When Magento development companies first encountered the big Magento 2 announcement back in 2015, it raised a significant question: was this simply the next logical progression in Magento development, similar to skeptics wondered at the time, or the start of a transformative revolution in eCommerce?
Worldwide, entrepreneurs, including notable figures like Oliver Sweeney and Devlyn, have partnered with Magento agencies to establish their eCommerce presence using Magento 2. This platform introduces innovative approaches to enhance user engagement, streamline navigation, and ultimately boost conversion rates and revenue for store owners.
Magento 2’s intuitive design ensures effortless operation for users and Magento web developers, a critical aspect for budget-friendly customization. The framework empowers developers to create new services for seamless interaction with Magento 2 stores, enabling users to engage across various devices.
This iteration represents a significantly enhanced and optimized Magento platform. Magento extension development has been simplified, making pluggable integration the norm for payment gateways such as PayPal and Braintree, and shipping providers like FedEx and DHL. The platform’s improved toolchain is attracting Magento enterprise developers, while its remarkable speed appeals to end users.
Some argue that its installation process isn’t as straightforward as Magento 1. However, my personal experience suggests that downloading and installing Magento 2 on a server is just as simple.
Numerous other benefits are compelling merchants and eCommerce website development companies to transition to Magento 2. Undoubtedly, it signifies a remarkable accomplishment in website development services. However, like many software packages, choosing the right edition for your business is crucial before reaping its benefits.
Two editions were initially released with Magento 2:
- Magento 2 Community Edition, now known as Magento Open Source
- Magento 2 Enterprise Edition, now known as Magento Commerce
Understanding their distinctions is essential. However, their commonalities might surprise you.
Magento Open Source (Formerly Magento 2 Community Edition)
True to its name, Magento Open Source is completely free to download and use. The paid counterpart, Magento Commerce, builds upon this foundation, inheriting all its features.
Don’t underestimate Magento Open Source: it’s not only suitable for many standard eCommerce businesses but also offers advantages to those requiring custom Magento development. This foundational edition provides a significant productivity boost for Magento eCommerce developers.
Exceptional Architecture
Magento 2’s upgraded architecture empowers Magento eCommerce developers to deliver the desired product – encompassing both out-of-the-box functionality and tailored modifications for specific shops.
Moreover, the new architecture is more robust, user-friendly, scalable, and customizable. Designed to address the challenges developers faced with Magento 1, it inadvertently made Magento development more accessible, resulting in a larger talent pool catering to diverse Magento customization needs.
Open Source and Highly Customizable
This latest Magento iteration benefits from the inherent advantages of all the standard perks of being open source, including security, quality, cost-effectiveness, and, importantly, customization. With the assistance of website development services, your business can easily adapt Magento to its specific needs. You’re not reliant on Magento, Inc. to dictate the implementation of desired features.
Impressive Speed and Full-page Caching
Magento 2 delivers a tenfold performance increase over its predecessor due to numerous enhancements. The platform allows sites to utilize server-side full-page caching (FPC) for instantaneous display of crucial categories, CMS pages, and products, thereby reducing server load and response time. While Magento 2 includes built-in FPC, it also supports Varnish as an FPC back-end for further performance optimization.
Numerous Extensions and Mobile Friendliness
Magento 2 is renowned for its powerful and easily integrable extensions. Users can swiftly install Magento extensions and themes as needed. To illustrate the available off-the-shelf functionality, here are some examples of Magento 2 extensions:
- Special Promotions: Ideal for running promotional campaigns, enabling various discount actions based on product price rankings, order quantities, and spending thresholds.
- SMTP Email Settings: Facilitates the use of a dedicated third-party email server for your Magento 2 website, offering increased reliability compared to Magento 2’s default system mail sender.
- Store Locator: For businesses with a physical presence, this extension helps customers locate the nearest store via Google Maps.
- Amazon Pay: Simplifies customer payments by integrating Amazon Pay.
These readily available extensions demonstrate the potential for rapid Magento website development. However, should you require functionality not readily available in the Magento marketplace, a Magento development agency can create custom extensions.
Enhanced SEO
Magento 2 introduces several SEO improvements to enhance your store’s visibility in search engine results. It provides distinct meta tags for categories, products, CMS pages, and more, signaling legitimacy to search engines and boosting your ranking.
A standout new SEO feature is the “Product Fields Auto-Generation” template, which automates meta tag definition based on pre-existing product information. This time-saving feature ensures effortless maintenance of your store offerings, further solidifying Magento 2’s appeal to development companies and clients.
Multilingual and Multi-currency Support
Magento 2’s multilingual and multi-currency support facilitates the creation of stores catering to diverse global markets. Interestingly, this support has also fostered wider collaboration within the Magento development community, resulting in improved quality, enhanced security, and a multiplication of the inherent benefits of open-source software.
Payment Gateways
Secure and convenient payment processing is paramount for any eCommerce site. Magento 2 incorporates gateways like PayPal natively, while others are accessible via extensions. Regardless of your chosen approach, Magento eCommerce development ensures a smooth experience when integrating third-party payment gateways.
