Pros and Cons of Magento

Magento is a powerful open-source eCommerce platform that offers merchants great flexibility and control over their online stores. It’s a top-rated platform with a large and active development community, and plenty of Magento experts can assist you in getting the most out of it.

Introduction

If it’s an industry that has gained high popularity in the modern world is the eCommerce industry. Online shopping has become the norm of the day, as more people opt for the greater convenience of online stores than physical stores. With eCommerce, you need just a few clicks on your phone or laptop to complete a business deal.

To facilitate smoother eCommerce business operations, several websites offer business owners a platform where they can connect with customers and sell products. And one such website that has been at the forefront is Magento. This article discusses what benefits you can expect from using Magento websites and the cons associated with these.

Pros of Magento

Magento websites offer numerous features and advantages to users. Consider five major benefits you can expect to derive from using this platform:

1. It Offers Numerous Built-in Features

One aspect of Magento that distinguishes it from other similar platforms is that it offers a wide range of features that are not available on other platforms. For example, Magento websites allow users to vary the price of specific products according to the intended audience or group of customers. You can set a particular process for your staff and a different price for VIPs. 

Other unique features offered by Magento allow for multiple currencies, multiple stores, multiple languages, and even multiple locations. The variety and uniqueness of features make Magento a better option than Woocommerce, Shopify, Volusion and other similar eCommerce platforms.

2. It is a Scalable and Global Platform

Every business person dreams of one thing: To expand their business and increase their profit. When conducting business via an eCommerce website, you want the platform to accommodate your expanding business and handle the increasing quantity of products and sales. However, some eCommerce platforms cannot handle the growth of businesses, which hinders the firm’s expansion and progress.

On the contrary, the Magento platform is designed to handle and support the expansion of businesses with ease. It helps thousands of transactions and up to 500,000 products within an hour. Even better, the platform allows users to customize it without any constraints.

3. It is Flexible

The Magento platform uses open-source technology. This technology allows users to modify the source code to fit their requirements and preferences. Modifying the source code also allows you to customize all your templates and build on-brand storefronts that look appealing to your customers.

Besides, Magento allows the integration of different purposes, such as importing products by third parties. The flexibility of Magento makes it possible to analyze the performance of different eCommerce website designs and get real-time information about the website.

4. It is Mobile-Friendly

Did you know that 45% of consumers shop online using their mobile phones at least once daily? Indeed, if your eCommerce business is to succeed, it needs to have a mobile-friendly configuration. After all, the trend of internet browsing has now shifted to phones and mobile devices.

Fortunately, the eCommerce website design of Magento is very mobile-friendly. The platform allows merchants to create a mobile site easily and provides the customer with the best mobile viewing experience and user-friendly interface. In turn, a mobile-friendly configuration reduces bounce rate and increases sales.

5. It has Large Community Support

Approximately 250,000 business people use Magento as their leading eCommerce platform. Due to this large community of workers, the platform has been improved to include many plugins and extensions that improve the users’ experience. Besides, you can expect quick support and many useful resources to help you find effective solutions when you encounter problems.

Cons

Despite the numerous benefits that Magento offers, it is not devoid of negatives. Here are three cons associated with using this popular eCommerce platform:

1. It is Time-Consuming

One of the major disadvantages of Magento is that it has a slow loading time. The slow loading time is due to the platform’s flexible architecture, making it time-consuming and complicated to set it up. Therefore, making customizations on the platform is more difficult than on other eCommerce platforms.

However, slow loading time is mainly experienced in the community version of Magento. So if you want a smoother eCommerce process and faster loading times, you would do well to go for the Enterprise or Premium Enterprise Magento versions.

2. It Requires Technical Support

The Magento eCommerce website design includes many customizing features and complex architecture. For example, the platform possesses over 200 database tables and more than 20,000 files. Therefore, to set up a successful shop on the Magento platform, you will need more time to learn and master the system and have the expertise and a thorough knowledge of the core software.

If you lack the skills or do not have a technical team to assist you, you may opt to hire a specialist or an experienced Magento developer who understands your shop’s needs. However, this would mean additional costs for you.

3. It is Expensive

While the Magento platform’s community version is free, the Enterprise version goes for more than $15,000. Besides, the Premium Enterprise version (intended for larger businesses and companies) goes for more than $50,000 annually. 

Also, if you cannot install the extension, you will be charged an extra third-party fee. And if you are looking to create a highly customized store, you will need to invest in costly Magento development services and plugin support. Furthermore, the online platform has many associated hosting and maintenance costs, which may burden your wallet. 

Conclusion

Magento is one of the best platforms to choose from when starting an eCommerce business. The platform offers great flexibility, extensive features, and good community support. And even though it has several associated cons, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Indeed, Magento is just the ideal eCommerce website design you need to help you grow your business and future-proof it!