t get carried away. Your first premium template for Magento shouldn’t be an impulsive buy.
Professional Magento templates can get quite expensive even on a regular license. Most template stores give you a money back guarantee, but it’s better to minimize risks from the start.
There’s an almost overwhelming number of premium templates out there in the Magento marketplace and on third-party stores. But choosing the right one for you shouldn’t become a struggle. Buying a Magento theme should be enjoyable.
To make your choice easier, we’d like to draw attention to the key features a Magento theme should have. Here are sometimes on buying the best theme for your money.
1. Go for In-Depth Customization Options
A good theme lets you change more than the layout or widget arrangement. It lets you adjust design elements like the homepage slider or social media buttons. You also want to be able to change the font, which comes in handy when you want to maximize readability.
The best themes go beyond the usual customization options, allowing for unlimited custom color variations, custom background patterns, and customizable product pages and grid views. Being able to choose how your products are displayed makes a big difference.
2. Make Sure There’s a Moneyback Guarantee
The theme’s description covers everything you need. The demo is beautiful. And there are many five-star reviews, too. That’s great, but the truth is that you won’t know whether the theme is right for you until after you see it in action.
You may find that the customization is restrictive in some areas. For example, product display options may abound, but not layout options. Or that stripped of stock photos, the theme isn’t half as exciting as you thought. Or that there’s just one possible placement for social media buttons.
A money back guarantee mitigates all the big risks that come with buying a new theme.
3. Ensure the Web Design Quality Is High
Evaluating the quality of your theme shouldn’t be too hard. First, leave aside the catchy graphics -- which are usually stock photos not even included in the theme. Instead, pay attention to usability, and especially loading speed and navigation. Is the visitor’s journey from the home page to the other pages smooth?
Also, pay attention to readability and aesthetics. The style of the theme should be consistent. Check that by breaking down your theme into parts and analyzing them. Finally, the social media implementation should be smooth.
Buying your first premium Magento template? That’s great - it means your web store is off to a good start or else meeting expectations.
4. Make Sure the Template Adheres to Web Design Standards
Clean code, responsive design and customization, and cross-browser compatibility -- these are the big web design standards. But Magento also comes with its own set of theme development best practices.
You’ll need to have a look at the theme files themselves to make sure the theme developer adhered to these. When these are in place, the theme is less likely to suffer from conflicts with other extensions, which can be a pain.
5. Consider the Benefits of Extended Support
Extended support is an extra feature some theme stores offer. While it increases the cost of your theme, it can bring you peace of mind. Especially if you’re setting up or redesigning your site on your own, without a technical team to help you.
Even if you’re a web developer or web designer, certain themes may have quirks you only become aware of once you start customizing them. Asking the developers to solve them for you could turn out to be a lot faster than fixing them yourself.
6. Buy a Theme That’s Optimized for Search Engines Out of the Box
Most themes will boasts that they are "SEO friendly," but you shouldn’t take their word for it. You can run a few tests on your theme of choice, to make sure Google likes it.
You can start by using a theme code validator to check that the theme has valid HTML and CSS code. Next, you want to make sure your theme loads quickly. Last but not least, use Google Webmasters Tools to ensure it has a responsive design.
To run all these tests, you may have to buy your theme first, so once again, make sure you get a money back guarantee.
7. Check Whether Competitors Are Using It Already
This may be the last thing on your mind when buying a premium Magento theme, but it can make or break everything. If your top competitor already uses the same theme, you may come across as a copy-cat despite your efforts at customization.
8. Make Sure It’s Mobile Friendly
Don’t just settle for responsive design. A theme that’s "fully responsive" may work amazingly well on the iPhone, but underperform on Android due to a different web browser. Check the theme on mobile yourself, on all the major mobile platforms -- ask friends for help, if you need to. Also check on tablets, as sometimes display quirks creep in at larger widths.
9. See If That It Has a Blog Template
Having a blog integrated into your Magento web store is good for SEO. Even better, it can increase engagement with customers. A blog’s a great way to create a dialog with your customers while sharing with them more information about your company and the people behind it.
If your theme already has a blog template page, it can save you money on web design.
