By Supun Kanchana
Magento is an Open Source Ecommerce platform. It has numerous features and provides merchants with the chance to have complete control and flexibility over the functionality, content and presentation of their online channel. It has a wide following having overtaken Oscommerce in early 2008 to establish itself in the ecommerce market as the most preferred ecommerce platform.
Magento ecommerce platform as an ecommerce engine is highly efficient. It offers merchants powerful tools for managing and creating an online store. Magento ecommerce platform is free in the open source community but professional support is provided by subscribing to the parent company Varien.
Some of the features that make the Magento ecommerce platform so popular are:
Analytics and reporting:
Enables merchants to analyze and report on customer trends and preferences.
Product browsing:
Easy to navigate, has wish list, enables product comparisons and has great product filtering systems.
Catalog management:
Batch indexing of products, tax rates information for different locations, inventory management.
Customer accounts:
Email feeds, order history, order status, RSS feed on wish list, billing and shipping.
Customer service:
Has enhanced features, easy to contact the company, can customize email and RSS feed preferences.
Order Management:
Creation of invoices and ordering enabled through call centre option.
Payment:
Comprehensive and diverse payment systems like PayPal, credit cards like Visa, American Express and many more.
Shipping:
Multiple address shipping, Fed EX, DHL, USPL, flat rate shipping.
Checkout:
SSL support, Checkout without an account.
Search Engine Optimization:
Google Sitemap support, search friendly e-commerce platform.
International support:
Multilingual support, multicurrency support.
Marketing tools and promotions:
Discounts, coupons and promotion options
Security:
Encryption key, secure storage of sensitive data.
Magento over other Ecommerce Platforms
Magento over OpenCart
Features that the Magento ecommerce platform has over other ecommerce platforms like OpenCart are, convenient products management, Out of the box SEO features, wish list, provision of inventory reports, low stock level alerts and search reports.Magento ecommerce platform also supports more shipping options like Canada Post Fee Lookup, Fedex Price Lookup and UPS Price Lookup. It also has better support features which include FAQ, Wiki and Forums.
Magento over ZenCart
Magento ecommerce platform supports multi-store and is iPhone optimized making it a better platform than Zen Cart. It also has better order management features like the ability of merchants to create multiple shipments, credit memos and invoices per order allowing split fulfillment and shipping of one order to multiple addresses, a feature that Zen Cart is yet to include in its ecommerce platform.
Merchants who use the Magento ecommerce platform have an advantage over merchants who uses Zen Cart. Magento merchants give their customers an opportunity to view multiple products on one page and compare products available for sale.
Magento ecommerce solutions has enabled merchants to greatly reduce their workload in accomplishing tasks such as upgrading and deleting inventory, accounting, shipping, customer service and returns. Shoppers are able to investigate and inspect products that they want to purchase, and check-out procedures have been enhanced to make shopping simple and pleasant.
The Magento ecommerce platform which was developed by Varien company, is build on technology that seeks to provide clients with high levels of control and flexibility over content, user experience and functionality of their online stores. Its industry-leading features, modular architecture and powerful merchandising and marketing tools have made it the most preferred ecommerce platform in the industry.
