Is Magento Right For You?

Are you thinking of taking your business to the next stage and start selling online? If you are, you should consider what eCommerce platform is right for your needs. While there are hundreds of solutions, when it comes to eCommerce some of the most important factors to consider are scalability, whether they are hosted solutions […]

By Gentian Shero

Magento e-commerce

Are you thinking of taking your business to the next stage and start selling online? If you are, you should consider what eCommerce platform is right for your needs. While there are hundreds of solutions, when it comes to eCommerce some of the most important factors to consider are scalability, whether they are hosted solutions or not, proprietary or open source, and reviews. Among the many eCommerce solutions, Magento is one of the best . Here is a list of Magento and what it has to offer. Hope this will held you decide if Magento is right for you.

Magento eCommerce development is one of the most widely used Open Source eCommerce Platforms which offers the required scalability and features required for the growth of your organization. It provides a feature-rich eCommerce platform that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the presentation, content, and functionality of their online stores.

Magento Features:

– Magento Community is free
– Multiple and differentiable front-end stores with single backend admin panel and order management system
– Search Engine Friendly
– Mobile commerce compatibility
– Ebay API integration
– One page checkout
– Multiple Payment Gateway Integration
– Integration with Google website optimizer for A/B testing
– Multi-tier pricing, discounts, gifts, coupons etc.
– Awards referrals etc. everything you need to support your customer loyalty programs
– Scalable, yet robust
– Flexibility to extend the functionality through modules/ extensions
– Abundant extensions and modules availability
– Third party APIs integration

Magento is available in three versions that make it accessible to businesses of any size. Whether you are just starting out in e-commerce or you run a multi million dollar corporation, Magento has a solution. Here is a short overview of your options:

Magento Go

Magento Go makes it easy for you to start selling quickly. This version is best suited for entrepreneurs and small businesses where you can set up a store and start selling online within hours. It is the most basic form of the platform which is a hosted by Magento it self. The fact that Magento Go is a hosted solution means that business owners don’t need to worry about hosting and core installation. There is no need to worry about servers and software. Magento Go handles everything for you. The basic cost starts at $15 per month. For every 100MB of additional storage you use above the amount specified in your plan Magento charges $10 per each Gigabyte of additional bandwidth. The most that we’ve seen Magento Go cost monthly is $150 a month. At that point, businesses are doing very well and they will usually upgrade to the Community Edition.

If you need help with your Magento store, call 845-656-3000 or Contact us here »

Magento Community

Magento Community is the most popular version of Magento. It is open source and free to download. To set up a store merchants need to contract a Magento developing company or a single developer. Businesses using Magento CE to run their stores don’t have access to technical support for this software. Answers to many technical questions are available on the Magento user forum.
Provided that you have found a Magento developer or a Magento company, there are endless possibilities of customizing the store with additional features and functionality by installing extensions from the Magento Connect marketplace or other third party companies who specialize in Magento Extension development.

Magento Enterprise

Whereas Magento CE does not come with professional support, only a message board, the Magento EE version offers professional report for businesses and their tech support team to ensure everything runs smoothly. This option is for businesses who make most of their revenue through eCommerce. The biggest reason, however, is the customization Magento Enterprise allows. This will help your eCommerce store be much different than any other store in your industry. If you have a large catalog that has special requirements or you wish to accept gift card payments or even offer private sales, it can all be done with Magento Enterprise. In addition to that, the Enterprise platform allows for multiple admin levels and an easy to manage CMS. This option creates a seamless process from order to accounting to shipping.

In addition to the above, when using Magento there is an unlimited number of extensions/modules available in the Magento Marketplace. These modules allow for any type of functionality to be inexpensively added to a website at any time and thus improve the store’s features as the business grows. Examples of such extensions may include:

Auto Complete Search – Improves conversions and search ability by making recommendations when searching (autofill forms).

Advanced Navigation/Filtering – Used to improve navigation on your store by allowing customers to filter by using keywords, product item #, categories, attributes and products to find what they are looking for quickly. This can be customized and managed by CB.

AJAX Instant Shopping Cart – Allows the user to checkout faster and add products to their shopping cart, add any type of product to cart without page reload with AJAX, displays required custom options or configurations in a pop-up when adding products to cart and more.

And the list goes on and on. One thing to keep in mind is that when choosing Magento you need at least a Magento developer or a company that specializes in Magento. Got questions, don’t hesitate to call or email us.

Chief Strategy Officer at

Gentian, CSO and co-founder of Shero Commerce, guides the company and client digital strategies. He's an expert in technical SEO, Inbound Marketing, and eCommerce strategy.