Magento is an open-source platform for e-commerce that is downloadable from the company website. The product becomes a capital expenditure when your team implements it into an online store. Magento has several responsive themes to choose from on their website, some being free, while others cost anywhere from $39 to $99+ Magento was first released in 2008. Magento's market share among the top 30 e-commerce platforms is about 30%, making it one of the largest e-commerce providers in the world. There are also several different "specialties" of Magento. There is a special Magento for fashion shops, as well as a B2B version of Magento that streamlines B2B sales for online eCommerce stores. Magento also works on mobile devices quite well, being one of the first e-commerce providers to start designing themes with mobile HTML5. We also found that some third-party plug-ins and platforms made it possible to do things from your mobile device, such as monitor your sales and inventory. With some third-party integration, you might even be able to chat with your customers from your mobile device. However, these solutions can increase the cost of Magento.

View Best eCommerce Software Companies

Top Ranked Companies

#1 Etsy

6.1 Overall Score

4.4

star star star star star_half

(106)

View Profile View Profile

#2 Selz

6.1 Overall Score

4.9

star star star star star

(25)

View Profile Visit Site View Profile

#3 Shopify

5.6 Overall Score

4.1

star star star star star_border

(62)

View Profile Visit Site View Profile

thumb_up

The Good

Built-in web design
Shopping cart integration
Personalized customer experience
Mobile e-commerce
Analytics and reporting
Community

Like many of the open source e-commerce platforms, we love the price of Magento for small businesses. It is free and the only costs you have to pay are for extensions, themes, and other features, as well as development resources for building your online e-store. For enterprise-level businesses, they do custom quotes, but we read online that the average base price for enterprise businesses is $17,900 per year.

Built-in Web Design

There are thousands of themes to choose from in the Magento industry.

Shopping Cart Integration

In addition to abandoned cart management, you also let your customers choose from a robust array of payment portals. These include PayPal, Amazon, Google Checkout, Simple Pay, and many more, in addition to the standard credit cards.

Personalized Customer Experience

You let customers see their purchase histories and tracking information for current orders

Mobile E-Commerce

Magento's responsive themes immediately detect what type of device your customer is using, making their product selection process easier.

Analytics and Reporting

These features include Google Analytics, detailed sales reports, and other specialized types of custom reports.

Community

If you are new to Magento, you're not going to be stuck on your own. There is an extensive knowledge base with Magento. In addition, there is a community wiki that has helpful articles on processing payments, store design, and more. Finally, there is a Magento Expert Consulting Group, which helps you get your store up and running if you are a small business. Magento, in our opinion, is one of the best open-source e-commerce platforms on the market today. We like the additional "expanded" Magento versions for fashion and B2B commerce. In the future, it might be possible for Magento to unroll some new versions of its e-commerce solution for different industries.

thumb_down

The Bad

Not user friendly
Limited security
Capital expenditures
Phone support

Not User Friendly

You have to be pretty tech-savvy to run Magento. There are plenty of resources to help you get up and running if you have a development background, but there is a steep learning curve with Magento. You're not going to be able to get a fully-functional store "out-of-the-box." Magento developers are out there, but they can become quite pricey, some cost around as much as $150 per hour.

Limited Security

Also, you're on your own for security with Magento. You will need to buy an SSL certificate with a third-party provider. Then you also have to implement your SSL certificate on your domain. As a small business owner, you might be better off with a subscription service that takes care of things for you.

Capital Expenditures

As you run Magento on your own server (unless you hire a Magento management service), you have to take care of all the "capital expenditures" associated with running an e-commerce platform.

Phone Support

Also, we were worried about Magento's lack of phone support. If you are using their free downloads, you are totally on your own. However, there is a team of experts who can help you if you are an enterprise-level business using the appropriate subscription.

gavel

The Bottom Line

We would recommend Magento if you are a large business that has its own server infrastructure. Magento doesn't have an SSL certificate option for their free download, so it is up to your business to buy these from another vendor. Magento also has a ton of plugins and extensions for marketing, social media, and more. Most of these are free. Magento takes a little bit of work to implement in your e-store, but the analytics and features are great. There are also abandoned cart analytics to help you figure out where customers are "dumping their merchandise" without buying before leaving your e-store. Finally, we like the payment options available with Magento. You can scale these up or down as much as you'd like and take payments in most of the currencies from customers around the world.

Was this content helpful?

thumb_up Yes thumb_down No

border_color Write a Review

User Reviews

Star Rating

star star star star star_border

1 Review

Review Breakdown

5 grade

4 grade

100%

3 grade

2 grade

1 grade

Sentiment Criteria

Value

star_border star_border star_border star_border star_border

Quality

star_border star_border star_border star_border star_border

Service

star_border star_border star_border star_border star_border

Trustworthiness

star_border star_border star_border star_border star_border

cancel

star star star star star_border

Camry Draper, UT

We use the Magento platform for our company's e-commerce websites. We're currently switching over from Magento 1.9 to Magento 2.3. It features an updated look and most of the product catalog basic functionality is the same, but some of the way the product types are set up have changed a bit so it takes some time to re-learn how to set up new products.

7 years ago