Why is it finally time to upgrade to Magento 2?

Magento 2 was released in 2015 after many delays and with the enthusiasm that it has been received with, it obviously was worth the wait. Several websites have migrated to Magento 2 and several are in the process of migrating.

I am a person who in always interested in upgrading to new technologies. I did switched to Windows Vista, Windows 8, and all such new software releases without a second thought. But, when it came to Magento 2, I was not equally quick in switching over.

Why?

Remember when various Windows version came out or when any such huge software upgrades were released? Remember what was common in all of those upgrades?

Bugs! A lot of bugs.

Encountering bugs in a new software is not uncommon. But, when there are bugs in an eCommerce website, it is definitely a huge problem as you may lose many customers because of that. Experimenting with an eCommerce website by upgrading it to a new software full of bugs may prove to be a pitfall for your business.

When people approach me with questions related to migration to Magento 2, I have been really apprehensive about upgrading the core software that powers your business before all the faults are cleared out. But after 2 years of its initial release and 8 versions later, I think it is safe to migrate from magento 1 to magento 2.

Once I realised the time is right, I researched about pros and cons that one needs to know about while moving forward with the migration.

The pros of migrating to Magento 2

• More in-built features: As the magento 2 platform itself has a lot of native features integrated within it, it seems to be a full package. With most of the features in-built, there are fewer extensions required.
• Improvised performance: There is no debate about the performance that Magento 2 has to offer. It is way better than the magento 1 platform.
• Fully responsive and touch friendly layout: Magento 2 has a layout that is responsive by default and thus, one does not have to spend time trying to modify various screen views.
• Easy to add functionality: Magento 2 has a setup that has easy and simple backend management with a better UX, thereby offering an enhanced functionality to the admins. Also, the user end functionalities have been improvised by adding a superior UX.

These benefits are bound to improvise the UI/UX of the webshop, thereby attracting more customers.

Also, with Magento 2.2 expected to be releasing soon, Magento 1 is expected to become obsolete by the end of 2019. So, it is better to make the switch now with a lot of time to spare than doing it in haste when it becomes necessary.

Summing up

Magento 2 had several promising features to offer when it was first released but it was a wise decision to wait for others to try it out and smoothen out all the shortcomings before migrating to Magento 2. But now that all the bugs are gone, the only things that remain are its impressive features and they are totally worth the time of migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2.

Comparison Between WooCommerce And PrestaShop In The 2018 eCommerce Scenario

Choosing the right shopping cart software is the most significant factor for the success of any company. The right style and layout of an eCommerce website with appealing UI/UX is what one needs to get the website to take off the ground.

Many eCommerce beginners are confused about which software to pick for designing the shopping cart out of WooCommerce or PrestaShop.

Though both the software have proven to be equally successful in helping a large number of business owners successfully launch an eCommerce website, the basic difference between the both lies in the base of their frameworks itself:

PrestaShop is a freemium eCommerce platform, written in the PHP programming language and registered under Open Software License and uses MySQL as the database management system. On the other hand, WooCommerce is an open source WordPress plugin for eCommerce that helps in building medium to large size online shopping websites using WordPress.

With the basic difference clarified, I will now give you an overview of PrestaShop vs. WooCommerce for various parameters:

The principle:

PrestaShop is a platform for designing eCommerce websites where one can install a plugin for adding CMS functionality and WooCommerce is a plugin adding eCommerce functionality to a CMS platform. With both, the final result satisfies the same objective but in different ways.

Themes available:

PrestaShop has a library of over 1200 themes to choose from on its official website and several other third-party templates. There is a limited library of WordPress themes of about 500 templates that are compatible with WooCommerce. While most of the WordPress themes can be modified to work with WooCommerce, it needs a high amount of designing to get it to work for an eCommerce website.

Security handling:

WooCommerce, being a WordPress plugin, has security requirements similar to that of WordPress. So, one who is familiar with all the security measures needed on a WordPress platform can easily handle the security of the website. PrestaShop, on the other hand, needs specific security measures that only PrestaShop development experts can handle. If proper measures are taken at the development stage, a PrestaShop based website can offer high-level security but the same can be achieved on a WordPress based eCommerce website with lesser efforts.

Stock management:

WooCommerce can support at most 10 thousand products. If you go beyond that, the admin side server will make it almost impossible to manage product list sorting. PrestaShop can support over tens of thousands of products and are easily manageable from the admin side server.