10. Check the Negative Reviews and Comments
A great Magento template may have a dozen five-star reviews and just two or three one-star or two-star reviews. Sometimes, those handful of negative reviews are far more valuable than the positive ones.
While the good reviews validate the theme description, the bad ones can highlight small but important issues of compatibility, performance, and design.
In the end, no Magento template is perfect. But paying attention to all the points we’ve covered, you can choose a theme that looks great, runs fast, and fits your web store like a glove.
The 8 Best Magento Carousels for Your Web Store
A carousel is also a great way to fit a lot of content in a short page area because all the information goes in the same place. You just have to use it wisely and don’t hide any important information.
Perhaps you’ve thought about these benefits before, but are still wondering about how to incorporate some sliders into your web store. So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the best and easy to use carousel extensions you can add to your web store.
Slider by Slava Yurthev
We begin this list with the simple yet beautiful Slider developed by Slava Yurthev. It is compatible with versions 2.1 and 2.2 of Community Magento, and best of all, it’s free.
After installation, the extension automatically sets up a slider on your homepage, but you can change it to another page on your store in the settings. There are also multiple styles to choose from, and the extension is very lightweight This carousel is based on the bxSlider jQuery library and uses fully open source code. It allows clicking to go back and forward, and also supports swiping from any mobile device. A wiki is available on GitHub, and you also get timely support from the developer.
Image Slider by Aheadworks
This carousel developed by Select Technology Partner Aheadworks is a paid extension, but may be worth the investment. It allows you to add an unlimited number of sliders to any part of your web store you desire.
It is easy to install and fast to load, and the support provided by the developer is also helpful. Some great features include customization of slider height and width, automatic resize of sliders for mobile-responsive pages and even adding videos to the carousel.
When you want to bring some life to your Magento web store, a well-designed carousel or slider may be a good choice.
Banner Slider by Magestore
The Banner Slider by Magestore is free, not only for Community Edition 2.0, 2.1 but also for Enterprise Edition.
You can set up sliders in up to 36 different positions in your web pages. This is done in a backend settings page, where you can configure the settings for all your sliders and preview the end result. There is also an array of cool effects you can add to make the sliders more visually appealing.
After all of this is done, this module also provides reports on click statistics so you can evaluate the effectiveness of your carousels.
Easy Sliders by Templates Master
This carousel comes as a paid extension for most versions of Magento 1, Community Edition, but the support you get from the developer makes up for it. One downside is that you first have to install the Templates Master Core module, although this one is free. The Core module is meant to provide some libraries that make other extensions by Templates Master work properly.
These sliders are based on Nivo sliders, which are some of the most popular carousels available for web platforms, and are also used in WordPress, for example. The Easy Sliders are mobile-responsive, fully compatible with touch and swipe features, and include 21 different Nivo-style effects and 5 different animation types.
Featured Products Slider by Orange35
The Featured Products Slider is an easy to use, lightweight and highly customizable solution to add some life to your web store. It supports an unlimited number of sliders in all of the store’s pages.
The module is easy to install and start using right away, with 3 different templates you can choose from. There is the standard horizontal carousel, but also an unconventional vertical carousel to add some originality. The third option is a horizontal carousel with a big slider above it. The idea is to navigate through the carousel as you normally would, and at the same time show some detailed descriptions in the big slider, as well as some action buttons like Add to Cart, Add to Wishlist and Add to Compare.
It is fully open source, and it is a paid extension compatible with Magento 1 COmmunity Edition.
Also Viewed Products by Vova Yatsyuk
This free carousel by developer Vova Yatsyuk brings something different to the table. This extension is focused on showing the visitor previously viewed products, or others related to them. If you own a web store, you know this might be a valuable part of your business.
The great thing about the Also Viewed Products is that it is so easy to set up. Just install it and it configures the relations and suggestions automatically. Still, you have the option to control this and other settings in the configuration pages available in the application’s backend.
Product Sliders by Big Drop
Product Sliders comes as a free extension for Magento 1 Community Edition. This module focuses on quickly adding products to a carousel based on product attributes, saving you the trouble of adding each product manually. What’s great about it is how easily you can set up some product carousels with little to no customization.
