Magento Go, Enterprise or Community – which one is your cup of coffee?

There has not been any eCommerce platform which has received as many accolades and acclaim as the Magento Solution. Though it is pretty young in the circuit, having started in the year 2008, Magento has made the head turns and cash counters rolling. And now that it is under eBay, it has all the more become the ultimate destination for any merchant who wishes to sweep the online market off their feet (perhaps chair or couches or bed).

However the problem arises when we are expected to chose between its various versions. For the starters, let us inform you that there are primarily three different models of Magento – Magento Go, Community and the Enterprise one, and often it becomes a rather tricky task to choose between the three.

If you have been confronted with the same confounding and perplexing choice, we are here to help you out. Let us now discuss various models in detail and in the process, we believe you would be able to make the right choice of the Magento solution to opt for. We shall now start with Magento Go.

Magento Go!

The name definitely suggests something. Magento Go is a ready to use solution available, especially for all of the small scale business owners. It can give you a fully equipped and enigmatic online story quite easily; besides, you would not even need to install any software etc, in order to start using this solution. If you are one of those who need an online store, but do not want to suffer the technicalities, Magento Go is a ready made solution for you. Have a glance at some of its other features:

Design at your own whims and fancies – without any knowledge about the HTML or CSS, or any design knowledge as such, you can still design and create your own online store. It gives you a number of tools to decide the branding of your online store, pick up a logo, and use different text menus and buttons and a lot more. Besides, if you have a web designer at hand, Magento Go also provide you with the CSS editor to make further deep routed changes.

Easy product management and display – the product catalog is too wide to accommodate a vast variety of products. You may categorize and mark the products in the expansive catalog list and offer your visitors an effortless experience.

SEO friendly features – After all, it is the SEO that will help you get more visitors, right? Magento Go takes care of the SEO part as it has inbuilt SEO capabilities, allows you to change the URL, modify keywords, and creates sitemap and Google map amidst other things.

Customer engagement options – It seems like Magento Go wishes to all your work for you. After taking care of the design, product management and SEO of your online store, Magento Go also provides you with enough features, such as flexible coupons and banners etc to help you retain your customers.

And lastly, you can always enhance the functionality of your online store, by downloading specific plugins from Magento Connect.

Our Verdict – At such prices and with such functionalities, Magento Go definitely sounds like a great option, especially for such business owners who need a rather simple and sorted solution. Next in the queue is our take on the Enterprise version. Check it out.

Magento Enterprise

Without a doubt Magento Enterprise is an extension to Magento Go. A step ahead, it takes the services offered by Magento Go to an all new different level. Primarily designed for the mid level enterprises, Magento Enterprise solution offers the best of eCommerce features and functionalities. An exposure to wider audience, detailed product comparisons, personalized shipping, wider scalability, much increased transactions etc are just a few of the extra features offered by the Enterprise version.

The key role of Magento Enterprise is to allow you to provide you customers with a personalized experience. Hence, it makes segregations based on demographics and the nature of the shoppers, and also draw in the new customers through various offers. You get to display exclusive content, launch marketing campaigns, suggests offers and a lot more with the Enterprise version.

Certain features which are added to the Enterprise version, and were missing in the Go version are:

Reward Points
Gift Registry
Enhanced Customer Categorization and Targeting
Invitations, Events
Content Roll back

Even the payment is made easier. The version is totally secure for your customers to share the sensitive information. Besides, there is a brilliant range of payment gateways for them to use. And then of course, they can also pay by check and with a single page checkout, it is ensured that the entire payment is kept hassle free.

Our Verdict – if you have a big canvas and a bigger ambition, this is definitely the solution that you have been looking for. Lastly, let’s check out the Community version of the ace ecommerce publishing platform.

Magento Community

Lastly, enough of the assistance and the services provided by the Magento store, if you wish to take the development into your hand, download the free of charge community version and take off your online flight from there on. Usually you do not get the assistance in the community version, as against the assistance made available to you in the Go and the Enterprise version. But usually the users of Magento Community version are those web designing and development enthusiasts, who does not require any assistance. It is for them to alter the source code, add different features and attributes and give a new shame to Magento.

And it is not as if Magento completely abandons you in the community version. You still get a code level access to it and also, HTML 5 mobile theme is already integrated in it. Moreover, you get complete access to the themes, extensions, MCommerce, SEO friendly URLs, order management, multiple stores and multilingual support.

Our Verdict – if you trust your development and coding skills, go for it. It is brilliant, offers you a great deal of features and if absolutely free.

Author Bio:
This post has been contributed by Praveen Sharma, a Sr. Associate – Internet Marketing at Daffodil Software Ltd., a firm specilizes in magento web development. Get in touch with Praveen Sharma on Twitter at @i_praveensharma.

Ecommerce Trends in 2013

Ecommerce is one of the hottest entities on the Internet. In the last few years it has seen phenomenal growth and is currently pegged below the one trillion dollar mark. Industry observers project it to touch the $1.25 trillion mark by the end of 2013 with major growth coming from the developing countries. Now with so much at stake this industry is going through a process of regular evolution with trends changing time and again. Here we shall take a look at some of the upcoming trends in the eCommerce industry in the year 2013

It’s the Touch Age – There has been an explosion of the touch based devices in the market such as the smartphones and the tablets. With Windows 8 bringing touch based interface to laptops and desktops many ecommerce websites are now embracing touch based commerce. This is going to be one of the biggest things in 2013 with more and more online stores offering touch based solutions to the customers. This will ease the process of shopping for products and services online.

Localized Online Stores – Till now we have witnessed growth of mass based online stores which cater to customers over a large geography. 2013 will be a year of localized ecommerce with stores offering the services in a highly localized area. Many brick and mortar stores are walking the ecommerce path and will continue to cater to their traditional customer base using technology.

Niche Stores – Although this isn’t a new trend but this will surely be one of the big things in the coming year. Many customers are wary of visiting general ecommerce stores and having to browse for their product of choice. Niche stores which have a limited product catalog are cashing on these customers. 

Social Media Will Narrate Trends – Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become an important part of an individual’s life. Now ecommerce sites will monitor trends on the social media to cater to customers’ needs. For instance the demand for a car accessory might be dictated by the number of likes and shares it receives on Facebook.

Videos For Detail – Many people are apprehensive of shopping online as they are skeptical of the product quality. Images don’t convince all the customers and online stores have realized this. In the near future we shall come across more and more videos demonstrating the products to the customers. Most ecommerce stores are starting with their YouTube channels and this will be a major trend in the coming year.

Easier and Secured Payment – This has been one of the major concerns for ecommerce stores as in how to convert the first time visitors into a sale. In 2013 online payments are going to become easy allowing customers on mobiles and tablets to carry out a transaction easily. At the same time the security features are also being enhanced for these websites.

With all these developments, ecommerce is sure to script new stories of success in 2013. 

Author Bio:

Viren Sharma is an eCommerce trend consultant at Daffodil Software Ltd., a company providing ecommerce development services, including magento web development.