Magento is one of the most popular platforms for building and running ecommerce websites. According to BuiltWith, Magento is the third most popular CMS in the ecommerce category among the top 1 million sites. Magento enables launching SEO-friendly and secure ecommerce websites within weeks, which makes the platform an optimum choice for many merchants who put online experiences before physical ones. With Magento ecommerce development services, digital-first merchants can smoothly scale their businesses by implementing mobile apps, PWAs, and other Magento solutions.
Types of Magento Solutions
This article covers six types of Magento solutions that can help a merchant establish a digital-first ecommerce business.
1. Single-vendor stores
A single-vendor ecommerce store is a website that enables a merchant to sell products and services to its customers. With Magento, companies can quickly build single-vendor stores equipped with all the capabilities for a digital-first approach.
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Search Engine Optimization
Magento includes multiple tools for optimizing an eCommerce website and improving its position in search rankings. For instance, a merchant can set up metadata for each page, product, and product category to ensure that search engines understand the context of web pages correctly and suggest the website to its intended users.
Additionally, Magento offers more advanced SEO modules and extensions, such as Fastly. Fastly is one of the cloud services that provide cache management, image optimization, server-timing, and other features to improve websites’ loading speed and search performance.
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Marketing & advertising
Promoting a brand online and improving customer engagement are some of the most important aspects of a digital-first strategy, and here, the default Magento functionality comes in handy. For example, using built-in marketing tools, a merchant can run targeted promotions based on demographics, purchase history, and customer preference data.
Moreover, a merchant can run automated email campaigns using ready-made templates and personalize its messages based on customer data. For example, a merchant can send emails with coupons and discounts to customers who have abandoned their carts, enticing them to return to a site and make a purchase.
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Multi-channel commerce
Using Magento multi-channel integration, merchants can easily sell their products and services directly from their digital stores on any platform (social media, marketplaces, etc.). Additionally, merchants can use Magento’s WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) editor to format text on the fly without using HTML tags and quickly create content for all customer interaction channels.
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Payment options
According to Mollie’s 2022 survey, 9 in 10 shoppers will abandon a cart due to a lack of payment methods, so merchants should provide various options to their customers. Fortunately, Magento provides integrations with the world’s most popular payment systems, including PayPal, Stripe, Square, and Amazon Pay. Also, Magento users can add custom payment methods to checkout if needed.
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Analytics
Analyzing data gathered from digital channels allows a merchant to foster decision-making, resulting in better customer service and improved conversions. Even in the default setup, Magento provides robust data visualization, business intelligence, and reporting tools.
In practice, merchants can generate reports to track orders, invoices, shipping, and other sales-related data. Additionally, they can track metrics such as the total number of orders and the average number of orders per buyer to understand their customers better.
2. Mobile applications- Magento Solutions
Mobile application development is a natural step for an ecommerce business that opts to enhance its digital presence and increase its customer base. A merchant can use Magento’s Mobile App Builder to develop a Magento-based mobile application and smoothly integrate it into existing ecommerce infrastructure.
Magento mobile apps provide many benefits, with responsiveness and speed among them. In addition, merchants can utilize Magento extensions and modules to enrich their apps with various capabilities, from multilingual support and automatic synchronization to on-the-go inventory management and sales tracking.
Also Read: 10 Leading Ecommerce Platforms Compared And Reviewed
3. Progressive Web Applications (PWA)
Despite the benefits of mobile development for ecommerce, it is still challenging and costly, and that is why increasingly more businesses are moving towards the PWA technology with the assistance of an expert PWA development company. A PWA can be considered an intermediate between a website and a native mobile app: although PWAs run in browsers, they offer similar functionality as native apps developed for a specific platform (Android or iOS).
Progressive web apps provide the following business benefits:
- More cost-effective and fast development – when building a PWA, a merchant transforms its website into a mobile app without spending effort on iOS or Android development.
- Increased customer satisfaction – PWAs are small (they weigh about a megabyte), work faster than websites, and can operate even without Internet access.
- Enhanced customer reach – unlike mobile apps, PWAs are indexed by search engines, which increases their potential user base.
Magento PWA Studio provides developers with all the tools they require for building effective PWAs based on the Magento platform. These Magento-based PWAs are fast, reliable, and fully compatible with Magento’s back-end.
4. Custom extensions- Magento Solutions
In addition, a merchant can develop and implement custom Magento extensions to tailor customer experience or enhance a store’s capabilities with targeted functionality upgrades. By adopting custom extensions, a merchant can integrate a new payment gateway into its website, automate administrative tasks like shipping or order management, and increase search engine visibility.
Also Read: Top 5 Open Source eCommerce Platforms For Online Businesses
5. Custom themes- Magento Solutions
If a merchant cannot cover its unique needs using ready-made themes from Magento’s marketplace, it can develop a custom theme, either by its own effort or by engaging 3rd party developers. Alternatively, a company can resort to Adobe Professional Services. However, this option is the most expensive one.
Custom themes offer advanced design flexibility, meaning they can better engage customers. Additionally, they are optimized for a specific store’s needs, resulting in improved performance and a more tailored user experience, which is essential for digital-first businesses.
Final thoughts- Magento Solutions
Magento remains one of the most popular platforms in the ecommerce CMS market due to its flexibility, scalability, and functionality. With Magento, merchants can establish feature-rich and engaging digital stores and empower them with various solutions, such as mobile apps, PWAs, and custom extensions.
Still, Magento is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Magento development is typically expensive, and the platform itself can be too complex for new users. To avoid these challenges, a merchant can engage ecommerce consultants early on. Experts can determine if Magento is a suitable platform regarding a merchant’s business case and elaborate a tailored adoption strategy.
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