Some examples are to set up global sliders for bestseller products, products on sale, featured, newest and recently viewed. There are also some other carousels you can configure such as "Similar Products", which is related to current product category, or "Associated Products", which is based on some parameters that you can configure in the backend page.
OWL Carousel and Slider by WeltPixel
This feature-packed module by WeltPixel is free for Magento Community Edition, yet paid for the Enterprise Edition. It is based on the owl.carousel.js javascript library and allows you to place sliders in any section of your web store. You also get support from WeltPixel through their ticketing system.
Like the Image Slider by Aheadworks, it allows you to add videos to your carousels, but it also supports images, links, product descriptions, buttons and other types of custom content. Other nice features include creating carousels based on product types, touch and swipe support, stopping a slider on mouse-over, and more.
Magento CE Web Stores and Security Vulnerabilities: Are They Real?
The Vulnerability Explained
DefenseCode detected this zero-day vulnerability for versions 2.1.6/2.0.14 and below of Magento Community Edition (CE, now Magento Open Source). Although the Enterprise Edition (EE, now Magento Commerce) was not tested, the underlying faulty code is shared between the two Magento flavors, so the vulnerability is also present in Enterprise Edition for the version numbers mentioned above.
This threat was not detected for Magento 1, which means that Magento clients using versions 1.9.X.X don’t need to worry about this specific issue. So, what was the issue, specifically?
The exploit is related to adding Vimeo video content to any product on your store. Usually, the system will automatically download a preview image for the video through an URL link for validation. But even if the image file is invalid, it is still downloaded and not removed afterward.
For the affected versions of Magento, this fact could be used by hackers to point the URL link to a fake file. As this file is left on the server after being rejected, it can be accessed remotely and be used to target an admin panel user, even if the user does not have admin privileges. After that, the user can be enticed to visit a malicious website that completely opens up the server for further hacking.
This method of pointing the URL to a fake file is usually called a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). In a CSRF attack, the end user is forced to execute unwanted actions on a web application that trusts the user, which is to say, an application on which they are currently authenticated.
This hack also involved a procedure called Remote Code Execution. This happens when the fake file is downloaded to the server. It is a Remote Code Execution because the hacker can make the server run the commands contained in the file from a remote machine.
The Solution
A hole in software such as this is also called a zero-day vulnerability when it is unknown to the software vendor. This is what happened here when security company DefenseCode detected the hole. They then proceeded to report it to Magento.
Shortly afterward, Magento responded to the issue with an email promising to address the threat in their 2.1.7 release, which was targeted for May. Furthermore, they advised their users to use the "Add Secret Key to URLs" feature in order to minimize the risks. Here is an excerpt from the email:
(…) In addition, this vulnerability will be addressed in our next release targeted for early May. Until then, we recommend enforcing the use of “Add Secret Key to URLs” to mitigate potential attacks. To turn on this feature: 1. Logon to Merchant Site Admin URL (e.g., your domain.com/admin) 2. Click on Stores > Configuration > ADVANCED > Admin > Security > Add Secret Key to URLs 3. Select YES from the dropdown options 4. Click on Save Config In fact, Magento kept their promise and fixed the issue in their versions 2.0.14 and 2.1.7 released in May. In their release notes, you can see it identified as "APPSEC-1679: APIs vulnerable to CSRF", with the description: "Some customer authenticated APIs are vulnerable to CSRF, allowing phishing attacks." So, bottom line is, this vulnerability was real, but it has already been fixed by the Magento team. So, as long as you are using Magento versions 2.0.14/2.1.7 or higher, you should be safe. Remember that Magento 1.9.X.X did not have this vulnerability in the first place.
General Security Tips
Even if this vulnerability has already been fixed, there are some steps you can take to make sure your website is always as safe as possible. First of all, you should always be using the latest software. As we’ve seen, this might not have solved the CSRF issue while it was still zero-day, but Magento’s team were quick to address it and it was solved in little more than a month after being reported.
