5 Magento Features That Make It Ideal For New Ecommerce Entrepreneurs
This post was contributed by Ben Chafetz of 121eCommerce, a Magento development agency. Ben Chafetz is the CEO at 121eCommerce, and focuses on helping ecommerce entrepreneurs make the most out of the industry-leading features provided by the Magento ecommerce platform.
The ecommerce industry is thriving. In 2019 alone, ecommerce sales in the US grew 14.9% to $601.75 billion, up from $524 billion in 2018, and $461 billion in 2017. And in 2020, the ecommerce market is expected to continue to grow by 19%.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you may be tempted to take advantage of this growth, and begin your own ecommerce business. But which ecommerce platform is right for you? With so many options, it can be hard to know which one to choose. Our friends at 121ecommerce, an award winning Magento development agency, has put together the benefits of hosting your online store on Magento.
1. A Huge Ecosystem Of Development Partners
One of the most important things you can do as a new ecommerce entrepreneur is work with a reputable company to develop your website. And with Magento, that’s easy. Adobe, the parent company of Magento, has set up the Magento Developers program, a rigorous program that certifies both development agencies and individual developers.
2. Simple Extensibility With The Magento Marketplace
Another great feature of Magento is that you don’t need to hire a developer to add new features to your website. With the Magento Marketplace, you can quickly add extensions to improve functionality, including:
- New payment providers
- Instagram feed
- Product options
- Fraud protection
- Shipping options
- and a ton more…
There are more than 4,000 free and paid extensions available. They are all vetted before they enter the Magneto Marketplace, ensuring that any extension you use will be of consistent quality.
3. Fantastic Analytics Support
Magento has out-of-the-box support for Google Analytics, and it only takes a few minutes to connect your account and start gathering data about your customers and web traffic. Using this information, you can discover powerful insights that will help you refine your marketing efforts.
Further still, Magento offers a built-in analytics suite of its own if you upgrade to its enterprise-grade Magento Commerce product. Magento BI (Business Intelligence) is linked directly to your Magento database and has easy-to-use APIs that can connect with third-party applications and databases. With a simple interface and powerful data visualization tools, you’ll have everything you need to gain valuable business insights.
4. Scalable, Open-Source Design
This may just be the most important reason to use Magento if you’re a new ecommerce entrepreneur. The open-source design of Magento means that you maintain full control and possession of your data – and there are no proprietary formats or other issues that may interfere with your ability to move to another ecommerce platform.
This is not true of some other ecommerce platforms which do not let you freely migrate your data. If you use a proprietary ecommerce platform and you decide to migrate to a new ecommerce provider, you’ll run into a host of issues.
Not only is Magento open-source, allowing you to maintain full control of your data, but it’s also extremely scalable. Your online store can grow with you and your business, and you can always scale your platform up to avoid performance issues.
5. Powerful Digital Marketing Tools
Digital marketing and SEO are critical for ecommerce entrepreneurs. While there are a lot of opportunities in the ecommerce space, it’s getting quite crowded – and it can be hard to stand out among competitors if you don’t have the right tools.
That’s where Magento comes in. It has a wide variety of powerful digital marketing tools, such as:
- Full support for SEO optimization including search engine-friendly URLs, sitemaps, meta tags and descriptions, mobile SEO tools, canonical tags for products, and much more
- Out-of-the-box support for up-sells, cross-sells, and related items
- The Magento Visual Merchandiser, a tool that lets you quickly and easily reconfigure product pages and category pages
- Dynamic promotions for customers based on data like gender, location, order history, lifetime purchase value, wishlist, and more
- The Page Builder, which allows you to use drag-and-drop tools to quickly and easily create new product pages and content for your site
Magento Has Everything New Ecommerce Entrepreneurs Need To Get Started
Magento is certainly not a “magic bullet.” Simply using this platform won’t necessarily guarantee your success – a great business plan and solid strategy are essential if you want to succeed in the world of ecommerce. But by empowering entrepreneurs with the right tools, Magento can certainly help you start off on the right foot as you begin your ecommerce journey.