Ecommerce is how many of us now make most of our daily purchases; people from all around the world can buy products and services from a well-known corporation based in London or from a haberdashery in Portland all with just the click of a mouse.Thanks to the hard work of ecommerce developers, the websites that we view each and every day are available to us at any time of the day all year round.

One of the leading ecommercesolutions is Magento.Developed by eBay, Magento makes it easy to create and run your very own website in which you can sell you products and services to people all around the world.Officially released March 31, 2008, Magento has made their way up the ecommerce development food-chain to become “the number one ecommerce platform for the Alexa top one million sites,” according the official Magento website.

Magneto – a Short History

So how does software reach the levels of becoming number one out of the thousands that exist out there in the world?Magento as we know it today began as Varien on December 9, 2001.Varien was an ecommerce consultation and web design firm founded by Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner in Los Angeles.In early 2007 the two founders started development of the Magento program, and seven months later, on August 31, 2007, the first beta version of Magento was released to the public.

March 31, 2008 marked the official release of the 1.0 version of Magento, marking a new era in ecommerce development.Slowly developing the formula, Magento grew to become the super-giant in web development today.On January 26, 2010 Magento had hit 1.5 million downloads, gaining the much deserved recognition it deserved.

The biggest change to hit Magento came in March of 2010 when an “unknown” investor invested $90 million in Magento.The investor was later found out to be the ecommerce giant, eBay.With this huge lump sum of cash, Magento was able to develop their product more, releasing updated versions of Magento, creating a professional edition, and launching an app for iOS and Android.Finally on June 6, 2011, eBay bought out Magento for an estimated sum above $180 million.

The Benefits of Magento

So what makes Magento one of the best ecommercesolutions in the world?There are hundreds of reasons why, but the main reasons come down to its design, interface, and continued efforts for advancement.

To start this off, one of the biggest selling points Magento has to offer is price.For a program of this caliber, you won't be paying $100 or even $10, there is no annual fee.Magento has, for the most part (excluding the professional edition), always been free of charge.The base program and many of the extensions are free of charge. There are some extensions that cost money, but it all depends on your company's need.

Magento is an open source solution.This means that since the beginning, there have been thousands of users and developers all around the world who work on Magento.This means that the program itself is always up to date, and that there are more and more extensions for others users to download and integrate into their own websites.Unlike other ecommercesolutions, open source Magento gives each user a variety of networks and channels that are available to them to ensure that their company has everything that they need. Proprietary solutions often offer you just the basic program, with upgrades and customization coming at a hefty price tag.

The focus also heavily relies on having an open system architecture.This allows for users and Magento specialists to create unique designs and layouts.This in turn allows for access across devices.Basically, everything you find on Magento is able to be customized to your liking.Whether it is to appeal to the customer or to create a sleek business style, the user has all the control in exactly how they want their ecommerce website to perform and be viewed.

Multiple Business Setup in Magento

If you own multiple businesses, or want to create varying websites for your brand, this is also possible with Magento.Multi-tenant capabilities makes it possible for a user to control more than one online store at a time.

Say you control a clothing brand named “A” that specializes specifically in men's clothing.After only a few months your business is making a decent amount of money, and you then realize that in order to really break the bank you must expand your client base.You decide to start another line of clothing for women, and you name this brand “B”.Not wanting people to have to visit A.com for men and women's clothing you create a whole new website for “B”.

With multi-tenant capabilities, Magento allows you to control the various websites under a single administrative dashboard.This means no multiple accounts, and no need to purchase additional extensions you already own.Everything you've worked on is all in one convenient location.

Magento and Third Party Services

One of the greatest plusses of using Magento is the easily-facilitated integration with third party services.When you create your website, you aren't finished when you add the inventory and put a price tag on them, you still need to set up payment gateways, shipping details and various other aspects.With Magento, this can all be easily done with a multitude of third party services.

Completely owned by eBay, Magento provides quick and easy payment options available through PayPal.If you need to set up shipping options and tracking information, there are many extensions set up with various shipping companies both on the local and global scale to do this.Magento also incorporates a large proprietor into their system by including Google Analytics, Google Checkout, and Google Base.

Magento is SEO-Friendly

And there ever becomes a point in time where you are worried that people cannot find your site or that when they search for it on Google they cannot find it.Well don't, because with Magento that will not be an issue.Magento is a very SEO- (Search Engine Optimization) friendly content management system.Upon initial installation, the user is provided with various SEO features that make it easy for people to find your site.This means that it features search engine friendly URLs, sitemaps, layered navigation, top search terms, and most viewed products all to create more and more traffic towards your website, making it a dominant hit when searching for items or services similar to what you provide.

Magento for Mobile Commerce

Most importantly, however, is that Magento has become a great leader supporting mobile commerce.How often do you check your e-mail on your phone or hear about a great deal and need to look it up?Practically every day for most people who are on the go.

Well, Magento takes care of that and allows for users to create a mobile-friendly site that can be accessed from any internet connected device.Instead of viewing a bulky home page with images three times the size of your phone screen, scrolling up and down, and pinching the screen in various ways to view that one t-shirt, Magento makes sure that all pages on the site are easily accessed on mobile devices so no one has to go through all that trouble.

The mobility isn't just for the customers though.Magento features applications available for both iOS and Android in order for developers and users to access their website dashboard and make changes and edit minor details on their website to ensure the utmost quality.

Big Names Use Magento

Many businesses worldwide put their trust in the Magento program as well as the thousands of developers who put all their effort into making the ecommerce websites above and beyond of what the businesses ask for.Many of the big names include Rosetta Stone, Nike, and Vizio.But it is not only big name companies that are taking advantage of Magento.There are hundreds of thousands of small business owners who rely on Magento to create their websites.

As an example, City Winery is a winery that provides intimate concerts, food and wine classes, private events, and fine dining experiences.The business began their online market with a customized web solution that wasn’t truly meeting all of their expectations.That is when they moved onto using the Magento Enterprise Edition.Before switching over, they were unable to integrate custom modules for ticket ordering and seat reservations, manage multiple locations, and most importantly connect their wine, fine dining, and concert businesses onto one site.By using the tolls in the Magento system, they were able to focus on the custom modules, and manage the multiple locations and services with the help of the multi-tenant program.

Looking for Magento Development Help?

With the help of Magento and our Magento development services, many businesses, big and small, are able to enter the world of ecommerce.Magento continues to grow and develop its system to better serve the customer, truly making it one of the best ecommerce development tools out there. Get in touch today about any questions you have about Magento development.