Something else you can do, besides using a strong password, is to implement two-factor authentication. Many websites are using this process nowadays, and in Magento, there are several extensions that provide it. Usually, it works by introducing a code that is given by a smartphone app, and adds an extra layer of security.
Another tip that you’ll see sometimes is to change your Magento admin path from your-site.com/admin to your-site.com/[something-else]. This prevents hackers from accessing your admin panel and try to guess your password, or even if they somehow know the password, because they won’t find the admin path so easily. To change the path, go to the file /app/etc/local.xml in your Magento directory. Open the file and find "<![CDATA[admin]]>". Here, change "admin" to the expression you desire.
Check Your Website’s Security
There are more security tips you can follow to have a secure web store, but we won’t cover them here. You may also be wondering, "how to I know if my website is already secure?" There are actually a few ways to know.
One way is through auditing. There are some companies that can do an audit to your website. Having an experienced developer look at the source code can help identify security flaws or other performance issues, if they exist.
There are also some websites that allow you to submit the URL of your own web store for a security scan. These services will scan your website for known security flaws and vulnerabilities and show you a report afterward. If your store does have any security holes, the report will hopefully help you identify them and then see what you can do about each one.
Wrapping Up
The claims by DefenseCode earlier this year regarding the vulnerabilities of Magento Community Edition webs stores were justified. However, the Magento team has already solved this issue, which is no longer present in most recent versions of the platform.
You should keep security in mind and take some steps to ensure your web store is a safe place. This will be good not only for yourself but also your customers.
Online Retail Store Dilemma: WordPress or Magento?
It is well worth to spend some time dwelling on this issue, because it is not something that you can easily change later on. But don't worry: if you consider the factors we'll expose on this article, you'll be able to make an educated decision with no regrets.
The Similarities
The reason why it can be so difficult to choose between WordPress and Magento is that they have so much in common with each other. They are both very popular open-source content management systems (CMS) with a huge online support community. They both have a high level of customization through a large collection of themes and extensions and they both are SEO-friendly platforms.
Though generally, they may seem alike, the similarities between the two end here. A more in-depth analysis reveals that they are, in fact, quite different. Let's take a quick look at each of them individually before drawing some conclusions.
WordPress and Magento in a Nutshell
WordPress In terms of sheer popularity, WordPress is clearly the winner. As of May 2017, this open-source blogging platform powered almost 27 percent of the websites on the entire Internet.
Like we've just said, WordPress was created essentially for blogging purposes. It is very user-friendly and it beats Magento in terms of customization options, with a vast array of available themes and plug-ins. It is also arguably more SEO-friendly than Magento, although you can also improve your SEO with Magento, it just takes a bit more work.
Some of the available plug-ins offer basic web store functionality, of which WooCommerce is the most notable. We won't cover WooCommerce in much depth, as it is out of the scope of this article, but it is the eCommerce solution we recommend if you decide to go for WordPress, and the one that comes closest to Magento in terms of functionality.
Magento Magento is also a highly popular open-source platform, but not as much as WordPress. This is probably because its learning curve is steeper, making it more appropriate for developers or people with some experience in web development. However, unlike WordPress, Magento was created specifically to be used in eCommerce websites.
One thing you should know is that Magento comes in two flavors: the Open Source edition (formerly Community) and the Commerce edition (formerly Enterprise). The first one is free and the second is the premium, paid version. With the Enterprise version, you'll have to pay a substantial amount per year, but you'll have full support from the Magento team, as well as access to some exclusive security features and product enhancements. This means that even if you choose Magento, you’ll still have to decide between the two versions.
Wordpress vs Magento for an Online Business
Wordpress WordPress was designed for blogging, so this is the area where it truly shines. This makes it more suited for content marketing than Magento, which is more limited in this aspect.
On the downside, WordPress does not integrate so easily with different shipping and payment options. It is true that some of these are accessible through plugins, but they are not so complete and seamless as they are with Magento.
So if your goal is to have something like a multivendor marketplace, WordPress is not for you. If on the other hand, you are selling digital products or services and have little to none physical sales, it is a good option.
Magento While it is true that Magento can be more daunting for beginners, you should not be afraid to go for it if it is truly what you need. Try not to decide based on complexity.
