Magento is an ideal free shopping platform for those who have professional web development experience. Magento’s Enterprise version, which is set up by Magento, comes with a steep price tag. However, it has acquired 20% of the market by offering an excellent product with an extensive selection of features and today powers almost 250,000 online stores.
Magento eCommerce Plans and Pricing
Magento offer its customer two product – its basic version, which is free, and its Enterprise version. Even though the basic version is free, businesses will still need to pay for web hosting and extensions. Prices and fees for Magento Enterprise can be obtained directly from the company.
To see how they compare, have a look at: UK Merchant Account and Debit Card Processing Fee Comparison.
Magento Features
Magento General Feature List
- Marketing, promotions and conversion tools
- Market to customers based on location and demographics
- Persistent shopping carts
- Search Engine Optimisation – Google Site Map, Meta-information
- Site management
- Catalogue management
- Catalogue browsing
- Product browsing
- One-page checkout
- Shipping to multiple addresses in one order
- Bill Me Later option
- Tax and shipping estimates in shopping cart
- Free shipping
- Flat rate shipping
- View, edit, create and fulfil orders from admin panel
- Manage many sites from one admin panel
- Google analytics integration
- Built-in report features
- Mobile HTML5
- Responsive design
Magento Enterprise Main Exclusive Features
- Customer segmentation, targeted promotions and merchandising
- Dynamic rule-based product relations
- Persistent shopping
- Automated email marketing reminder
- Private sales
- Gift registry
- Gifting option
- Rewards points
- Store credits
- Multiple wish lists
- Add to cart by SKU
- Return management authorisation (RMA)
- Content management system (CMS)
- Scheduled import/export functionality
- Backup and rollback
- PA-DSS Certification/Payment bridge
Other Magento Products and Services
- Magento Shipping
- Magento Social
- Magento Order Management
- Magento Business Intelligence
Company Background
Magento was founded in 2007 by Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner. While still a student, Mr. Ruben started a company called Varien and it was this company that developed Magento. Magento was bought by eBay in 2011 and it became part of eBay Enterprise. Since 2015, it has been part of the Permira group, a European private equity firm which was founded in 1985.
CEO Mark Lavelle believes that Magento’s potential was not fulfilled while it was within eBay. He is quoted as saying, “It was like putting a bushel basket over a candle – it dimmed within eBay. Outside of eBay, Magento can shine.”
In 2016, co-founder Roy Rubin rejoined the company and is now a member of the Board of Directors. He said, “I’m excited to return to a company and ecosystem that I deeply respect and believe so much in its potential. Over the past year as an independent company, the pace of product innovation coming out of Magento has been incredible to witness.
Magento handles over $100 billion in merchandise every year and has captured 20% of the Ecommerce platform industry. The company employs over 500 people and has its headquarters in Campbell, California.
Magento Pros & Cons
The following pros and cons are based on information available on reviews from Facebook and Trustpilot
Pros:
- Good scalability
- Excellent community support
- Stable and robust platform
- Versatile platform
- Great range of features
Cons:
- Expensive platform
- Lack of customer support
- Coding skill required
- Sometimes runs slowly
- Need a powerful web host – expensive
Magento Reviews
- Trustpilot: 3.2 out of 5 based on 7 reviews
- Facebook: 3.8 out of 5 based on 11 reviews
Based on reviews on Magento’s website and the above reviews, our Merchant Machine score is 7 out of 10.
Website: www.magento.com
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