Costs:

Though both the software belong to the freemium category, the cost involved in making a PrestaShop eCommerce website is more than the one made using a WooCommerce. There are no free templates available in PrestaShop and you also need to get product filter plugin for the frontend. But all the costs involved make the complete website more customisable.

So, which software wins?

Though each has its own pros and cons, both emerge winners in their own variant way. While PrestaShop offers more versatility, WooCommerce offers easy backend handling and while WooCommerce offers more autonomy, PrestaShop has too good eCommerce features.

In short, WooCommerce web development solution is a good choice for small to medium scale businesses while PrestaShop web development is preferable for large-scale businesses.

Why Leading Brands Prefer Magento Shopping Cart Platform?

Willing to venture out in the eCommerce business? Why not! The booming eCommerce market presents endless opportunities; just you must be ready to grab it. Are you equipped with the right eCommerce platform? Well, when it comes to choosing an eCommerce development platform, you would be spoilt for choice.

In today’s post I would like to discuss why leading brands rely on Magento development services. Even many top-notch brands including Ford, Olympus, Coca Cola, and Nestle count on Magento to achieve their digital goals; here’s why:

Open Source

Magento is built using PHP and other open source tools and techniques. And being open source it allows all types of customizations and modifications as per your project requirements.

Moreover, this shopping cart platform can help you deliver great performance with enhanced store security for eCommerce merchants as well as a Magento website development company.

Rich features

Magento offers a complete web store service through its rich features. It has strived hard to compete with other popular eCommerce platforms like WordPress and Drupal CMS and evolved as a platform that facilitates online trading methods intuitively.

Mobile-friendly

With the number of mobile shoppers exploding over the years, it is critical for an eCommerce website to be mobile friendly. The great thing about Magento is that it is mobile ready and also offers multiple store integration support on various devices.

Furthermore, your customers can easily navigate through your Magento store exercising control over the screen size, drag and drop functionality and audiovisuals.

Customization

The design conventions for an eCommerce store vary based on the industry it operates in. What works for a furniture retailer may not work for a fashion retailer. Likewise, the size of your business, the scale of its operations, billing and delivery options, customer support requirements and others pose serious challenges in the eCommerce space.

That is when customization enters the scene; it allows your business to speak its standard and values. With Magento you would never fall short of themes and extensions required to give your store the look and feel that represents your brand.

Multiple store support

Magento also allows you to set up more than one store which can be controlled with a single account. The diverse features of Magento and an experienced Magento Certified Solution Specialist would enable you to manage all your stores from just a single backend panel and also market for yourself.

SEO-friendly

It is highly important that your audience finds you online easily. Equipped with SEO-friendly features Magento enables you to rank well in search engine results pages. Moreover, with a well-crafted SEO strategy you can increase the chances of your web shop getting indexed in Google and other search engines.

You can also gain increased traffic to your store with the help of elements such as redirecting broken pages, XML sitemaps, meta descriptions, etc.

Over to you

How is your experience with Magento store so far? Please be the first to let me know by leaving your comments below.

Why it is Essential to have an Ecommerce Personalization Strategy Today?

Change is the only constant in the world of technology and as technology evolves, consumer expectations are raised. They not only want an efficient service but they want you to personalize it for them.

Earlier, personalization strategy for delivering better customer experience could be the key to gain competitive advantage, especially for ecommerce businesses. Today, it is like a business imperative for them and here are the reasons why every ecommerce business should have personalization strategy:

How Your Ecommerce Business can Benefit from Mobile App Development?

Estimated Read Time: 02 minutes

The mobile first philosophy has made businesses to reconsider their business strategies and ecommerce businesses are no exception to that. With the ever increasing number of smartphone users, an ecommerce mobile application has become a business imperative.

In this fast-paced worldly life, people turn towards their smartphones to accomplish their daily tasks including online grocery shopping, paying utility bills, net banking and booking movie tickets.

When the consumers are so much dependent on their mobile devices, doesn’t it make sense for you as a business owner to invest in mobile app development?

To find out why we are emphasizing the need for ecommerce mobile app development, let’s put a glance on how your e-store can benefit from an ecommerce mobile application:

Ease of access

With a mobile app, your customers can now surf through your ecommerce site anytime and from anywhere. Even while they are on the go! They can even shop in their morning or evening commute. This not only saves their time but also keeps them engaged.

Push notification

This is one of the most crucial features of mobile apps and is highly beneficial for your business. With the help of analytics, you read the mind of your customers. You can find out about the buying behaviour of your customers. Based on that, you can send them personalized offers via push notification.

