Like Shopify or Prestashop, Magento is an open-source cloud platform developed using the Zend Framework and PHP programming languages, enabling you to quickly and easily create all types of e-commerce online stores, whatever their specific features, and for which traditional website creation tools (WordPress or HTML) are not suited.
Created in 2008 and acquired by Adobe in 2018, the Magento creation platform now boasts more than 240,000 e-commerce sites. A powerful, feature-rich e-commerce CMS, Magento is a comprehensive, flexible and scalable tool for creating and managing high-performance online stores.
What is the Magento CMS? What are its advantages for e-commerce? Why choose Magento rather than another CMS?
To help you answer these questions, we’ve put together a detailed guide to the many features Magento has to offer.
Magento, a tool for creating e-commerce and attractive content
If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re an online merchant, or are planning to become one, and are looking for an effective solution to help boost sales of your products and improve your company’s visibility. So you’re probably already convinced of the benefits of creating an original, functional and attractive e-commerce site to differentiate yourself from the tough competition on the web… So let’s take a look at Magento’s innovative and practical features for creating your e-commerce site, and delivering high-performance content.
Complete e-commerce customization
In addition to a user-friendly, intuitive interface, and the promise of simplified use now offered by most CMS, Magento goes a step further by enabling complete customization of your e-commerce site, while promoting a competitive customer experience.
So, whatever your business and whatever your customers, Magento’s “Page Builder” lets you :
- management of all types of content (text, images, videos, promotional banners, etc.), and optimization of their loading thanks to optimization functionalities (Varnish cache, CDN network, Fastly), and the possibility of planning their publication via“Staging” pre-production;
- a multi-brand solution for unified commerce, enabling the management of several customer categories (B2B and B2C, for example) on a single sales platform (separate pricing grids and product ranges (“Shared catalogs“), specific payment and/or delivery methods according to countries or regions and order volumes, etc.);
- personalized merchandising, or Visual Merchandiser, thanks to a customer segmentation function to create and distribute attractive content tailored to each of your targets, such as product recommendations;
- tools for a positive customer experience (instant purchase, wish list, product catalog search engine, e-commerce-integrated blog);
- an integrated B2B commerce solution (customized user profile settings, personalized and negotiable quotes, intelligent pricing,“requisition lists” and SKU orders to facilitate regular ordering,“payment on account” to pay on credit and according to defined payment terms, etc.).
Setting up your e-commerce in Business Mobile mode
Many people can’t live without their cell phone, even when shopping online. Although the majority of websites, including e-commerce sites, can be consulted on smartphones, the customer experience is not always up to scratch: content takes too long to load, site format is not adapted to screen size, extensions are unavailable, etc.
Magento’s content management system has been developed with this in mind, making it possible to offer a customer experience similar to that of mobile applications, without even needing to create a separate platform, thanks to :
- PWA (Progessive Web Applications) offering the same speed and ease of navigation as an application directly from your e-commerce site;
- a payment process adapted to Mobile Business via the CMS (instant purchase, integration of transaction gateways such as PayPal, etc.);
- responsive design themes (the ready-to-use templates offered by Magento when creating your e-commerce site are designed to work on all types of devices).
Magento, e-commerce management solutions
More than just an e-commerce creation tool, Magento’s developers, in association with Adobe Commerce Cloud services, have thought of everything and integrated into the open source platform all the essential functionalities required to meet the many specific needs of an e-commerce business.
Automated day-to-day management of your business
Whether you’re using the free open source version of Magento or the more advanced paid version, Magento Commerce, there’s a whole range of functions to help you save time on your day-to-day business, so you can focus on your core activities:
- marketing tools, such as native integration of advertising and sales channels to increase the reach of your online store without any additional action, like selling on Amazon Marketplace, Google Merchant, or advertising with Google Ads ;
- customer loyalty tools (loyalty points, promotional codes, private sales, community benefits, etc.);
- tools to help you convert prospects into customers, such as abandoned cart management;
- intelligent, automated management and real-time synchronization of your offers, stocks and orders;
- simplified returns management thanks to the RMA (Return Management Authorization) module, essential for high-volume B2B returns;
- integrated Internet referencing tools;
- front-end and back-end optimization tools to improve e-commerce site performance;
- decision-making tools with sales activity reports, and access to dashboards for real-time reporting.
Centralized data management and security
The data you collect is invaluable for your e-commerce business and your customers. When properly configured, the Magento CMS ensures optimum data security. Your Magento e-commerce site is protected from threats thanks to a range of features and functions, giving your customers peace of mind:
- PCI certification as a Level 1 solution provider and PCI certification specific to each e-commerce site;
- continuous updating of new versions to keep pace with evolving threats;
- customization of data hosted on Magento’s 24-hour secure servers;
- automatic data encryption and SSL certificates to protect data flows;
- a security analysis tool to monitor your site and warn you of risks;
- secure access with password management, different authorization levels, etc.
Finally, because an online sales site is constantly evolving, Magento offers various options within its functionalities, thanks to extensions, add-on modules or APIs (integration of ERP or CRM software, a new payment system, etc.) to enhance your service offering or e-commerce management.
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