If you have experience with WordPress, developing with Magento may seem a bit difficult at first, but recognizing and relating the common points between the two platforms will help you move forward. You’ll find several guides out there that can help you with that.
When you start using Magento, you'll notice that it is perfectly tailored to support multiple shipping and payment options, and even integrate your web store with a POS system. So for an online business selling physical products the recommended platform is Magento. A rule of thumb that you'll hear sometimes is to choose Magento if you are going to sell more than 500 different products.
Magento also beats a WordPress eCommerce website in terms of security. Not only because you will get dedicated security patches, but also because a fully integrated system is inherently more secure than using plug-ins, as will happen if you choose WordPress.
You might be wondering whether to go for the Open Source version or the Commerce version. Take into account the size of your business and the available budget, and whether you are willing to pay for extra features, support, and managed cloud hosting. Ultimately it is your decision, but bear in mind that while the price for Magento Commerce may seem a bit high, you really do get what you pay for.
It is well worth to spend some time dwelling on this issue, because it is not something that you can easily change later on.
So, all things considered, which solution should you choose?
You should go for WordPress if:
- Your website is content or marketing based
- You are selling digital products or services
- You have a small physical product catalog (less than 500 products)
You should go for Magento Open Source if:
- Your catalog is more than 500 products
- You have a small or medium sized business
- You want to set up lots of payment and shipping options
- You'd rather give up some ease of use in favor of security
Finally, choose Magento Commerce if:
- You have a larger sized business
- You don't mind paying to get extra security and product features, as well as full support
Why Not Combine The Two?
It would be great if we could join the eCommerce features of Magento with the blogging capabilities of WordPress, right? Well, actually that is possible. There is a great extension for Magento developed by Fishpig, called Magento WordPress Integration.
This extension fully merges WordPress into Magento, to the point where you can even use WordPress plugins. It also allows you to associate WordPress blog pages with your products.
The Answer
Hopefully, we've shown you how each of these two platforms is great in its own right. To the question that we raised in the beginning, there is not one single answer, but there is an answer for you based on your needs. Evaluate and think about what you want out of your business and how you imagine it growing. You'll then be able to make a decision and go forward, without ever looking back.
What Magento Web Developers Need to Know about Google’s Mobile-First Index
Aware of this fact, Google decided that a change of content indexing was in order. While traditional desktop websites are just as meaningful as before, it makes sense to give more emphasis to mobile designs since they are responsible for the bigger slice of the cake, so to speak.
However, the search engine's switch to mobile-first indexing did not occur just yet. The company decided that they shouldn't launch the update until mobile-first search results were superior, or at least equal in quality to current results. This is called being "quality neutral".
The launch was initially scheduled to 2017, but now the forecast points to 2018. Meanwhile, you still have time to get ready for the change, if you haven't done so yet. Let's see what you can do as a web developer, and particularly as a Magento developer, to improve your rankings when mobile-first indexing takes place.
Mobile-Responsive is The Way to Go
In order to make sure that you provide a consistent experience to your visitors and that you do not suffer when the switch occurs, a mobile-responsive website is a way to go.
A responsive design essentially means that the components that make your web pages are automatically resized and repositioned depending on the device you are currently using. This means that the page's content, which is a crucial part of search engine rankings, will not change from a desktop to a mobile terminal. Google's bots will basically see the same thing.
As you know, the entire online world is becoming more and more oriented toward mobile devices. As you know, the entire online world is becoming more and more oriented toward mobile devices. But here's something you probably did not know: in early 2017, mobile devices already accounted for more than 55 percent of all web traffic. That is already superior to desktop-originated traffic, and the tendency is only to rise even more.
Magento already has some mobile-responsive themes available that help you quickly create a mobile-friendly web store. You should always strive for a pleasant mobile experience. In fact, we should say that even before this change was announced you should already be putting a lot of emphasis on this matter. However, this is even more important now.
If you are building your Magento web store from scratch, don't think of your website as a desktop-oriented one that strips down or resizes its content when viewed on a mobile screen. Instead, try to think of it as mobile-first oriented and go from there, since this is what will actually happen when the switch is done by Google.
