Why is e-commerce important? This question is very pressing today. Well, the way people shop is changing with the Internet. With the boom of Amazon and the Internet, people are shopping online more. In fact, this past year Amazon beat Wal-Mart in sales. E-commerce is a rapidly growing industry. And we can only expect this industry to keep growing.
What’s e-commerce?
So what exactly is e-commerce? The ‘E’ stands for electronic. So e-commerce means electronic commerce. This encompasses all transactions that happen over the Internet. Amazon is a perfect example of e-commerce because it has a huge amount of sales each year. It is as popular as a brick and mortar store like Wal-Mart or Target. Only here, consumers can buy and sell goods electronically. These transactions are made through things called EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange. EDI allows buyers and sellers to give and receive goods; this transaction is what creates the electronic marketplace.
How do you set up a website for a store?
One answer to that is use Magento. According to the site Common Places, Magento is, “an e-commerce platform built on open source technology which provides online merchants with a flexible shopping cart system, as well as control over the look, content and functionality of their online store. Magento offers powerful marketing, search engine optimization, and catalog-management tools.” Essentially, businesses use Magento as an electronic commerce platform. It helps them easily create a store, manage the store, and design the store to fit their unique brand. It is an incredibly popular e-commerce platform. Magento also allows buyers and sellers to interact easily.
Electronic commerce is becoming a giant industry. Amazon beating Wal-Mart in sales really showed that world that e-commerce is the future of shopping. Now that m-commerce, or mobile commerce, is becoming more popular, this only reinforces that physical stores are going out of style.
At Union Square Design we use Magento. Magento is a content management system (CMS) platform, specifically for companies who sell goods. E-commerce companies primarily use Magento. We at Union Square Design have used Magento to build online marketplaces for our clients. We have used Magento for clients such as Crumbs Bakeshop and Glock. So, why do we use this e-commerce platform? Well, because it is the number one CMS platform for the e-commerce community.
Why E-Commerce Loves Magento
Why does the e-commerce industry love Magento? Well, for numerous reasons. You can use this e-commerce platform alongside other CMS platforms, like WordPress. This makes it easy for users to manage their website. Also, Magento is easy to use and maintain. This gives users more power to develop creative websites and online stores. The reason this e-commerce platform is doing so well, according to CEO Mark Lavelle, is because, “Only Magento delivers the flexibility leading digital commerce companies recognize as table stakes in today’s market. Our customers experience higher sales growth than businesses using other platforms. That’s the proof and value of agility powered by Magento.”
Magento is #1 in the E-Commerce Industry
On June 7, at the Internet Retailer Conference and Expo in Chicago, it was revealed that Magento is ranked number one in online retail. This is the fourth year in a row Magento has won this. According to Yahoo Finance, “31% of mid-to-large companies rely on Magento for their commerce platform, more than any other vendor including Demandware and Hybris. Further, Magento now powers over 25% percent of all e-commerce sites in the Alexa top one million sites list, more than any other e-commerce platform”. This means that overall, one-fourth of all e-commerce companies use Magento.
Overall, people like Magento because it is simple, and easy to learn. This e-commerce platform is loved for it’s powerful content management system and shopping cart.
Here at Union Square Design we are specialists in web design — and one platform we use to build e-commerce sites is Magento. People use our services for two primary reasons: to redesign their website, and to create an online store for them. As veterans of e-commerce, we understand this need. More people are shopping online than ever before. But what exactly is Magento, and how does it work? More importantly, how is it different from other content management systems?
What Exactly is Magento?
Let’s start with Magento. Magento is a content management system that is used to sell and manage products. Content management systems make it easier to update and add content to websites. Magento is specifically for e-commerce. E-commerce stands for electronic commerce– which is any transaction made over the Internet. People use Magento as their platform to easily build and manage their online store. Many people like using Magento because it is easy to learn and has a great shopping cart system.
How is Magento different?
There are many different e-commerce content management systems. Magento can be used with WordPress to build the ultimate website. WordPress, like Magento, is easy to use and simple. WordPress can manage the website, and Magento works with it for the e-commerce portion of the site. This way, your website can have a great look to it and still be able to sell everything you want without having the system crash.
