The e-commerce industry has changed the face of the business world forever. More than that, it has revolutionized the way people shop. With just a few clicks of a mouse or a few taps on your mobile phone, you can buy almost anything you want to online. This is why businesses that don’t have an online presence are missing out a lot.
When it comes to creating your own e-commerce store, you will need a reliable platform that will let you do just that. One of the forerunners in the online business world is Magento.
Magento is a PHP-written open-source e-commerce platform and software that provides merchants an easier way to build and manage their e-commerce business. It offers a flexible shopping cart system, catalog management, multiple pricing options, alerts, multi-store capability, and more.
Just like with everything else, Magento ‘isn’t for everyone. This is why you should take a look at the pros and cons of creating an e-commerce store with Magento to help make a sound decision. So, without further ado, let’s dive in!
PROS
- It has several features that other platforms don’t have.
One of the things that set Magento apart from other e-commerce platforms is that it has a wide range of features that make the task of managing multiple stores simpler. For one, it offers various shipping and fulfillment solutions. It also supports multiple locations, currencies, and languages. Magento also lets you vary prices for a specific product. For example, you can offer a discounted rate for when a buyer adds certain items to a shopping cart or has reached a particular amount. Magento lets you change the base price without affecting the fixed tier prices.
- It has an extensive suite of SEO features.
This is one of the main reasons Magento stands out. It has built-in SEO (search engine optimization) customization options that let you control the links that search engine bots will crawl. It also has discoverability features, like XML and HTML, to help you optimize your e-commerce site as hassle-free as possible.
- It offers a top-of-the-line catalog management system.
Magento’s upload feature is the best by far. It allows you to add thousands of products in a single import. Aside from that, you can include important attributes when uploading the highest standards of quality products, including SKU (stock keeping unit) number, URL path, description, model, price, manufacturer name, etc., things that not a lot of e-commerce platforms have.
CONS
- It’s more expensive to maintain.
Magento is a robust system that needs heavy server resources, which means higher operational costs. This is why it’s not suitable for small-scale e-commerce stores that don’t have the financial capacity to manage a business on a tight budget. This also means that making any changes to your site’s functionality will require the expertise of someone with web development skills.
- It is time-consuming.
You can’t launch your online store and expect it to work perfectly on the first day. Aside from the fact that Magento has a relatively slow loading time, changes are difficult to make because of its flexible architecture.
- It lacks product support.
It can be challenging to find support or helpful solutions when you’re having problems with your Magento account because there are not a lot of developers and consultants that can help you. And if there are, they will most likely charge you higher. In other words, Magento’s product support isn’t exactly the best among the different e-commerce platforms.
All in all,
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