Keep Your Mobile Website Content Up to Date
Alternatively to a responsive design, you may have two different versions of your website, a desktop version and a mobile version. This approach is not as good as the former, for several reasons. First of all, in practice, you'll have two different websites to maintain, which gives you twice the amount of work.
Second, if you have a separate mobile website, chances are its content is not the same as the desktop website's content. For example, some of the text is omitted in order to fit mobile screens better. If you are doing this, your rankings will be affected when the switch to mobile-first occurs, because the content that is exclusively on your desktop website will no longer be taken into account.
If you really must have a separate mobile website, then make sure it has all the important content from the desktop website. Also, you should add and verify your mobile website with Google Search Console.
Optimize Mobile Performance
The performance of your mobile web store is another aspect that, while already important, will gain even more relevance with the launch of mobile-first indexing.
First, let's see how this factor already has an impact on your website conversions. We can all agree that pages that are slow to load provide an unpleasant experience to visitors and make them less likely to return.
But even more significant is the fact that many users won't give the website a second chance if the first page takes more than 3 seconds to load. People expect fast results and they quickly lose patience, so they'll just abandon your store and go look somewhere else.
Taking this into account, you should already be focusing on optimizing your web store's mobile experience. For Magento developers, some tips you can follow are to use open web fonts, which are lighter, load priority content first to create the illusion of a lightning-fast design or use third-party modules that accelerate your mobile pages, like AMP extensions.
AMP, short for Accelerated Mobile Pages, is a project from Twitter and Google to make faster mobile pages. You may have noticed this already as a lightning bolt symbol next to some Google search results. If you find this symbol it means that the website has agreed to join this project. When you open it, you won't open the actual website but a lighter copy on Google's servers that will load a lot faster. The AMP project shows how seriously Google takes fast and lightweight designs.
Now, when mobile-first indexing takes place, page load speeds will actually influence the rankings. This makes it even more important to make sure your mobile web store responds quickly. If you haven't done so already, you have some time to improve this before the change occurs.
No Mobile Is Better Than a Bad Mobile
As said by Google itself, it is best to only have a desktop version of your website rather than having a broken or incomplete mobile version, which can seriously hurt your ranking. If you are considering a separate mobile design, take your time to do it right and launch it only when it is ready.
We cannot be sure when mobile-first indexing will actually take place. It is scheduled for the first quarter of 2018, but it may change again. Either way, you now have some time to assess the current status of your mobile web store and consider your next steps. If you hadn't focused on the mobile experience before, now is the time to do it.
10 Great Third-Party Modules for Your Magento Web Store
A well-designed extension can completely change your store for the best. Let’s have a look at 10 great and mostly free extensions for Magento that can help you make the most of your online business.
Facebook Login by Magestore
As customers, one of the biggest turn-offs for us is to fill long and tedious register forms in any website. Our goal is simply to buy the product with as fewer clicks as possible.
As a web store owner, it is important not to lose potential customers that are interested in your products due to this discouraging process. A great solution for this is to have your customers login via Facebook, which you can do via this module. Visitors will be able to login with a single click and no complications.
Kiyoh reviews module for Magento 1.4+ (Up to 1.9) by Interactivated Ecommerce BV
With this free module, you can integrate the KiyOh platform into your web store. KiyOh specializes in customer ratings and reviews for eCommerce. As a web store owner, you know that a good review system will improve the customer experience and add to the credibility of what you’re selling. That is exactly what you get with this extension.
This module is available for the Community Edition of Magento 1, but there is also a version available for Magento 2. Remember that you’ll have to register with KiyOh (Netherlands or International) in order to start using their service.
Magento WordPress Integration by FishPig
Available for Magento 1 and 2, this module lets you integrate a WordPress blog into Magento. Imagine that your business started out as a small WordPress blog, but as it grew, you decided to switch to Magento due to its eCommerce capabilities.
You can now bring together the two platforms, and, for example, associate a blog page to each Magento product in your store. This may give your customers additional, precious information. You can even use WordPress plugins with it. The integration is so well made that the customers will never leave Magento while navigating through your blog.