Magento Case Study: Crumbs
Here at Union Square Design we’re always using Magento for our clients. One of those clients was the famous bake shop Crumbs. When the company came to us, they wanted three things for the company’s new website: a store locator, a drag and drop app to create a six pack of cupcakes, and to grow the customer’s email list. Using Magento, with all of its tools, we were able to successfully incorporate all three of these aspects to Crumbs’ new website. After Crumbs’ website redesign the company exploded in sales. This is all due to Magento’s versatility.
What is CMS? If you are asking this question you must be a beginner in web design and web development. CMS is a relatively new and popular term in web development. It is a computer application that supports the creation of digital content, such as websites.
What is CMS?
CMS stands for Content Management System. According to SearchSOAit is, “a system used to manage the content of a Web site.” So CMS helps people create and manage websites more effectively. A good example of a CMS site is WordPress. If you have ever seen seen WordPress’s dashboard you can tell right away it is helpful for website creation. It has everything you need for your website: posts, pages, widgets, and whatever plug-ins you installed. Content Management Systems come with code already written, so you don’t have to learn it or hire someone who knows it. This makes your web designing experience easier.
Backend and Frontend Content Management
People created WordPress and other CMS products to organize and manage all of the content on your website. Once everything is set up you can see what it looks like on the frontend by previewing it. If there is something wrong with the look of the website on the frontend then you can easily change it on the backend.
Other Important Features
Companies also use CMS for marketing purposes. CMS features include SEO-friendly URLs, discussion boards for help and questions, and one-to-one marketing. One-to-one marketing creates user-tailored ads to appear on your website. For example, if a user searches for bikes on Google, and then later goes to your website, advertisements for bikes will show up. All of this, and more, will help in getting traffic to your website.
CMS has changed the way websites are created and managed. Over 25% of websites on the Internet use WordPress! CMS allows people who aren’t coders to create websites, blogs, and more by themselves.
What is SQL? It is a special-purpose language used for managing data in databases. It was originally designed to manipulate data in IBM’s management system. SQL stands for Structured Query Language, and it is a standard coding language. To use SQL, you need to use a Regional Database Management System program, which is the basis for all data management. Learning SQL will allow you to manage your database, as well as give you an edge in the job market. Knowing how to code this language is a sought-after skill.
What is SQL’s history?
SQL was originally developed by IBM back in the 70’s. Another company, now called Oracle Corporation, developed their own version of an SQL data management system later in the 70’s. They sold this to the public. After this, both IBM and Oracle Corporation each made their SQL regional database management systems available for the public. Today, this language has exploded in popularity because of what it can do. There are many difference SQL management systems such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server. This language is versatile and is used for its capability to manage databases.
How to use SQL:
The language was not created for web pages like Javascript, HTML, and CSS were. It works to build databases for businesses. However, to use SQL on your website, you need a few things. First, you’ll need to be able to code HTML and CSS. Second, you’ll need a regional database management system. And third, you’ll need to know server-side scripting such as PHP. Once you learn all this, you can easily master SQL.
If your business is large, such as a hospital or university, you have probably used SQL. Mobile apps such as Dropbox and Skype use this language as well. Overall, this is a good language to learn if you’d like to work for large corporations.
What is Magento? If you don’t sell products online, you probably don’t know. Magento is an open source e-commerce platform. It provides online stores with a flexible shopping cart system. If you didn’t get that, Magento is an easy-to-use platform for companies who sell goods online. “E-commerce” is a technical term for online shopping. Any purchase made on the Internet falls under e-commerce. Therefore, Magento is used by companies who sell products on the Internet, who want a simple but powerful website.
What is Magento’s History?
Magento was released in 2007, and theyissued a 2.0 version in November 2015. In the past few years Magento’s popularity has grown as an e-commerce platform. According to thepixel, the program is already used by 200,000 retailers. In addition to that, 1 in 4 online businesses choose Magento over its competitors. Why? Because it offers these businesses powerful tools to control their e-commerce sites. This includes utility as well as appearance for their special business needs.
