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Know more About Magento eCommerce Software Development

The eCommerce software development platform Magento has an edge of being an open-source. It is written in PHP, the most used programming language by the developer community. It uses MySQL/MariaDB relational database management system besides the elements of Zend Framework. Magento 2.0 version offers Javascript library to use for front-end customization.

Open source shopping carts are considered to be better options for the eCommerce merchants. It comes in a fraction of the cost and also widely supported by the large community of users and developers.Magento is an enterprise-class eCommerce development platform, widely supported by the solution partners and third-party developers. Magento provides merchants scalability and features for better UI presentation, content and features. The eCommerce platform also offers various marketing tools, search engine optimization, easy to navigate browsing, product catalog management and single page checkout and many standard tools like shipping management, international tax management and efficient customer service.

The History

The Magento software was launched on 31st March 2008 by Varien Inc. In June 2011, eBay acquired it. It got re-acquired by Permira Private Equity in November 2015 and floated as an independent company as Magento Inc.

In 2011, eBay announced that it would be acquiring Magento, but one of the leaders Yoav Kutner left the Magento. eBay acquired Magento and changed its vision due to change in majority of the staff members. Later, it got parted away from eBay and founded as an independent company by the new owner in 2015.

Overview

The platform has two active editions. One is free, Magento Community Edition and another is premium one, Magento Enterprise Edition. The success of the platform is widely due to the contributions from the Magento community.

Being an open source, Magento developers can use the core files for modifications to any extent. All versions of Magento Community Editions so far, 1.x or 2.x are available to download at MagentCommerce.com website. The development of the platform is publicly discussed at GitHub.

The Magento Enterprise Edition is devised for large businesses. It has more features and functionality than the Community Edition. This edition includes dedicated support to the enterprises at every level.

The latest version of Magento is 2.0.4 was released on 31st March 2016.

Features

One of the best features of Magento is to control multiple online stores (web-shops) from a single administrative module.

The List of main features:

• Analytics and Reporting: Google Analytics can be integrated for providing reports.
• Product Browsing: Each product can have multiple images, wish list included, products can be reviewed and more.
• Catalog Browsing: Products can be filtered as per choice, can be compared, navigation is easier.
• Catalog Management: Well balanced product inventory management, bulk products import and export, tax management, other product attributes.
• Customer Accounts: Order management, products in the wish list can be emailed or an RSS feed can be created, newsletter subscription system, default address for billing and shipping.
• Customer Service: Advanced features for customer accounts management, contact form, enhanced order tracking system with order history, order e-mails can be customized.
• Order Management: Orders can be created using admin module, invoice management, shipments management, credit memos can be created.
• Payment: Easy payment modules: credit cards, PayPal, Authorize.net, Google Checkout, checks, money orders, external payment modules e.g. Cybersource, ePay, eWAY and more.
• Shipping: shipping module for multiple addresses, flat rates for shipping, supports UPS, UPS XML (account rates), FedEx (account rates), USPS and DHL.
• Checkout: single page checkout, SSL support, guest checkout.
• Search Engine Optimization: 100% Search Engine Friendly, Google Site-Map.
• International Support: Multilingual and multiple currency support, list of allowed countries for membership, purchasing and shipping, localization system.
• Marketing Promotions and Tools: Coupons, discounts and different promotion systems.
• Site Management: Manage multiple online stores from single admin panel, multilingual, tax rate with support for international markets, custom UI templates.

For comprehensive features list click here.

In terms of the growth of the platform, Magento has continuously enhanced the features. In last month on 1st August 2016, the CEO of Magento Commerce Inc. wrote the letter. Mentioning, soon it is going to enhance the features by applying strong analytic capability. For this, it has acquired the cloud-based analytics firm, RJMetrics. And, analysis is the need of hour for any business. Magento looks committed to read the requirement of the industry.

Certifications

There are four types of certification provided by Magento.

• Magento Front End Developer Certification

(UI related - templates, Javascript, and CSS)

• Magento Developer certification

(Related to back-end developers who implement the core modules)

• The Plus certification

(In-depth understanding of the entire architecture)

• Certified Solution Specialist

(Related to business users)

Market Share

As per the study conducted on May 2015 by aheadWorks, Magento has almost 30% market share among top 30 popular eCommerce platforms. Magento Community Edition has 25.3% and Magento Enterprise Edition has 4.5% market share with closely followed by WooCommerce with 23.7% market share.

Popularity Comparison

As per the popularity Magento falls on 3rd spot with 5.85% and WooCommerce tops the chart with a giant share of 31.89%. This data was as on 16th March 2016.

Competitors to Magento

As per the Gartner research 2016, Magento has been placed in the magic quadrant for digital commerce. It has been placed in Challengers quadrant together with Digital River. IBM WebSphere Commerce, Oracle Commerce, SAP Hybris and Demandware were placed in the leaders quadrant. Also, Magento is in the report of Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce 2016. Magento takes 5th–6th place among 19 powerful enterprise eCommrce platforms reviewed for the most bands.

As per the Forrester research 2015, Magento together with NetSuite and Cloud Craze were the Strong Performers. Oracle, IBM, Insite Software, Intershop and Hybris were identified as leaders.

The above researches are for enterprise market. For small-medium businesses the main competitors are:

• Shopify
• WooCommerce
• Bigcommerce
• Squarespace
• Volusion
• 3dcart
• Weebly
• Wix
• Moonfruit
• 1&1
• Bigcartel
• Prestashop
• ZenCart
• OScommerce

If you are looking for a simple shopping cart, then go for Shopify. But, if you are looking for freedom and cost effective solution, then must go for Magento without looking elsewhere.

In a Nutshell

Magento is a well trusted and reliable eComerce website development software, across industries, among magento developers, small, medium or large enterprise users. It is cost effective and highly customizable with a widespread dedicated support. This platform can help you experience seamless product management, easy 3rd party integrations, and secured shopping experience.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Zaptech Solutions .