Benefits of ecommerce The benefits of ecommerce should sell themselves to every business. Whether you currently sell on a high street, farm shop or industrial park, ecommerce will add an extra revenue stream, reduce time spent on customer services and help with promotion.

Open source ecommerce using Magento

With free ‘open source’ platforms such as Magento, it is now easier and more cost-effective for every businesses to start selling online. Working with a specialist Magento designer will allow you to make the most from one of the most popular ecommerce applications.

Magento installation

Installing and running Magento is not difficult, but the first job your Magento designer will do is manage the initial set up and configuration. You can continue running the business, while your Magento system is safely installed – ready for you to populate.

Magento templates and design

There are thousands of great free or low cost Magento templates, but you may wish to customise your template to reflect your existing branding and stand out for the crowd or even consider a bespoke web design. An expert Magento designer will have done this many times already, so getting the right image shouldn’t take too long. They will also be able to make sure your ecommerce site complies with good commercial practice and that it is fully compliant with any industry-wide standards.

Magento support and extensions

Populating your store, updating new products and services and the day-to-day management is relatively easy. You can delegate within the team or manage this yourself. One of the advantages of using Magento is, with 2.5 million downloads, there is a worldwide community of users and developers willing to offer support and information should you need it. However, Magento is such a powerful tool that using the services of a Magento designer or developer will help you make the most of its functions, configure available extensions or even create new ones.

Some further Magento designer services include :

• Setting up multiple stores – Creating niche stores is a great way of achieving good search engine rankings and all stores can be run from one dashboard – so you are adding extra sales, not extra work.

• Integrating with other channels – Before you go fully e-commerce, you may have run eBay or Amazon stores. A Magento designer will integrate all these channels.

• Search Engine Optimisation – Out-of-the-box Magento has good SEO capability, but there are also great SEO extensions that will help with analytics, social sharing, generating XML sitemaps and much more.

• E-marketing – Again, Magento offers brilliant functions that will help you retain customers, upsell and cross promote and develop loyalty programmes. Magento will link your social media activities. Powerful stuff that an expert Magento designer will work with you to maximise.

Now really is the time to grow your business through ecommerce – and there is expert advice from Magento designers and developers available at every stage. If you found this tutorial helpful then please click the Like or Tweet button below or leave a comment.

Image credit – Maria Elena