What is Magento’s Feature Set?
One great feature of Magento’s operations is its open architecture. This means anyone can create add-ons and extensions for the program. Add-ons and extensions help companies manage their businesses. Some features include:
help for accounting
customer relationships
business activities such as cost planning
payment processing
The open-source aspect of Magento keeps businesses organized, while also keeping websites original. But user-friendly extensions aren’t the only benefits of Magento. It also comes with search engine optimization (SEO) software that creates search-friendly URLs. With this, Google and other search engines can find websites easier. Also with its custom-made keywords and descriptions it makes it easy for customers to find the products they are looking for. There are also hundreds of extensions created outside of Magento that can still be used by companies with the platform, including a mobile app. With all of this, it seems like Magento’s popularity will continue to grow in the e-commerce world.
WordPress is a blogging and content management system that allows even the most non-tech savvy user to create a robust and full featured website with almost no learning curve. Word press was first released in 2003 as a basic weblog tool but has since evolved into the most popular blogging tool in the US (1), and as of August 2011, an astounding 22% of new websites were managed by WordPress (2).
WordPress is an open source application, which means that anyone can access and manipulate the program’s code. This has led to the creation of thousands of widgets, themes and plugins that can be used to further enhance the application and its functionality.
Great, but what do I need it for?
WordPress integration offers some serious incentives for any Magento e-commerce website. Of these, the most striking upgrade is in content management. Creating new content on WordPress couldn’t be easier in fact, it’s one of the hallmarks of the application and once that content has been created, integration with Magento allows users to port that content directly onto their e-commerce site or social media outlet. Integration works in the other direction as well; users can port content from their Magento site into WordPress, too. One less obvious benefit of this integration is consistent design between your commerce site and blog, as current integration tools all offer some level of theme portability between the two programs. In addition, integrating WordPress into your Magento e-commerce site will greatly increase the ease of engaging with customers through social media by making all the content on either site instantly portable to the outlet of your choice.
A second, major benefit of integration is in search engine optimization (SEO). WordPress is noted throughout the industry for its SEO friendliness, which leads to more exposure for your e-commerce site once integrated – something every business owner wants.
The best part of it all? Incredible content and marketing gains without costly outside talent; keeping costs down without sacrificing functionality.
So…which one is right for me?
A quick search of the Magento Connect store reveals a few popular choices for WordPress extensions. Let’s explore some of the differences between them and their pros and cons.
The two most popular WordPress integration plugins are offered by Fishpig and its counterpart, Sonassi. The two plugins offer almost identical feature sets, including full WordPress functionality, use of WordPress plugins and shortcode (essentially “code-shortcuts” that are WordPress-specific) and a neat feature that links WordPress blogs posts to related products in your Magento store (the Sonassi integrator requires a free plug-in). But there are some major differences to consider as well.
One such difference is the price. Fishpig’s integrator is free, while the plugin from Sonassi costs $80. Furthermore, the Sonassi plugin requires professional setup (included in the purchase price), while the Fishpig plugin self-installs upon download, without the need for any code manipulation (no word on code manipulation from Sonassi).
Some features unique to Fishpig’s plugin are integration for your blog in multiple Magento stores and NextGEN Gallery integration, currently the most popular gallery extension in WordPress.
Some features unique to the Sonassi version are complete theme inheritance from Magento to WordPress with no design manipulation required and automatic linking of all Magento customers’ profiles into WordPress, saving your customers the hassle of creating and remembering two separate logins.
For those looking to incorporate their Magento store into their blog, there is a plugin from developer James Kemp that allows users to add Magento blocks, including custom blocks, to their WordPress themes. In addition, users can add Magento products directly into their post on WordPress with the available “Shortcuts and Widgets” extension.
Often, we need to integrate other platforms (for example Wordpress, phpBB, etc) with Magento. This usually begins with unifying the design and then synchronizing the user account. Towards the end if the cross-talk becomes too complicated, it would be easier to build some specific APIs to tackle this.
Here we are going to walk through a quick and neat way to extract the Magento header and footer, and the inject them into another platform, in the following steps:
Create a blank Magento CMS page for the extraction
