Whether you are still a small business, a startup or an enterprise that has already built a vast and regular customer audience, you do need a platform on which you place your E-Commerce website.
Today we have decided to gather some information regarding one of the biggest e-commerce platforms out there - Magento. If you are a business that hasn't already owned an online store, then this piece would be especially efficient for you. Making an informed decision in this initial first step of creating an online store is a crucial process that will paint the picture for you.
What is Magento?
Magento is an open-source platform, used for the built and maintenance of an online store. It provides its clients with numerous options including shopping carts, customizable interface, loads of store options as well as fully organizing your products sales and orders.
Magento comes in two versions, so to speak - we have Magento Opensource and Magento Commerce.
As it is clear by its name, Magento Opensource is the version of the platform which allows you to access and manipulate its source code, so that you can easily customize and personalize your online store just the way you like it. Magento Opensource is available for everyone to download free of charge.
Magento Commerce is the premium, paid version of the software. It comes with more and advanced options. It has prices starting from $22,000 per year if you’re using Magento 2 - the latest version of the software.
Before you pick the best option for you - whether to choose Magento Opensource or Magento Commerce, you should consider whether using Magento in the first place. Will it fulfill your business needs? Will it be easy for you to maintain and navigate your online store built on Magento?
So here are the things that nobody tells you about Magento - this information will help you decide if this e-commerce platform is the best decision for you and your business.
Magento needs a lot of updates - even if you pick the free version of the software and spare yourself 22,000$ yearly, it still needs constant updating, development, and integration. When it comes to Magento, these processes are not always easy and user-friendly. There are dozens of patches and security updates that need to be manually installed. Our advice - get help from the Magento technical support or hire a Magento specialist to do the job for you. But keep in mind that this would cost you money.
You may have to wait a lot before getting help - you might be waiting in a line to get to Magento's support to fix the issue you might be presented with. If you decide to work with independent Magento specialists, you should keep in mind that they charge quite a lot.
Migration from one version to another may cause you a headache - Magento has launched its Magento 2. If you come to think about it, updating and developing a software e-commerce platform is a good thing, because it would give its clients even better performance and user experience. But the migration process from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is quite a challenge - numerous enterprises which had to undergo this migration has stated, that it was not an easy task to perform. If you want to keep your store on Magento, you simply have to perform the migration, because, after 2022, support won't be handed to Magento 1. And another thing - many of the themes in Magento 1 simply doesn't work with Magento 2 - if you have to migrate your website, you may need to change pretty much everything.
These are only some of the things you should put into consideration before deciding which software e-commerce platform you should be using. Surely, Magento is a stellar e-commerce platform, but, if you want to keep it easily maintainable and simple, then maybe this software isn't the best choice for your business.