Exceptional Scalability and High Security
Magento 2’s automatic scaling solution is among the best I’ve encountered. It enables Magento web developers to effortlessly resize or reframe websites in response to evolving needs, ensuring adaptability and a consistently excellent user experience. Developed with security as a top priority, Magento 2 assures site owners and customers of a safe and secure experience in today’s evolving threat landscape.
Enterprise Features Also Found in Magento Open Source
Despite being the free edition, Magento Open Source incorporates features that extend beyond the requirements of its typical user base. These features are also included in Magento Commerce.
Knockout JavaScript Framework
We’ve all encountered websites where coding errors lead to inconsistent messages being sent to the user. By leveraging the Knockout library, Magento 2 simplifies the process for developers to prevent such inconsistencies during customization, ensuring a polished and professional website appearance.
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Magento 2 introduces CLI functionality for various core tasks, including installation, cache and index management, and user management. Previously requiring periodic manual intervention by admins or developers, these tasks can now be automated through scheduled scripts, freeing up developers’ time and reducing costs for store owners.
Backup and Rollback System
Magento website developers and administrators understand the importance of a robust backup system. Magento 2’s enhanced system facilitates the restoration of databases, files, or media changes as needed, providing a safety net against data loss and offering developers greater peace of mind.
Versatile Content Management System (CMS)
Magento 2’s CMS empowers Magento eCommerce developers to realize your vision without being limited by platform constraints. Its robustness allows for tailored designs that perfectly align with your products and processes while remaining lean and efficient.
Magento Commerce (Formerly Magento 2 Enterprise Edition)
Large-scale stores and rapidly expanding eCommerce merchants are the primary adopters of Magento Commerce due to its scalability and advanced feature set.
If the previously mentioned features don’t fully address your business needs, Magento Commerce is the solution you seek.
Advanced Analytics and Reporting
While Magento Open Source offers basic analytics and reporting, Magento Commerce excels in this area through seamless integration with Google Universal Analytics. This connects your Magento store to powerful Google tools for content optimization, traffic and audience analysis, and catalog integration with various marketplaces:
- Google Analytics: Define custom dimensions and metrics for comprehensive tracking, including offline and mobile app interactions, with access to ongoing website updates.
- Google Tag Manager: Optimize and monitor your store’s SEO performance.
- Google AdWords: Place targeted ads within Google Search results and other Google products, with detailed performance tracking.
Magento Commerce provides out-of-the-box statistical reports encompassing marketing, sales, reviews, customers, customer activity, products, and private sales. Should your reporting requirements extend beyond this extensive selection, a Magento solution specialist can readily bridge the gap.
Split-database Solution
This scalability enhancement utilizes three dedicated master databases for different functional areas: checkout, order management, and product data. Optional slave database replication further enhances performance.
This separation allows for independent load scaling based on website traffic and usage patterns, providing flexibility and optimized performance for checkout, order processing, merchandising, and browsing activities. This represents a significant advancement in Magento development.
Visual Merchandiser
This intuitive tool empowers eCommerce merchandise managers to create custom product displays using drag-and-drop functionality within a preview mode. Adjustments can be made and reviewed before implementation on the live site, streamlining the merchandising process for Magento eCommerce website development.
Advanced Search with Elasticsearch
Magento Commerce leverages Elasticsearch for fast and advanced product searches within your catalog, ensuring customers find exactly what they’re looking for, leading to increased conversion rates.
Search results are returned based on the last generated index until the next reindexing cycle, ensuring uninterrupted service for customers. Additionally, Elasticsearch analyzers support multiple languages, enhancing the experience for both users and Magento web developers.
Private Sales
Magento Commerce recognizes the importance of rewarding loyal customers with exclusive shopping experiences. Private sales can be easily configured to offer special deals, personalized recommendations, and priority access, further increasing customer engagement and conversion rates.
Advanced Admin Roles
This Magento Commerce feature allows for granular control over administrative access. You can restrict users to specific websites, stores, and associated data, ensuring data security and appropriate access levels for multi-brand or multi-business unit installations.
Automated Rules with Customer Segmentation and Attribute Management
Magento Commerce enables sophisticated customer segmentation based on various attributes such as customer data, addresses, shopping carts, products, and sales history. Magento store developers can easily add new customer attributes and integrate them into sales, marketing, and personalization initiatives.
Gift Cards
Boost customer engagement and encourage repeat visits by offering gift cards. This popular incentive can be easily implemented within Magento Commerce, driving conversions and fostering customer loyalty.
24x7 Technical and Account Support
While not a software feature per se, 24/7 technical and account support is invaluable for enterprise clients. Magento Commerce provides comprehensive support to address any issues or concerns, ensuring smooth operation and customer satisfaction.
As of now, this level of support is also available for Magento 1. However, this will soon be discontinued, making it exclusive to Magento 2.
If your chosen edition proves less than ideal, switching between Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce is straightforward. Having personally assisted companies with such transitions, I can assure you there’s no need to fear getting locked into the wrong choice.
Magento Commerce: On the Rise for a Reason
Magento 2, particularly its enterprise-focused Magento Commerce edition, is fueling a surge in Magento website development. It’s steadily gaining traction and poised to eventually surpass Magento 1.
This isn’t just a case of inevitable progress. Magento 2, especially Magento Commerce, is a superior product that empowers Magento developers to deliver exceptional user experiences for both customers and administrators. The quiet revolution has begun.