Magento has long been one of the favourite ecommerce platforms for UK businesses, and it is also immensely popular in the wider world. Some of the top global brands have chosen this particular platform to host their ecommerce stores, and it is expected that the platform will go from strength to strength. Originally developed in California and released in 2008, Magento is an open source platform that is written using PHP. Magento 2 was released in November 2015 and offered several upgrades over the original version including the following:
- Security updates
- Server-side Apache Varnish caching
- Rich snippets for structured data
- CSS pre-processing
- Better coding patterns
- Built-in JavaScript minimisation and optimisation
- Improved database scalability
- Better static browser content caching
- Performance updates
In 2016, Magento Commerce was released as a platform as a service offering and in 2018 Magento was acquired by Adobe and integrated into Adobe’s wider offerings for businesses, which includes the recently renamed Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce). Due to their popularity and commercial success, Magento and Adobe Commerce sites are well served by partner agencies that specialise in handling all things to do with this suite of products.
Key facts and figures
Worldwide, there are more than 250,000 merchants making use of Magento or Adobe Commerce to manage their online stores and many of the top global brands have chosen this platform over others. These brands include favourites such as Bulgari, Nespresso, Ford and Coca-Cola, all of which have been able to use Magento to create websites that perfectly capture their brand personality and provide engaging experiences for their users.
Magento is so popular that it is used to manage 1.2% of all websites currently in operation, making it the ninth most popular platform in the world. This number is actually quite deceptive because there are countless low quality websites built using other platforms, and Magento use tends to be reserved for more high quality websites.
On top of this, Magento is the second most popular ecommerce platform and handles more than $1.5 billion in transactions every year. Businesses that make use of Magento grow three times faster than those using other ecommerce platforms on average, especially when using the services of an experienced Magento partner to guide the process.
The benefits of choosing Magento
When it comes to ecommerce platforms, Magento is often the best choice for businesses. First developed in 2008 giving plenty of time for growth and development, Magento has since become one of the most popular ecommerce platforms available, powering more than a quarter of a million online stores. There are several reasons for Magento's popularity and merchants that have chosen this platform can expect to enjoy plenty of benefits.
First, Magento is highly flexible and customisable, making it easy to create an online store that is unique and matches a business's branding. Second, magento supports a wide range of features and integrations, giving businesses the ability to create a comprehensive online store. Finally, magento is backed by a strong community of developers and support staff, ensuring that businesses can always get the help they need. In short, there are many good reasons to choose Magento when building an online store.
A major benefit of Magento is that it is completely scalable. It is entirely possible for a new company or startup to invest in a more basic Magento build that suits their needs and budget, and to build upon this website as their requirements grow and change. There are more than 5000 plugins that can be used with a Magento website, making it a highly versatile option for a huge range of applications.
Everyone in ecommerce knows that you need more than just a website in order to be successful - the website also needs to be marketed properly and must give off the right signals. In this regard, Magento is a great choice because it is designed to work extremely well with marketing techniques, search engine optimisation (SEO) in particular.
Another thing that site owners will appreciate is that, despite the perceived complexity of Magento sites, uploading content is actually a pretty straightforward process. At least part of the rapid growth experienced by Magento sites can be attributed to this because a frequently updated website is a more engaging website, offering users something new and valuable each time they visit.