Magento Commerce Review - The Best of Open Source E-Commerce

The company behind this project is Verian who are leaders within the open source industry. They have created a shopping cart that is feature rich out of the box and Magento Commerce has become a leading shopping cart for open source e-commerce platforms. I recently reviewed Zen Cart writing about the Pros and Cons, and if you haven't read the review, I would suggest taking a look at it to use it as a comparison.

An Overview Of Magento Commerce

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As of the date of writing this review, I have tested Magento Commerce version 1.3.1. It is one of the latest and most powerful open-source e-commerce solutions that I have come across. These are some of the features you will find within the box:

* Marketing Promotions and Tools
* Analytics and Reporting
* Search Engine Optimization
* Site Management
* Catalog Management
* Catalog Browsing
* Product Browsing
* Mobile Commerce
* International Support
* Checkout
* Shipping
* Payment
* Customer Service
* Customer Accounts
* Order Management

Rather than give rewrite the benefits of Magento Commerce has about their software, you can read more and try out their demo on their website.

The Pros Of Magento Commerce

Clean And Modern Layout

The first thing that caught my eye was how professional and modern the default template looked. It was smooth and clean, which you will find across the board both on the front end and within the administration section.

Easy Integration Of Layouts, Themes And Add-ons

The beautiful thing I really like about Magento Commerce is how easy it is to install additional layouts and add-ons. In comparison to other open source e-commerce solutions such as OsCommerce and Zencart, it is less complicated and doesn't require the shop owner to have prior programming experience. If you have used WordPress, which is a popular blogging tool you will find Magento's shop structure is quite similar in that it is visually appealing and easy to use. I believe that Magento was aiming to create a simplistic yet powerful solution for e-commerce business owners.

More Than 50 Payment Gateways Are Available For Integration

I have heard that many store owners lose sales because they could not offer a certain payment solution for their customers, or they have to switch payment gateways because their e-commerce solution was not compatible with their existing provider. With Magento Commerce you can rest at ease whatever payment gateway you have, they most likely have it ready for you.

You Can Manage Multiple Stores From One Administration Panel And Product Catalog

This is a more advanced option available for businesses with multiple ecommerce stores. Say you had a camera shop and a book shop. In most cases you would have to setup two separate systems and log into them separately to manage the stores. With Magento Commerce you can set them up all within the one system and manage all your sales from one administration, still giving you the flexibility of two stores. It saves time and additional resources yet allowing you to monitor and track sales all within one place.

An Option To Up Sell At The Checkout

Having this option alone will increase your profits dramatically. Up selling, as I've discussed in a previous post is a powerful way to increase your profits from an existing customer by simply offering additional promotions or products. This can lead to more money for your e-commerce business and having it automated, you have a silent sales person making money for you.

Built-in Product Image Zoom Capability

Sometimes as a customer I am always wanting to see more finer details about a product. Unfortunately not all e-commerce sites have the ability to show more or allow you to zoom into the product. Magento Commerce now has that option built in and it allows you to upload a high resolution photo to let customers zoom into the product while they are browsing. Imagine how it will have an affect on your sales and increase your conversions!

These are just some of the pros I have found with Magento Commerce and I believe I could write a whole book on how good this software is.

The Cons Of Magento Commerce

Since Magento Commerce is still relatively new compared to other open source e-commerce platforms available in the market, it still has it's initial bugs. Here are some issues it still faces:

Performance And Response Time Can Be Slow

Depending on the hosting server you use for Magento Commerce, you may experience slower page loads and response times with shared hosting providers. Magento Commerce, being content rich does require a lot of resources to run and the performance of your website will be dependent on the server you use. Therefore choosing a dedicated and powerful server is something you need to think through carefully, especially if you are doing hundreds of transactions a day. It does have numerous hosting providers they recommend and you can see Magento hosting partners.

Great For A New E-Commerce Business But Not So Good For Existing Businesses!

To date I have not found a solution or import utility that allows Magento Commerce to import data from other open source e-commerce systems such as OsCommerce, Zencart and Xcart. This poses a question for existing e-commerce businesses to consider whether or not to switch over to this system. If there was an add-on for importing, more businesses would switch over to Magento Commerce.