This extension works with both Community and Enterprise Magento editions.
Instant Search + by Fast Simon, Inc.
After entering your web store, visitors should be able to quickly find what they are looking for. If this is not the case, they may lose interest and look in other stores. After all, people don’t have much patience nowadays and there are a lot of offerings online.
With this in mind, Fast Simon, Inc. developed the Instant Search + extension for Magento 2. It works by showing product suggestions directly in the search bar as soon as you begin typing. Visitors may instantly find what they were looking for, or even become interested in another product that catches their eye. This increases the customer conversion rate, as put by the company itself.
As a final note, you should know that this module is free for stores with up to 250 products/searches, and offers paid subscriptions for larger stores.
InfiniteScroll by Strategery
For visitors that are browsing through your list with no specific product in mind, it is important to keep them engaged. Reaching the end of a page is always a potential moment when they might lose interest and go look somewhere else.
This free extension for Magento 1 Community Edition makes the next page of your web store load automatically, making new products pop into view. This creates that almost addictive Infinite Scroll experience, meaning your visitors might just stick around long enough to find something they want to buy.
4OnePOS Connector by Interactivated Ecommerce BV
The only paid extension on this list, you’ll find that the 4OnePOS Connector is well worth it, for it allows you to integrate your Magento web store to your 4onePOS Point of Sale. Doing this can have numerous benefits, not only for your business but the customer experience itself.
By unifying your digital and physical stores, you’ll prevent things like inaccurate inventories or duplicated database entries. Stock information will always be up-to-date, meaning your web store visitors won’t be able to order a product that just ran out of stock, for example.
It will improve customer experience by allowing them to buy online and physically collect the package, or see which of your stores still have the product in stock.
Checkout Suite (One Page Checkout) Community Edition by IWD Agency
Once again, nothing is more discouraging than having to fill numerous pages of information during your checkout process. Customers may be so annoyed that they’ll even change their minds while doing this. That is why there are "one-page checkout" modules.
This one, developed by IWD Agency for Magento 2, is free for the Community Edition. It is well designed and adds simplicity by showing all necessary details to complete the checkout on the same page. It automatically checks for a customer account and even lets you navigate between fields with your keyboard.
MultiSafepay by MultiSafepay B.V.
During an online purchase, the payment step can get very complicated and drive customers away. As each user may have a preferred payment method, it is important that you support many different ones in order to please everyone.
MultiSafepay, designed for Magento 2 Community Edition, allows users to make payments easily, not only online but also on mobile platforms. It supports tons of different methods, including DotPay, Visa, Mastercard, Bank transfer, Maestro, and PayPal.
When checking out, the customer will simply be redirected to the extension’s own platform to complete the payment.
Store Locator by Limesharp
When browsing through your web store, there are certain products that customers may prefer to see with their own eyes and try before buying.
For this reason, it is important that they quickly know where they can find your physical store or stores. That is exactly what is achieved with the Store Locator extension.
As the owner, you can introduce the location of your store via coordinates and add lots of relevant information, including the phone number, email and some images. Customers may search your stores using postcode, city or geolocation.
If you own a web store, you know that every customer matters.
Best Customers Report by Interactivated Ecommerce BV
The final entry on our list is related to customer purchasing statistics. It is important that you analyze the buying habits of your customers in order to improve your business. One strategy may be to pay more attention to your regulars, rather than the one-time customers. These are the ones you’ll want to keep and make sure they keep trusting you.
And the Best Customers Report extension allows you to do just that. It shows you more detailed statistics than most report modules, including the customers who buy most, not limited to the top 5. You can even organize the reports by store view and filter by time period to give you exactly the information you want.
A Simple Guide to Converting a Magento Web Store into an App
So you have a successful Magento eCommerce store, but it isn’t optimized towards mobile devices. While you’re still getting plenty of sales, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of the market.
You can partially solve this issue if you create a responsive website that works just as well on mobile devices as it does desktops. However, you also need to provide a mobile app solution to provide your customers with as much choice as possible.
That creates a few more roadblocks. Creating a mobile app out of your Magento store isn’t the easiest task in the world. You need to consider how people expect mobile apps to work, as well as what they expect from an online shopping experience.
