Magento Review: How to Know if It’s a Good Fit for Your Business?

Even if you have a small business, you probably don’t need long explanations to answer what Magento is. Giants like Coca-Cola, Nike or Ford have been running their digital stores with Magento for years. Yet, Shopify or WooCommerce are also great solutions for businesses of different sizes. And you can’t help looking for a Magento review to find the best solutions for your business. 

So, without further ado, here is an overview of Magento eCommerce solutions, exploring the pros and cons for different businesses’ needs: 

Magento Platform Review: Is Magento Better for Small Businesses or Enterprises?

The Adobe open-source platform grew its reputation because of its robust scalability, high customizability, and built-in features. 

Among the latest updated versions, you can find two eCommerce solutions for your digital business: 

• Magento Open Source 
• Magento Commerce

Both versions share the same pillar features of the Magento platform. However, Magento Commerce provides several additional features, including Magento Commerce Cloud. This extension is an automated hosting version for enterprise-level stores, managing high sales volume or medium-sized businesses in the process of expanding.

For small businesses and startups, Magento eCommerce can be an effective solution for multiple reasons. However, you should consider that Magento core extensions are expensive and impact a company’s budget. For some businesses, moving to Magento with a solid and stable sales network is a better solution, using other platforms to create their community of followers.

If you think that this eCommerce platform is the best solution for your business, let’s look at the best Magento versions and updates. 

Which Version of Magento Should You Use?

The answer is simple: the latest version, Magento 2.4.2. Since April 2021, most businesses have been testing new features, improved bug fixes, and security implementations. The latest version ensures reliable and practical support for Magento developers and business owners. 

Let’s look at the main Magento extensions for digital businesses: 

• Image Optimization: Part of the Media Gallery, with this new functionality, uses a web-optimized image instead of the full-sized and high-res version in the Media Gallery. So, your storefront can generate image files without altering the original image, avoiding the risk of losing performance while rendering for shoppers. 
• Magento Order Archive Extension: This extension allows you to delete or archive orders. And it assists the store admin in building a clean grid.
• Special Promotions Extension for Magento 2: It’s an essential marketing tool to boost sales and order value. You can add interactive banners, create over 20 promo rules, and diversify your product offer. 
• Product Review Incentive Extension for Magento 2: This extension is a great tool to research information about potential customers and target your product offer to encourage product reviews.
• Fancy FAQ Extension for Magento 2: With this functionality, you can provide a space for your customers’ queries before or after the purchase. 

Magento eCommerce Review: Pros & Cons 

To recap, the latest Magento version provides numerous features and improvements. Including performance and security implementations, it’s an excellent solution for small businesses and enterprises alike. However, it’s important to remember the possible high costs of the different functionalities. And the platform focuses on features for high-volume sales and distributed customer service. 

So, here are the pros and cons for businesses using Magento: 

PROS	CONS
– Open-source Technology  – Free download  – Fast page loading time  – Several options for payment gateway, app, and various integrations – Global user community  – Security Capability  – Scalability and large capacity	– You need a high-tech and skilled team of developers to build and maintain Magento eCommerce  – Limited support without Magento eCommerce – Expensive extensions and features

Magento Review: Pricing & Features for Your Business 

As an open-source platform, Magento is intuitive and easy to use. 

Pricing

Magento is a robust platform, offering several features and support. Installing and downloading the latest version is free. However, you still need to cover hosting, domain, security, and designer costs to customize and improve your features. 

For example, Magento Commerce is better suited for enterprise-sized businesses, as the price range depends on your average gross sales revenue per year. On the other hand, the free Magento Commerce plan offers a free demo in exchange for all your contact information. So, a standard Magento store with a free theme and no external integrations costs around $15,000 for the setup. Finally, Magento Commerce Cloud is only for large enterprises managing massive amounts of data and sales, and its plans are the most expensive. 

Among additional costs, you should also consider: 

• Hosting, domain, and SSL certificate costs
• Third-party Magento extensions costs
• Maintenance for frontend and backend 
• Development and implantation of features 

Themes & Customization

One of the main reasons why most businesses go for Magento is the highly customizable features. The platform includes a marketplace to find free and paid pre-built templates, with the prion of editing the layout over time. 

eCommerce Features

Magento eCommerce features allow you to optimize your team workload while focusing on sales and marketing campaigns:

1. Inventory Management

• Create simple, configurable, downloadable products
• Select pre-defined product templates to set up new products with specific attributes.
• Automatically assign products to specific categories based on their attributes. 
• Process long-running B2B features shared in catalog updates 

2. Sales Channels

• Automatic sync of catalog, inventory, and order information between Amazon and Magento.
• Active Google Merchant Center and Google Ads account from Magento Admin
• Implementation of Google Smart Shopping campaigns
• Review performance and ROI report 

3. Shipping & Tax

• Integration for global shipping carriers
• Options for free shipping and percent, fixed amount, and buy X get Y free discounts
• Fixed product taxes, such as WEEE/DEEE in the EU 
• Tax calculation for transactions in the EU with VAT-ID validation

4. Analysis

• Data analysis and reports 
• Data export and dashboard visualizations
• Execute advanced analyses with Magento’s report builder

5. Check-out & Payment Gateways

• Tax and shipping estimates in the shopping cart 
• Display an order summary with product images in checkout
• Instant Purchase option for conversion rate
• Multiple payment gateways
• PCI compliance (SAQ-A or SAQ A-EP)

Mobile Commerce

Magento M-Commerce Platform allows you to create a user-friendly and responsive store for mobile apps:

• Mobile-Friendly Checkout: Instant purchase to boost your conversion rate.
• Fully responsive theme.
• Progressive Web Applications (PWA): Interactive design patterns to provide a reliable and engaging user experience.

SEO, Marketing, and Blogging 

• Magento SEO: Automatically configured, it improves meta keywords, meta description, image alt-tags, product descriptions, and snippets. In addition, features like Google sitemap, no-follow links, and redirects support search engines.
• Magento CMS (Blogging): It provides multiple functionalities to promote quality content for your users.
• Magento Marketing Features: The features include upselling products, promotional pricing, and flexible coupon options for multiple purposes.

Security Features

1. Payment Security

• Secure pass credit card information 
• PCI compliant (Protecting customer’s data and card number during the transaction)
• Signifyd automated fraud detection tools

2. Architecture Security

• Advanced Encryption Standard
• Prevent fake logins (Google ReCAPTCHA and Two Factor AuthenticationLimit)
• Notifications on security status

Conclusion 

To conclude this Magento review, we can say that the platform is an excellent choice for middle-size businesses and enterprises. And it can be a premature choice for small businesses and startups. However, as an open-source platform, it provides several extensions and features to scale your business and grow your online presence.