What is Magento and what is Magento Commerce?<\/a>
Magento eCommerce Review<\/a>
Magento Pricing<\/a>
Magento Pros and Cons<\/a>
Magento Agencies and Developers<\/a>
Magento Webshop Examples and Cases<\/a>
Magento Alternatives<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Magento is an eCommerce platform used by companies to sell their products online. It is fit for any size from SMBs to enterprise brands. Research shows Magento covers 20% of all eCommerce shops, making it one of the most popular eCommerce systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento has everything you need to launch a successful eCommerce store. Core Magento features include a shopping cart system, site builder, product catalog management, and marketing tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two versions of the Magento platform:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is a quick overview of the differences between Magento Open Source and the on-premise version of Magento Commerce:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you can see, Magento Open Source has fewer features. But you can run a very profitable eCommerce business on it, especially in combination with extensions and other marketing tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento Commerce is a full-featured eCommerce platform that comes with additional features:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Support and Commerce Cloud <\/strong> When asking: “Magento Open Source vs. Magento Commerce, which is right for me?” The answer is easy. It all depends on your shop and business model. <\/a><\/p>\n Magento is one of the 5 most used eCommerce platforms, side-to-side with other giants like WooCommerce and Shopify. When it comes to picking the best eCommerce platform<\/a>, the first thing to look at is the feature set. Let\u2019s see which features made it such a popular eCommerce solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most important and outstanding Magento Features<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento has everything you need to run a modern eCommerce business. And if there\u2019s a tool that isn’t in, Magento can be extended through plugins, and integrations and further customized. What are the most outstanding features?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento Commerce\u2019s order management helps you walk the tightrope between demand and supply. Even across multiple sales channels and locations, managing your inventory (including returns) is clear and doable. It makes it easy to manage your inventory. The order management function helps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless you are selling digital products<\/a>, streamlining your order management and inventory is one of the most crucial success factors on the backend processes. – good fulfillment makes everything flow smoothly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobile eCommerce is expected to be 72.9% of the global retail eCommerce<\/a> by 2021. You need a mobile-optimized eCommerce store, it isn’t even a question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento supports HTML5, and with the templates, you don\u2019t have to worry about setting up the basic mobile shop. Your store is ready to give customers a good shopping experience on mobile devices. Headless allows for a great mobile experience + omnichannel optimization. With Magento PWA Studio, you can easily create PWA’s. These bring a webshop, website, and app into one solution. Fast and with cool personalization options such as push notifications straight from the webshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike most of its major competitors like Shopify and BigCommerce, Magento was built as an open-source and free eCommerce platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since it\u2019s open-source, it is customizable, flexible, and extendable. This is exactly what developers, Magento agencies, and anyone with a knack for code have been doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regulated industries<\/strong> You can extend your store\u2019s functionality with the help of a Magento development agency or freelance developer. Install pre-built Magento plugins and modules or (let an integration partner) develop your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many forums, events, agencies, and developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for example, Meet Magento<\/strong> is held in many countries with a strong Magento ecosystem. Meet Magento is a community hosted Magento event where partners, freelancers, and merchants can meet to discuss trends, features, and challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Performance and page load times affect your eCommerce revenue. Out of the box, Magento isn’t the quickest platform. But there are modules for Magento such as MagePack to enhance frontend speed. Magento Commerce supports horizontal autoscaling to provide stable performance during peak traffic, such as Black Friday sales. Magento Commerce supports the most popular payment options like: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Customers want to have control of their payments. Multiple payment options bring your customers a good user experience (UX). For merchants it allows you to reduce or manage gateway and processing fees. And for Magento merchants, it is always good to know you can switch payment providers and be in control of the fees, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, a good experience results in repeat purchases, which, in turn, form the foundation of growth for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online chat is a way for merchants to staff their virtual stores just as they would Brick and Mortar<\/a> (especially relevant right now!) Solving site visitor challenges in real-time. In Econsultancy\u2019s research, 79% of customers who prefer live chat said they did so because they get their questions answered quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes called conversational marketing<\/strong> is the marketing and sales side of chat and chatbots. Engage, support, convert, and even upsell customers. Or as Research from Aberdeen, shows that companies with live chat can see a 2.4x improvement on cross- and upsell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the most pertinent uses that directly impact revenue:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The default Magento Chat bundled with your Magento 2 Store is free, including the first chat