E-commerce is a popular and rapidly growing area that provides enormous opportunities. However, to establish an online business, you must competently approach a website’s design and development, including choosing a platform for creating an online store.
Magento is a powerful platform for organizing an online business. It allows you to create fast, convenient, and secure sites, has a robust design, and a large community. Today, Magento is one of the most popular platforms. If you are already using Magento 1 or another CMS but are thinking about upgrading to a newer version of Magento, you should contact the migration specialists for Magento 2 migration services.
What is Magento?
Magento is a CMS, an e-commerce platform for creating and managing online stores. More than 30% of online stores worldwide have been made on this basis. The platform is included in the list of ten e-commerce leaders, next to Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix Stores, WooCommerce, OpenCart, etc. This CMS is most actively used in the USA, the Netherlands, and the UK. Magento users include well-known companies and brands such as Nike, Ford, Jaguar, Asus, Liverpool FC, Moschino, Coca-Cola, etc.
Magento features and characteristics
This platform is distinguished by a wide range of users – from small shops to world-class companies and has three different versions, including a free one. It allows companies to open their first small store on Magento and grow with the platform. The system is well-suited for complex, high-load sites.
Main advantages:
- Open source.
- Power.
- Flexibility.
- Convenient platform structure.
- A large number of built-in functions and modules.
- Freedom to develop your business.
- Many templates of any subject.
Main disadvantages:
- Heavy administrative part.
- Complex system design.
- Requires an experienced PHP programmer on the team.
- More suitable for large stores with a wide range of products.
There are practically no restrictions on the platform. And the variety of themes and extensions for Magento 2 will help make your wildest dreams come true.
Magento 1 and Magento 2: what has changed?
When Magento first appeared in 2007, it was revolutionary in terms of architecture. But time passes, and demands grow. Therefore, a new version of Magento 2 has appeared. In addition, updates have ceased to be released since 2020, and Magento 1 is not officially supported. Although stores on this platform continue to operate, they are very vulnerable.
The new version of Magento 2 differs from the previous one in its simplified process and the use of several supporting technologies that make developers’ work easier and save time.
Some main advantages:
- created on PHP 5.5, the site became lighter, and conversion increased;
- platform architecture has been improved;
- using the public platform GitHub to improve collaboration;
- the presence of a convenient working panel, which makes navigation easier;
- order processing has been optimized, and payment speed has been increased;
- availability of more modern themes for store design;
- increased data security and protection against attacks;
- the number of tools for use in SEO promotion has been increased;
- availability of analytical reports with many key indicators of online trading.
Thus, Magento is a promising platform with a great future that is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses.