This is a question I have been asked a few times by prospective merchants over the last year, mainly because we are also in love with BigCommerce and AeroCommerce. In short, it is possible to be in love with all 3, because they all give me something different!
Oh dear, my analogies…
Anyway, Magento was my first love, back in 2012. I was completely blown away by an eCommerce Platform that, at the time, played very close to the high end enterprise versions, but was a fraction of the cost. Here I was, starting up objectsource, having not long launched Ocado.com on the Intershop enfinity platform, costing a fair amount in license fees, not to mention Consulting/Development fees to customise to what they needed. So, how on earth could something that is offered as a free edition and built in php get anywhere close to this, but it certainly did. I then had to ask myself why it was that online merchants felt the need to spend so so much on an enterprise platform, when this was available.
I love Magento because they are gutsy, they kept pushing the boundaries of eCommerce with new features and continued to offer a free edition. Then in 2016, they bravely launched a completely redeveloped version! Wow, who in their right mind would do that…? Someone who wanted to see that they had longevity in the marketplace and wanted to help all those merchants that had chosen them (and the ones that hadn’t yet), really go to the next level! Was it perfect one release, dear lord, no! But did this have incredible potential that just needed unlocking by the JFDI and forward thinking merchants, ABSOLUTELY. This brings me onto the next reason for loving Magento…
BigCommerce, Shopify and all those SaaS platforms are just brilliant (I will write more about those next week), they take away a lot of pain with regards to upgrades, maintenance, super easy to use, tons of apps you can add with a click of a button etc. However, in my opinion, these are platforms don’t allow you to dream, dream up amazing features and functionalities that will differentiate a merchant, that will really increase your conversion or your average basket value. This is where Magento comes into it’s own. Magento is truly open source, the crux of that means that you are able to customise practically any aspect of it:
- From the web user experience – get yourself over to Katie Loxton’s new personalised product. This was developed using knockout.js, therefore providing the best UX, but still using all that is great about Magento underneath.
- Integrations with 3rd Party systems, no matter how wild and wonderful they are. We have integrated with bespoke ERP’s, Odoo, MS Business Central, various payment providers and so much more.
- Providing a B2B offering, alongside the B2C sites. We did this for Joma Jewellery, Craig & Rose.
So, in conclusion, I love Magento because it allows you to dream and as quoted by Eleanor Roosevelt, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.