No Accounting Export Function For MYOB or Quicken

Another consideration is if you currently use MYOB or Quicken as your accounting package to track and monitor your financials, then you will want to make sure your e-commerce website can link to it. Otherwise you will need to hire someone to double entry your transactions to update your accounting software.
My Opinion

Overall, aside from a few downsides mentioned above, Magento Commerce has a great potential to be the leading open source e-commerce platform for all e-commerce businesses. I am a great supporter of software that is open source which allows the community to contribute, develop and evolve. Furthermore with strong support from Magento's company - Verian they have a huge chance to succeed.

My rating for this software is 9 out of 10 and I would highly recommend it to new business owners to use.

Magento Commerce Review - The Best of Open Source E-Commerce

Magento Hosting - What To Look For

Since the rising popularity of Magento and hosting sites, the demand has grown for sites like these that host Magento. The trouble is, most people do not know what to look for when it comes to hosting Magento. Here are a few various items you do have need of knowing in order to choose the correct hosting Magento. One thing to do is to check the requirements for Magento. Any hosting provider will need to offer Linux with up to date PHP support as well as being able to run jobs that are scheduled.

VPS servers are what are needed to ensure that Magento runs properly without any errors. Usually a dedicated server is what Magento needs, but some shared hosting also can offer Magento proper support. As with any other type of hosting, you will need to take a look at different items such as length of time in business, cost, support and other issues. Each hosting service will be different and the packages will be different as well. Many comparison sites online can help you when it comes to comparing hosting packages for Magento. So this is one resource that you can use to advantage.

Hostgator

Once you understand what Magento needs, then you can choose servers accordingly. One idea would also be to ask others that have used Magento what type of hosting service that they use. This can give you some idea of what others use and why. It is going to come down to cost and preference when selecting the Magento hosting for your ecommerce store. Many service providers will offer hosting for Magento. One web search returned hundreds of hosting services along with comparison sites to choose from. Since the demand for Magento is high, so is the demand for hosting.

It would also help to do research in the area of Magento hosting so you know what is out there. Since this is a business decision, you need to take time to research it thoroughly. Linux, Apache, PHP and other factors play right into Magento. Small businesses may want to look at different options besides Magento. With all the servers out there, it can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack at times. Using the comparison web sites can also give you some idea of what are out there, costs, packages and so on.

This could be a time consuming proposition, but if the ideas above are followed, you will be able to find the right Magento hosting services for your particular situation. Magento works hand in hand with these services in order to provide you a website and hosting that is reliable. You want the best possible hosting for your ecommerce site and Magento hosting services is the best choice for this. Reliability is one of the main concerns when choosing a hosting service as well as the cost for hosting Magento. These two will help you to choose the right hosting service for your business to grow and thrive online.

Magento Hosting - What To Look For

How to Speed Up Magento Commerce

If you're running Magento Commerce on shared hosting, loading speed can be a challenge. Slow loading websites cause customers to click away and shop elsewhere.

Before you begin working to optimize your website, test your speed with a tool like webpageanalyzer.com or iwebtool.com/speed_test Run several tests at different times of the day to get a better idea of the speed as it will vary with the current server load and other factors.

Hostgator

Once you know your current loading speed, you can start working to reduce it. Remember to always backup your site before making any changes. If possible test these first on a separate sandbox installation of Magento instead of a live website.

Here are five steps you can take to speed up your load time with Magento. You may need to contact your website host or website designers to help you with some of the steps. Also, be sure to stop and check your website after any change to ensure it's still up and running, this way you'll know which change caused any issues that occur.

1) PHP5 - Make sure the server you're hosted on supports php5. While the php5-cgi files Magento provides will work, they also drastically reduce the speed and increase the load on the server.

2) Enable Caching - Inside your Magento admin panel you'll find options for caching under System > Cache Management. Use these settings. You'll need to refresh the cache after future changes, but it will help speed loading for your visitors.

3) Enable GZIP Compression - This can be enabled in the .htaccess file Magento includes in it's default files. Just uncomment the lines for GZIP by removing the # in front of the lines.

4) Install Fooman Speedster - Fooman Speedster is a Magento extension designed to speed up your site by combining, compressing, and caching javascript and css files. Get details at magentocommerce.com/extension/457/fooman-speedster and, as with any extension, be sure your version of Magento is compatible before you install it.

5) Optimize - Follow general good optimization practices such as resizing your images before uploading them, and using smaller sized file formats when possible.

These steps should get your Magento installation moving faster than a turtle through syrup so your shoppers can happily fill their carts.

How to Speed Up Magento Commerce