agent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Turning on chat for the first time is as painless as changing the setting to yes inside the admin. Which then allows you to configure the widget, set agent roles, and get chatting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Running multiple online stores at the same time can be a hassle, not so much with Magento. The platform allows you to add and manage several stores from a single dashboard greatly reducing store management time. Adding products and catalogs cross-site is simple thanks to the multi-site functionality. Building meaningful relationships with your customers is essential to retention and your shopper loyalty program<\/a>. That\u2019s why every interaction and customer touch can be stored in the Magento CRM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CRM is part of the Magento admin panel, with an easy to navigate dashboard. With insight into all customer interactions, you can create the right content and message for each stage of the buyer journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can integrate Magento with marketing automation software and use Magento CRM data to power your automated campaigns. An example comes from LensPlaza who integrates Magento with their dotdigital automation<\/a> to personalize and automate their newsletters and use data-driven product recommendations in their campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One reason many eCommerce brands like Magento is the way the platform makes it easy to promote your products. Some promotional tools include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento Commerce makes it a bit easier to direct the eyeballs to the right products and turn visitors into paying customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As your product catalog grows and grows, it can become difficult for customers to find and browse the site. This is where a sound catalog management system comes in. Data and analytics are the foundation of any business that wants to improve their sales and revenues. And they need to be monitored closely. That\u2019s why the Magento Commerce Business Intelligence feature is one of the platform’s most valuable selling points. Apart from that, Magento BI turns the data into visuals you can share with your team. Raw numbers aren’t information yet, you need to transform data into actionable steps that can help you grow your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With this core tool-set and more, launching and running your store becomes super-easy. Well, easier than it would be on other platforms, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n Now that you\u2019ve seen what you can get from Magento, let\u2019s look at one of the most pressing issues every business has to consider when investing in software – pricing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Magento Open Source is 100% free, running your website certainly isn\u2019t. Here\u2019s a general outline of how much you should expect to invest when creating your eCommerce store on Magento Open Source:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Depending on the type of hosting plan you opt for, the amount of development needed, hosting an eCommerce store on Magento Open Source will need about $7,000\/year. Of course, that is a very very rough estimate. There are lots of factors that go into calculating the cost of your ecommerce solution<\/a>. Many smaller shops can be happy with a $70 virtual dedicated hosting package. Real pricing wildly varies and is dependent on many factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your business is about to generate a healthy revenue stream and you\u2019d like to take it to the next level, you can consider the premium version, Magento Commerce. So how much does Magento Commerce cost?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The starting price for Magento Commerce is $1,988\/month. Pricing is based on your gross merchandise value (GMV), which is the total value of merchandise you sell over a given period. Other costs to consider, include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to pricing, Magento Commerce isn’t the cheapest option. But for example, a basic Shopify Plus license also starts at $2,300\/month. The higher your GMV, the more you\u2019ll have to pay for your Magento Commerce license. That\u2019s not counting other things like credit card processing fees, but these are the same for any eCommerce shop. But more on eCommerce system comparisons in a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n To make an informed decision when it comes to choosing whether to go with Magento or not, let’s look at the Pros and cons of Magento. <\/strong>While we\u2019ve looked at many of Magento\u2019s good attributes, we\u2019ll hone in on a couple more in this section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of Magento\u2019s greatest strengths is the way the platform is highly customizable. From the design, templating and functionality, you can have the exact kind of store you envision. It may take a bit of work, but with the right developer, agency, and plugins, your Magento store can be customized to offer users the best shopping experience possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Content is the lifeblood of every online business. Having a flexible content management system is a must. Fortunately, Magento offers you just that. With the WYSIWYG page builder, you can display your web pages any way you want and customize the product, category, sales, and content pages. Catalog management for shops is important and in Magento Commerce, you can create custom catalogs, pricing for individual customers, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Research shows that the first 5 organic results on Google\u2019s SERPs account for 67.60% of all clicks<\/a>. So yes, SEO isn’t dead. If anything, it is more important than ever. Magento was built with SEO in mind. Optimizing your product pages for SEO, Magento:<\/p>\n\n\n\n With all these features, ranking well becomes easier. Well it is probably still hard as a mofo, especially in competitive niches. But at least the system is there to work with you as opposed to against. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every business has one primary goal, no matter the industry – growth. Magento is very fit to help you do just that. So what\u2019s the other side of the story of Magento? What flaws should you be on the lookout for? Here are a couple you need to know:<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of Magento\u2019s biggest cons is the way the platform can become quite complicated. While the platform is 100% customizable, doing so requires you to jump through some hoops. This is why an experienced Magento agency or developer is needed when any significant changes have to be done on the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another drawback with Magento Commerce is the pricing. While Magento is not the most expensive eCommerce platform on the market, it does ask for a premium that puts it among the pricier eCommerce platforms around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As they say, nothing is perfect. However, when it comes to eCommerce solutions, Magento does come pretty close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s impossible to talk about Magento\u2019s flexibility, scalability, and customization without looking at the Magento integrations that make all that possible. You can find a ton of Magento plugins to extend your online store\u2019s functionality on the Magento Marketplace<\/a>. The popular categories include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n Apart from extensions and integrations, you can also consider one of the Magento agencies to get the most out of your store. Certified Magento experts deliver high-quality code and are able to implement above standard Magento customizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why partnering with a Magento agency is a good idea:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento agencies can help you with everything from building your store to designing positive customer experiences to merchandising and sales. And remember updates and upgrades can do with some expert knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a big ecosystem with lots of agencies. The following are excellent Magento Agencies (that also provided the case studies below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Creativestyle <\/strong> Experius<\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n One important question that can help you decide whether Magento is the right eCommerce platform for you is – who was Magento built for? In other words, who uses Magento?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magento was built to be an eCommerce solution for SMB and enterprise-level businesses. That makes it a great option for businesses of all sizes and in every vertical. Here are examples of eCommerce stores that run on the Magento Platform:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\r\n Orac Decor<\/a> is all about interior decoration with innovative materials and design. When it was time to transform their simple webshop into a full eCommerce platform they went all-in and implemented Magento eCommerce together with Belgian Magento agency Phpro.be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we like about this Magento Commerce site:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Being a combined B2B and B2C concept includes helpful functions like a Glue calculator, Dealer locator, search bar on all levels, and Inspiration including filters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n Lensplaza<\/a> is a pure-play online retailer of contact lenses and related care products in the Netherlands and Belgium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For their eShop relaunch they wanted a new and contemporary design – mobile-friendly, clearly arranged, and high-performance and got just that together with creativestyle<\/a>, a Magento agency based in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we like especially about this store:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n Peeze<\/a> is a Dutch coffee roaster that offers sustainable coffee, tea, coffee machines, and coffee-related products for the office, catering industry, and at home. Their roastery is one of the most environmentally friendly in the world, they are known as a CSR leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Developed together with Magento agency Experius<\/a>, their Magento shop serves both B2B and the B2C markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we like about Peeze and their Magento shop:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A brand like this is always in motion and a renewed branding and shop relaunch is in the works together with Experius. Expect even more Magento and client goodness. We can\u2019t wait to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to launching an eCommerce store, the platform you use can make or break your success. That\u2019s why going with a platform that has a proven track record is important. As you\u2019ve seen above, Magento is such a one. Giving your store both beautiful form and impressive functionality, you can\u2019t go wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>What is Magento and what is Magento Commerce?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Magento Open Source vs. Magento Commerce<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The majority of merchants use Magento Open Source because of the low cost and open nature. For developers, it doesn’t really matter if he develops on Open Source or Commerce. But Commerce has more built-in features that can be used out of the box.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Magento Commerce can be hosted on-premise<\/strong>. So you host and develop locally on your own server, or have the choice of your own Magento host. Alternatively, there is Magento Commerce Cloud<\/strong>, the cloud-hosted solution from Adobe. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n![\"magento](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/magento-vs-magento-commerce-features.png\")
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One of the bigger differences beyond the features is that Magento Commerce comes with support from Magento directly, with access to account managers. This is not available for open source, where you would most likely turn to a Magento agency or freelancer to provide extra support.
And includes the ability to access Magento Commerce Cloud, where Magento provides the hosting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Magento Open Source is recommended if:<\/strong>
If you\u2019re launching your shop and don\u2019t have the budget or revenue to validate the costs of Magento Commerce, start with Magento Open Source. This assumes that the additional functionality isn’t critical. Open source will need you to find your own Magento Hosting.
