Opace
With ecommerce platforms available for all sized businesses, it can be difficult knowing which is the best one to go for. Whilst some base their decision on costs, others choose functionality or support above all. Magento is often described as ticking all the right boxes but is it really the best free ecommerce platform out there?

Is Magento the best eCommerce platform?

One of the reasons that Magento is considered the best ecommerce platform is that it’s one of the most widely used.

As of February 2015, there were actually 238,000 sites using Magento to power their ecommerce stores, compared to 61,000 using Big Commerce and 188,000 using Pretashop. The ecommerce platform is used by businesses of all sizes, including big brands like Nike, Olympus and Harper’s Bazaar.
Magento is also favoured for being an open source application, written in PHPand MySQL. This means the software is free to use (though you may have to pay for Magento development services), has an active community providing support and benefits from its own marketplace of extensions and themes, which can be used to customise the platform.

Magento’s search engine friendliness

Unlike other ecommerce platforms out there, Magento can be used to create websites that rank very well on search engines. The powerful ecommerce platform has built-in SEO functionality that allows users to optimise their title and meta descriptions, image alt tags and URLs. It also has redirection functionality to prevent broken URLs from causing SEO issues. Another benefit is that its SEO functionality can be further extended using a wide range of SEO extensions, including SEO Suite Pro by Mageworx.
“For businesses looking specifically for an ecommerce platform, there is no better choice than Magento,” says David Bryan, Managing Director of Opace. “Unlike other applications, which started off life as a CMS and had ecommerce functionality bolted on, Magento has been an ecommerce system from the very beginning.”

eCommerce rich functionality

The platform certainly boasts a wide range of ecommerce rich functionality compared to other platforms. Not only does it offer a powerful content management system but also promotional pricing, rich options for checkout, payments and shipping and integrations to improve order processing. Magento also boasts a number of product browsing features including multiple product images, options for up-selling and cross-selling and zoom in functionality, allowing businesses to provide customers with a better shopping experience.
All Magento users gain full access to a whole suite of reports and analytical data, which they can use to gather information about their customers’ preferences and behaviour. The more information they gather, the better business decisions they are able to make.
Of course, something that is likely to sway a business owner’s decision whether to use a particular ecommerce platform or not, is the security features it offers. Unsurprisingly great security is another box that Magento ticks. With CAPTCHA functionality, SSL security support, strict administration access and regular patching, business owners can have the peace of mind that they are using a robust platform that is difficult for hackers to penetrate.

Responsively designed – mobile and tablet friendly

Finally, with more and more people using their smartphones and tablets to shop online, it is now more important than ever for business owners to have a fully responsive, mobile friendly ecommerce site and again, Magento ticks all the boxes. The platform can easily be customised to respond to any device including desktops, laptops, mobiles, Kindles and iPads. It comes with a wide range of in-built features that eliminate the risk of a Google penalty for non-responsiveness and ensure all customers can benefit from an enjoyable online shopping experience, no matter what device they are using.
By choosing Magento, businesses can improve customer experience, increase their search rankings and future-proof their online stores, ready for the launch of new devices.
With so many benefits, it is no wonder that Magento is dubbed the best free ecommerce platform. Not only does it allow businesses of all sizes to benefit from high customisability and great functionality but also SEO-friendly features and easy integrations, that give them a real chance of making their online business a big success.
Interested in building a powerful ecommerce website? For more information about Magento, including its multi-handling capabilities and third party integrations, please visit the Opace website www.opace.co.uk.