Magento is an Open Source ecommerce web application launched on March 31, 2008. It was created by Varien, building on components of the Zend Framework. Magento is available under the Open Software License version 3.0. Since version 1.1.7 some parts are licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0. Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store. Magento’s helps in excellent marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management creating sites that are tailored to the client’s unique business needs. With the invention of Magento, building an ecommerce website takes very less effort along with time and price, it keeps control of development cost and provides lot of flexible features.
Magento is the open-source eCommerce platform that promises to revolutionize the industry. It’s modular architecture and unprecedented flexibility means your business is no longer constrained by your eCommerce platform. Magento is total control.
Advantages
Through a highly evolved template system of Magento, it is possible to brand a website for the various occasions, events etc.
Design flexibility: Magento allows you to have a complete control over design of your site and it manages it through the model view controller architected and this means,
Layered Navigation: Usually with large inventories where each category has got hundreds of products, it really is cumbersome to have all the products in the scope of view, and Magento use several filtering tools to provide faster navigation to products.
Product comparisons and product tagging features.
Customer convenience- Magento includes multiple ship-to functionality right out of the box, helping avoid the frustration that can occur when a customer is shopping for multiple people at one time. Superior product search module when compared to competition.
Amazing support community.
Good business model.
Marketing promotions and tools
Multi-lingual support
Multiple currency payment processing
Search engine optimization: features like google site map, URL rewrites give full control of URL’s act.
Analytics, reporting and dash board for quick view.
Extensive CMS: To manage contents.
Magento E-Commerce
Magento offers complete flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of an ecommerce store while development. It provides the functionality for reviews, tags, wish list, compare products and many more. It is integrated with AJAX rich environment technology for facilitating features like one click checkout. It is integrated with real time shipping rate from SPS, SPS XML, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. Customer can ship the order to multiple addresses and on site tracking system from customer account. Shipping rate can be easily set per order and per item. It provides the exclusive functionality rating with weight and destination.
Site Management-
Control multiple websites and stores from one Administration Panel with ability to share as much or as little information as needed
Multi-Lingual
Support for localization
Support for multiple currencies
Administration Permission System Roles and Users
Web Services API for easy integration between Magento and any third-party application
Fully 100% customizable design using templates
Customer Groups
One-Click Upgrades
Content Management System for Informational Pages
Google Website Optimizer Integration for A/B and Multivariate Testing
Mobile Commerce: iphone optimized theme
Marketing Promotions and Tools:
Flexible pricing rules with ability to restrict to stores, customer groups, time period, products, and categories
Free shipping option
Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
Customer group-specific pricing and group-specific tier pricing
Search engine friendly URL’s
URL rewrites
Recently viewed products
Recently compared Items
New Items promotional tool
Send to a friend for all visitors, or registered users only
Send wish list to a friend by email or RSS
RSS feeds for new products, new specials and new tags
Auto-generated site map
Google site map
Polls
Site registration
Shipping destination addresses with ability to specify per shipping method
Billing addresses with ability to specify per payment method
Newsletter management
International Support:
Multi-Lingual
Support for Multiple Currencies
Tax rate support
Includes support for WEEE/DEEE in EU
ocalization
Checkout:
One-page checkout
SSL security support for orders on both front-end and back-end
Shipping to multiple addresses in one order
Checkout without account/guest checkout flat rate shipping per order
Shopping cart with tax and shipping estimates
Checkout with account to use address book
Option to create account at beginning of checkout
Accept gift messages per order and per item
Saved shopping carts with configurable expiration time
Shipping:
Integrated for real-time shipping rates from: UPS, UPS XML (account rates), FedEx (account rates), USPS and DHL
Shipping to multiple addresses in one order
On-site order tracking from customer accounts
Multiple shipments per order
Ability to specify allowed destination countries per method
Flat rate shipping per order/item
Free shipping
Table rates for weight and destination
Payment:
Configurable to authorize and charge, or authorize only and charge on creation of invoices
Integrated with multiple paypal gateways:
Integrated with authorize.net
Integrated with google checkout (Level 2)
Saved credit card method for offline payments
Accept checks/money orders
Accept purchase orders
Order Management:
View, edit, create and fulfill orders from admin panel.
Create one or multiple invoices, shipments and credit memos per order to allow for split fulfillment
Print invoices and packing slips
Call center (phone) order creation
Create re-orders for customers from administration panel.
Email notifications of orders
RSS feed of new orders
.
Customer Service:
Contact us form
Feature-rich customer accounts
Order history with status updates
Order tracking from account
Forgot password email from front-end and administration panel
Order and account update emails
Customizable order emails
Create and edit orders from the admin panel
Customer Accounts:
Order status and history
Re-orders from account
Recently ordered items
Address book with unlimited addresses
Default billing and shipping addresses
Wish list with ability to add comments
Newsletter subscription management
Product reviews/tags submitted
Account dashboard for overview of various information.
Catalog Management:
Inventory management with backordered items, minimum and maximum quantities
Attribute sets for quick product creation of different item types
Create store-specific attributes on the fly
Media manager with automatic image resizing and watermarking
Advanced pricing rules and support for special prices (see marketing tools)
Search results rewrites and redirects
Approve, edit and delete product tags/reviews
RSS feed for low inventory alerts
Catalog Browsing:
Layered/ faceted navigation for filtering of products
Static block tool to create category landing pages
Ability to assign designs on category and product level (unique design per product/category)
Configurable search with auto-suggested terms
Recently viewed pro ducts
Product comparisons
Recently compared products
Cross-sells, up-sells and related Items
Popular search terms cloud
Filter by product tags
Product reviews
Product listing in grid or list format
Breadcrumbs
Product Browsing:
Multiple images with zoom
Product reviews
Related products
Stock availability
Multi-tier pricing up sell
Product option selection
Grouped products view
Add to wish list
Send to a friend with email
Analytics and Reporting:
Multiple images with zoom
Product reviews
Related products
Stock availability
Multi-tier pricing up sell
Product option selection
Grouped products view
Add to wish list
Send to a friend with email
Compare Products
Wishlists
Google Base Integration
Google Website Optimizer Integration
Conclusion:
It offers complete flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of an ecommerce store while development. It provides the functionality for reviews, tags, wish list, compare products and many more. It is integrated with AJAX rich environment technology for facilitating features like one click checkout. It is integrated with real time shipping rate from SPS, SPS XML, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. Customer can ship the order to multiple addresses and on site tracking system from customer account. Shipping rate can be easily set per order and per item. It provides the exclusive functionality rating with weight and destination.
From customer point of view:
it is 100% search engine friendly and provides full control of URL’s rewrite methodology. Magento is compatible with multi language support as well as supports multiple currencies. Administration module is having great functionality for rights or access and any rights can be defined at any user. It allows defining multiple administrators with specific access privileges. Landing page of admin panel is in form of a dashboard providing all vital information of orders, products, and graphical representation on daily, monthly and yearly basis. Admin can create multiple store and easily manage them from admin panel. It provides the strong interface and functionality for reporting.
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available under the Open Software License version 3.0. Since version 1.1.7 some parts are licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0. Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store. Magento’s helps in excellent marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management creating sites that are tailored to the client’s unique business needs. With the invention of Magento, building an ecommerce website takes very less effort along with time and price, it keeps control of development cost and provides lot of flexible features.