Increases brand loyalty

When your customers would feel that they are being cared by receiving all the personalized notifications then it’s natural that they would build a strong bond with your brand. Thus, you can remain connected with your consumers and build a loyal customer base.

Acquires new customers

When your customers will like the experience you deliver then they would definitely share it with their friends and family. You would see a surge in the number of visitors to your ecommerce website due to word of mouth which is a very strong form of marketing. Thus, you would gain new customers.

Final words!

Now that you are well aware of the importance of mobile apps for your ecommerce business, would you like to consult a mobile app specialist? Is there any factor that is hindering the path to ecommerce mobile app development? Please let us know by leaving your comments below.

How to Differentiate Your Ecommerce Store from the Competition?

Estimated Read Time: 02 minutes

In the ecommerce era, every business is striving hard to make a meaningful web presence. Earlier it was a means to gain competitive advantage and now it is a business imperative. As the world is moving towards a digital economy, the number of businesses invading the digital zone is increasing significantly.

How would you leave your mark in this fiercely competitive zone? You would need to differentiate yourself from the competition and lay the foundation of your ecommerce success but it is easier said than done. Of course, you need to get your e-store developed from a reputed ecommerce development agency and in addition to that here are few strategies to uniquely position your business and get an edge over competition:

Unveil your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

This is the first step to differentiate your ecommerce business from your competitors. You have to find out the unique aspect of your business or product and how you can add value to your customers. This could be the basic step of your brand strategy for unique positioning of your business.        

               

Make your brand stand out on product quality

Product quality used as a brand marketing tool can enable you to establish brand loyalty quite effectively. If you do not have quality in mind while you design your product then you would not be able to see repeat customers leave alone loyal customer base.

recommended read - Tips and Tricks to Build a Successful E-commerce Website

Try unconventional branding methods

The ecommerce industry is witnessing disruptions and you could also carry that trend in branding game. You may find certain custom that exists in your potential customer base. By completely disrupting it you may enable an entirely new breed of customer following your brand loyally. Your unique branding pattern would be the new buzz in the industry and thus you would get so much attention and visibility.

Final words!

The ecommerce zone is fiercely competitive and to stand out among the competition you would need to come out with some out of the box ideas. You would need to uncover your USP, make product quality your marketing tool and disrupt the conventional branding rules. Happy selling!

Why OpenCart is the Right Choice for your E-commerce Startup?

Estimated Read Time: 03 minutes 30 seconds

The e-commerce landscape is getting competitive on almost daily basis. Choosing the right platform is of utmost importance for you to achieve your business objectives and take your business to greater heights. Rich features and functionalities are all you need to give your business the competitive edge required to stay ahead of competition. As there are so many e-commerce solution options in the marketplace it is crucial for you to understand the pros and cons of each one and decide which one aptly fits your business needs.

Simple Store Set-Up

OpenCart offers the ease of DIY, making it a major attraction for business owners of startups with little technical knowledge. This platform allows you to easily setup, configure and operate your e-store. Moreover, you can also easily update and maintain your e-commerce website.

Lower Server Load

Compared to other e-commerce solutions OpenCart’s setup and configuration put lesser server load thus allows quick access and fast-loading of your e-commerce website. This in turn would result in an enhanced customer experience leading to high conversions and reduced cart abandonment rate.

Recommended Read - Tips and Tricks to Build a Successful E-commerce Website

Manage Multiple Stores

This e-commerce platform offers the multi-store functionality which you can utilize to configure more than one store based on your product mix and segmentation. You can instruct your OpenCart specialist to localize your international operations by setting pricing, languages, currency, time zones and shipping for individual stores. Thus you get a centralized administrative panel to run and control multiple e-commerce operations.

Array Of Features

OpenCart is a well equipped e-commerce solution wherein you can get a wide range of features. It offers more than 7000 extensions which you can utilize to add numerous functionalities to your e-commerce store and open doors to endless possibilities.

Advanced Reporting System

This platform is built to make the life of e-commerce owners easier. It comes equipped with an advanced reporting system that increases your productivity potential by offering insights which enable you to make informed decision. For example, total sales can be segregated and viewed by week, month or year for better analysis.

Now you know about the benefits of this e-commerce solution for your business and you can customize it as per your business requirement by hiring an OpenCart expert. Though it would be an upfront cost, you can minimize it by Outsourced OpenCart Development.

View more information opencart website design, opencart developer and opencart specialist agency.