Magento / Adobe Commerce – The Enterprise Online Shop Software From Adobe

Who is behind the online shop software “Magento”?

Magento version 1.0 was first presented to the world on March 31, 2008 as an open-source e-commerce platform.

Varien Inc., a private company specializing in developing e-commerce products, laid the cornerstone in the development of one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world. Right from the start, many enthusiastic and talented people were involved in the development of Magento, including software developers and many other professionals in their respected fields. Today, these people make up the huge and ever-growing Magento community.

A new chapter in Magento’s history started in 2018, when “Adobe Inc.” had acquired the e-commerce platform. In doing so, Adobe laid the foundation for a new version of Magento.

With a significantly large number of online shops using the platform, next to WordPress/WooCommerce and Shopify, Magento is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Samsung, Nike, Ford and many more chose to run their online shops on Magento.Distribution of e-commerce platforms usage across the top 1 million online shops:

Magento / Adobe Commerce – The enterprise online shop software

Magento 2 is an e-commerce platform that was officially released in 2015. Magento has a huge community and is constantly evolving, offering online shop operators a wide range of opportunities to operate e-commerce at an extremely high and professional level. The software was developed with the Zend Framework and Symfony and is therefore a PHP-based system.

Magento – Editions

Like many other online shop systems, Magento doesn’t only offer an open-source solution. Depending on the budget, the requirements of the online shop and the support of a competent software development team, Adobe offers the following versions of Magento:

Open Source (free)

This edition is free and has limited functionality compared to Magento Commerce Edition (e.g. creation and management of static content – pages, blocks).

Commerce (paid)

This edition includes all functionalities of the Open Source edition and many more. Adobe also offers additional support for this edition.

Commerce Cloud (paid)

It’s essentially a copy of the Magento Commerce Edition. The only difference is that the system is hosted by Adobe.

Comparison of Magento editions:

Scope of implementation

Since Magento is purely an online shop system, the content management system is of course intended and suitable purely for e-commerce. Therefore, the system is completely product-driven, which makes it perfect for running an online shop.

Modules / extensions

The Magento Marketplace contains a variety of modules that can be used to greatly expand the basic functionalities. There are many important modules offered in different categories such as:

• payment methods
• product care
• merchandise management systems
• and much more

You can browse through the large selection of extensions in the official Magento Marketplace.

Content management

Since the online shop system is intended for selling the products and not blog content management, using it for such purposes is inconvenient. However, with some extensions, the usability can be significantly improved.

Connection with Amazon, eBay and Co.

Due to a variety of connection options that Magento offers, an online shop owner can sell products on countless third-party platforms with ease. This includes sales channels such as Amazon, eBay and so on.

Multi-store functionality

Magento allows you to control multiple front ends with one back end. This means that you can operate entirely different online shops with the same database. Not only can you address different target groups with different designs, but you can also supply and control different front ends with different data via the consolidated back end.

Multiple language support

These sub shops can also be used to implement multilingualism for the online shop. With this functionality, Magento is not bound by any limits when it comes to the use of different languages. So, nothing stands in the way of internationalization for a Magento shop owner.

Magento as an enterprise online shop software

API-first approach

A very special feature of Magento makes it even more favorable and future-proof: The API-First approach or “Headless Commerce Architecture”. This special feature expands the online shop system with a modern and future-oriented technology that allows Magento to be used as a so-called headless CMS.

Additionally, this enables a Progressive Web App to be docked.

Who is Magento suitable for?

Magento is a perfect solution for a business that needs a professional e-commerce presence. Due to the large community and many different modules, with Magento a comprehensive online shop can be set up inexpensively. However, since the system has many functions, it is also a complex one. That is why an online shop based on Magento should best be set up and managed by a professional web agency.

Is Magento right for your online business? We would be happy to arrange a consultation with you and help you make the right choice.