That brings us to this guide. We’re going to look at some of the options you have available to you, as well as some more general tips that will ensure your Magento app offers a great user experience.
Choosing a Development Methodology
You generally have two choices when you decide to create a Magento mobile app.
The first is to bring in an experienced development team to create a bespoke mobile app based on your Magento website. This allows you to leverage the team’s knowledge of both Magento and mobile app development to your advantage. You can ensure your app has all of the features your customers need, and you’ll have full control over the app. However, this is a costlier option, and you will need to find a development team that specializes in Magento webstore conversion.
There are simpler options. Some companies have developed quick conversion programs that pull all of the data out of your Magento store and place it into a mobile app. Speed is key here, as you may be able to get your Magento app up and running in a matter of days. However, you will also have less control over the app, as it will be tied into the framework that the company uses. Any changes you want to make have to go through your framework’s developer, which limits your options if you want to add more functionality.
As a result, you need to think about what you want to offer through your webstore. Using an existing solution may suit your purposes if you want a simple store, but you get far more options if you go for bespoke development. Best of all, a bespoke developer will also be able to redevelop any of your Magento stores features if they don’t convert easily into a mobile app. This is something that most packaged solutions can’t offer.
So, you’ve got an eCommerce store and have a marketing plan in place.
Creating a User Interface
So now you’ve chosen a development model, you need to start thinking about the app’s design. Simply porting your website’s design over to the app won’t do. You’ll usually end up with a cluttered app that turns users off immediately.
Clutter is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve with your Magento mobile app. Remember that app users have much smaller screens than desktop users. As such, you need to develop the app with content optimization in mind.
For example, the app’s homepage should be home to your latest offers. A box-style layout usually does the job of highlighting your most important products, but you also need to make it easy for your customers to find other products as well.
This is where your navigational system comes into play. Again, you have to understand the limitations of mobile apps here. Your Magento website may have a huge navigational system with lots of sub-categories, but you won’t be able to fit all of that onto a mobile app.
Instead, you should simplify the menu so that it only contains the most important categories. Give it a consistent position in the app, so that users can access it at any point. It’s also a good idea to use one-word category names, as these take up less space, and allow you to get straight to the point.
Simplify the Checkout Process
Do you see that long form on your Magento website that asks for all of your user’s details? You can’t use that in your Magento mobile app. App users want to be able to complete their purchases as quickly as possible.
If you use other mobile apps, you’ll find that they often encourage users to sign up using their social media accounts. This allows the app to pull the user’s data, without forcing them through a long sign-up process. Ideally, you should integrate similar functionality into your Magento mobile app, as this allows your customers to get to your products as quickly as possible.
When it comes to payment information, you should always offer the user the option to save his or her details to the app. This ensures they only have to input the information once, plus it allows you to offer one or two-click purchases.
Streamlining the process is key. App users are impatient, and will want to be able to complete purchases as quickly as possible.
So you have a successful Magento eCommerce store, but it isn’t optimized towards mobile devices.
Other Useful Tips
Let’s round out this guide with a few other tips that you need to keep in mind:
- Keep image use to a minimum, as every picture you use can slow your app down. Mobile users expect apps to work instantly. If yours has to pause to load images every few seconds, you can expect a lot of people to stop using the app.
- Between 70% and 95% of people are right-handed. Why does this matter? It all comes down to the thumb-friendly zone. You need to ensure that your users can access your store’s various features easily using their right thumbs.
- Security is key with a Magento mobile app. If your app has backdoors that hackers could exploit, you place your users’ data at risk. This is a major issue, especially if the app saves payment details for the user. Use encryption, update your app with the latest version of Magento, and ensure that any extensions you use come from verified and trusted sources.
The Final Word
Regardless of the development methodology that you choose, simplicity is key when it comes to Magento mobile apps. Focus on creating a streamlined user experience that allows for quick purchases. Beyond that, do not lose sight of the importance of security, as an exploitable app is one that customers will avoid.
Interactivated can help if you want to convert your Magento store into a mobile app. Get in touch today to find out how our talented app developers can help you.
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