Magento Commerce is recommended if:<\/strong>
Alternatively, the functionality and services might be the consideration. Where BI, or B2B functionality or other of the functions or services are really needed. There is a price tag, so it isn’t a consideration if you don’t have the budget, but once your business gains momentum, you can switch to Magento Commerce.
Whichever version of Magento you go with, the platform is built as a powerful eCommerce solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Magento Software Review<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"magento](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/magento-features-review.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>1. Order Management<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>2. Mobile-optimized Magento shops<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"magento](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/magento-ecommerce-mobile-responsive.jpg\")
There is a lot of talk about headless <\/strong>– so that means you’d use Magento for the backend and another modern fronted, using programming frameworks like Vue or React for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>3. Open-source Platform and enormous ecosystem<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The open-source and self-hosted nature is also a major consideration when you are in a regulated industry like CBD<\/a>, gambling, health, affiliate<\/a>, etc. With Saas applications, you always run the risk of them shutting you down. In Magento, you own the platform. You can switch hosting providers, payment providers, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>4. Ecosystem and community of developers<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>5. Shop speed and Performance<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The site speed will depend on your Magento hosting and can be much faster with the use of technologies like a CDN, NGINX, or Varnish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>6. Magento Payment and shopping cart options<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>7. Magento Chat<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/magento-commerce-chat.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>8. Magento Multi-site multi-store Management <\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
After some configuration, you can also run multi-language stores, using multiple “store views”<\/a> and with plugins for auto changing to the right language based on your visitors’ location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>9. Magento Customer Relationship Management (CRM)<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"dotdigital](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/dotdigital_magento_integration-2.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>10. Promotion and personalization tools<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>11. Catalog Management and on-site search<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Using Elasticsearch, Magento has a strong product search engine for customers to find the product they are looking for. It offers suggestions for misspellings, synonym management, attribute weighting, support for stop words, and more. Proper search makes it easier for customers to find what they\u2019re looking for. As a result, your conversion rates go up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>12. Reporting and Analytics<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It helps you know your business\u2019 health with insights on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Magento Pricing<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Magento Open Source Pricing<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>How Much Does Magento Commerce Cost?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Related: <\/strong>Try our Gross Profit Calculator<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Magento Review Pros and Cons<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Magento is Highly Customizable<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Flexible Magento Content Management<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
SEO-friendly pages and shop<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Scalable eCommerce system<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The main reason Magento is so scalable is its large ecosystem of partners and extensions which is much more comprehensive than for example Shopware. So, as the business grows and new needs for a shop arise, Magento offers a lot of flexibility for added functions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>What to know before starting with Magento (cons)<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Watch out for over-customization<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Going premium is costly (compared to free)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Magento Integrations<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Magento](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Magento-integrations-with-logos.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Magento Agencies and Developers<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Creativestyle<\/a> is an agency for data-driven marketing and responsive e-commerce since 2001. Providing creative solutions for e-commerce shops with enterprise requirements, creativestyle offers concept, design, technical implementation, and online marketing. They are the developers of MageSuite, a comprehensive open-source CMS for Magento 2.
PHPro<\/strong>
PHPro<\/a> builds durable digital solutions like enterprise websites, webshops, PIM, web2print applications. And of course a lot of Magento, as all are based on open source. With 60+ employees PHPro is one of the biggest PHP web development agencies in the Benelux and one of the few Magento Enterprise Solution partners in Belgium.
So if you are building a custom-made e-commerce website, or need custom plugins they can do it all. Besides development, PHPro also provides digital strategy tailored to your web project. From CRO analysis to digital marketing strategies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Experius<\/a> is Professional Magento solutions partner, realizing successful Magento e-commerce platforms and strategies together with ambitious companies in B2B and D2C. The Dutch agency has over 60 employees and the most Magento certified developers in the Netherlands. Whether it is a Magento webshop, PIM system, or an e-mail marketing automation platform, they aim to add customer value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Magento webshop examples and Cases<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Orac Decor Magento 2 Commerce site<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"orac](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/orac-decor-magento-shop-example.jpg\")
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The visitors land on the correct store automatically based on GeoIP redirect.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Lensplaza, Magento 2 Store with a focus on Automation<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"lensplaza](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lensplaza-magento-store-case-study2.jpg\")
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<\/span>Peeze Magento site, Coffee for B2C and B2B<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"peeze](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/peeze-magento-shop-ecommerce-example.jpg\")
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<\/span>Magento Commerce – one of the best eCommerce platforms around. <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n