What is Magento 2?
Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform that has the ability to make online shopping even bigger than it ever was before. With loads of customizable options and integrations, Magento is one of the most versatile eCommerce platforms out there.
First released in 2008, Magento has grown in popularity and has proven to be an amazing platform to satisfy the needs of most online entrepreneurs. Later, in 2015, Magento 2 was released, offering a variety of new and scalable features improving the overall experience both for the administrators and for the shoppers.
When you first decide to start your own eCommerce business, you have to come up with strategies to get your products in front of the right audience. You also have to design your eCommerce platform so that it’s easy to use, and very simple to understand -all that while building it on a strong foundation. You also have to ensure that you provide your customers a productive, efficient and streamlined way to purchase products from your website.
Here’s where Magento comes into the picture. With so many advantages that it’s hard to keep track of them all, Magento offers optimal solutions for all types of online stores. Let’s have a look of a couple of advantages when it comes to using Magento 2:
1 – Improved performance and scalability
In need of a massive store with hundreds of thousands of products? No problem. Magento 2 is more than powerful enough to handle all your eCommerce needs, including managing and processing large amounts of orders. Magento 2 is so powerful that it can process up to 39% more orders per hour compared to Magento1.
Magento 2 has unprecedented performance and scalability because of it:
- Improves the efficiency of backend operations
- Increases server response speed for all website activities
- Optimizes web pages for fast delivery by pre-loading CSS
- Enhances database flexibility and scalability to handle peak loads
All of these improvements make Magento 2 a beast, being able to:
- Deliver almost instant server response times for catalogue browsing
- Have an add to cart server response time that can be up to 60% faster
- Have an end to end checkout time that is 50% faster
2 – Magento 2 is mobile friendly
According to the latest statistics, 80% of internet users own a smartphone and over 62% of mobile phone users have made an online purchase using their mobile devices, meaning that companies have to ensure that their online stores are easily accessible for mobile users.
Magento 2 is mobile friendly with responsive design reference themes and mobile-friendly checkout, this means that you can create an eCommerce website that is supported by different devices including mobile. The entire Magento 2 admin panel is touch screen friendly, making managing your online Magento eCommerce store a breeze. This mobile-friendliness also makes your catalogues easy to navigate on different screen sizes, increasing the chances that visitors will buy something off of your website.
3 – Advanced SEO features
When you develop your eCommerce website on the Magento 2 platform, you have all the advantages when it comes to search engine optimization. The eCommerce platform was designed with SEO in mind, allowing merchants to craft SEO friendly URL structures and meta-implementations throughout the website, you can also set up and optimize XML sitemaps to help raise your search engine rankings.
4 – Improved checkout process
The checkout process is one of the most important factors that determines whether you make a sale or not. According to a survey carried out on top eCommerce websites like Amazon, Asos, Wayfair, etc, it is reported that 69% is the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate.
Shoppers have abandoned their carts for varied reasons such as:
- The checkout process was too slow to load
- Few payment options
- Few shipping options
- They were forced to create an account to view products
Magento 2 takes care of this problem – it was designed with an improved checkout process and it provides a way for visitors to be recognized as guests. This eradicates the login or registration form that is required for users to proceed to the checkout page. It also offers a dynamic shipping rate table – showing according to the country, region or postcode. You can easily integrate your payment method into the checkout of Magento 2.
5 – Magento 2 is easy to upgrade
If you are planning on running an eCommerce website, you have to make sure that upgrading it will be easy. Not upgrading your eCommerce website can put your store at risk -this is because there are no perfect eCommerce platforms – new bugs get discovered on a daily basis and they are fixed using these upgrades.
Magento 2 is easy to upgrade – there always be a continuous process to improve the platform and provide security patches to assist merchants to stay secure. Upgrades usually help to improve the overall customer experience and when the customer experience is improved, it will improve your sales as well.
Magento has come a long way compared to where it all started, it became one of the most popular ecommerce platforms out there. With its variety of features and versatility it can be the perfect solution for your new to be ecommerce business. Ready to start your new business or upgrade to Magento 2? Please send us an email on contact@justttemplateit.co.uk or call us on +44 0121 285 1050 for more information.