What is Magento?

First, let’s discuss what Magento is and why it may be a helpful platform for you. Magento is one of the top e-commerce platforms today. It is made with open-source software so users are able to control their online store’s look, functionality, and content without compromising the shopping experience. Also, Magento provides its users with a number of useful tools and features including marketing, SEO, and catalog-management tools. With Magento, users have access to a wide variety of plugins and themes to customize whatever they want. Such customizations can also improve customer experience.

In general, the platform is scalable to any store size and will adapt to your business, whether you are catering to a few customers or a million. This means that as your business grows you won’t be forced to change platforms.

What is Managed VPS Hosting?

Managed VPS Hosting is a managed service where you don’t need to worry about managing your server. With Managed VPS Hosting, your hosting provider will take care of server maintenance such as core updates, software installation, backup, security, and more.

Benefits of Magento as an eCommerce Platform

Magento offers numerous advantages to e-commerce businesses. As an e-commerce platform, it provides:

• Increased performance and scalability
• Improved ability to persuade customers
• A powerful platform that can support thousands of products
• A responsive and mobile-friendly experience
• Advanced search engine optimization features
• A helpful community with developer support

Benefits of Managed VPS Hosting with A2 Hosting

• Enjoy Full Root Access: With full root access you can tailor your managed server to meet your specific needs as you’re not sharing it with other entities.
• Cost Savings: With managed virtual hosting, you can eliminate expenses incurred on hiring dedicated staff to take care of the technical administration and management tasks.
• Scalability: Managed VPS Hosting services also take care of scalability, which is an important requirement for growing businesses. With rising traffic, your server resources can be easily ramped up to meet the increasing demands.
• Security: With Managed VPS Hosting, you get an IP address that is unique to your server, which offers increased website security.

Conclusion:

At A2 Hosting, our goal is to offer fast, responsive, and reliable hosting solutions to meet your unique needs. This recent integration with Magento is one way for us to show our support to all of our customers.

If you’re a growing enterprise, increasing business demands can place undue strain on your website and online operations if they’re not designed to handle high traffic and other challenges. In addition, the demands of an expanding business can divert attention from more valuable business activities. This is where A2 Hosting can come to your rescue. By opting for our Managed Magento VPS Hosting, you can focus your time and attention on operations such as marketing, promotions, sales, and customer service that directly contribute to the growth of your business.

Leave the hosting challenges to us while you attend to your customers. Benefit from our hassle-free and seamless hosting plans!

Click here to check out our Managed VPS Hosting plans. If you have any further questions, contact our sales team today!

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What Is Magento?

Magento is one of the best e-commerce platforms available today that empowers thousands of brands and retailers around the world.

Its open-source technology allows online merchants to take advantage of a flexible shopping cart system including full control over the appearance, content, and functionality of their digital store.

What Is Managed Dedicated Hosting?

Managed dedicated hosting is a type of hosting service on the internet wherein the client gets to lease an entire server for themselves. This means that they don’t have to share the asset with anyone else.

With managed dedicated hosting, the administrator of a website doesn’t have to worry about server-side problems because this will be the responsibility of the host.

Benefits of Magento as an eCommerce Platform

Magento offers numerous advantages to e-commerce businesses. As an e-commerce platform, it provides:

• Increased performance and scalability
• Improved ability to persuade customers
• A powerful platform that can support thousands of products
• A responsive and mobile-friendly experience
• Advanced search engine optimization features
• A helpful community with developer support

Benefits of Managed Dedicated Hosting With A2 Hosting

With A2 Hosting as your managed dedicated host, you can leverage countless customization options for your needs. Dedicated resources available for you mean that you can have your own robust server to tinker with.

Meanwhile, our team of experts will take care of the setup and optimization of all necessary hardware, software, network, and security systems on your behalf.

Conclusion

At A2 Hosting, our goal is to offer fast, responsive, and reliable hosting solutions to meet your unique needs. This recent integration with Magento is one way for us to show our support to all of our customers.

If you want to learn more, check out our managed dedicated hosting plans today! If you have further questions our sales team is available 24/7/365!

The post A2 Hosting Now Offering Support for Magento on Managed Dedicated Plans appeared first on The A2 Posting.

By embracing industry trends, you can drive more traffic to your site and convert visitors into paying customers. What’s more, staying in the know can help you maximize your revenue today while future-proofing your business for tomorrow.

In this article, we’ll help you keep your store at the cutting-edge throughout 2021 and beyond. We’ll introduce you to the importance of e-commerce trends, explore nine of the biggest ones currently, and discuss how you can implement them. Let’s get started!

An Introduction to E-Commerce Trends (And Why They’re Important)

Market trends are patterns of consumer behavior that can be found across all industries. As an online store owner, you likely depend on website traffic.

More people visiting your store means more potential customers and sales. Staying at the cutting edge of the latest e-commerce trends can help you generate more buzz around your offerings.

Once people arrive at your store, your next task is to convert them into customers. If your site reflects the latest e-commerce trends and consumer preferences, it can help you boost their experience, and in turn you can maximize your conversion rates and revenue.

It’s always been important for businesses to keep up with consumer trends. However, since the ongoing pandemic is having a massive impact on the world of e-commerce, it’s perhaps more vital now than ever.

A recent survey revealed that, throughout 2020, COVID-19 drove online shopping to an all-time high. By embracing industry trends, you can increase your chances of connecting with this huge potential audience of people looking to shop in a safe online environment.

There’s also evidence to suggest that new customers you acquire now are likely to stick with your business for the long haul. The aforementioned survey showed that nearly 9 out of 10 people worldwide plan to continue spending money with an online store they discovered during the lockdown.

The world of e-commerce is always changing and evolving. Staying on top of the latest topics and trends can prevent you from falling behind and becoming irrelevant.

9 Important E-Commerce Trends to Watch in 2021

To help you identify exactly where your e-commerce store should go next, it’s critical to monitor industry trends. To set you on the path to success, let’s take a look at nine e-commerce trends expected to shape the industry throughout 2021 and beyond.

1. There’s an Increasing Demand for Personalized Shopping Experiences

Today, the vast majority of stores have an online presence. With plenty of e-commerce sites to choose from, customers are in a strong position to demand a five-star experience. There’s evidence to suggest that, for many customers, personalization massively improves the purchasing process.

According to marketing specialists Epsilon, 80 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer a tailored experience. By customizing the experience for each shopper, you can help drive conversions.

Also, over 36 percent of consumers say retailers need to do more to offer personalized experiences. That means this strategy can help you get the edge over your competitors.

Every purchase has a positive impact on your revenue. However, repeat customers are particularly valuable, as they deliver a high Return On Investment (ROI) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV).

Personalization can help you build rewarding long-term relationships by improving the quality of the customer experience. You can even use it to present yourself as a helpful service, rather than just another online store. For example, you might recommend new products based on a customer’s previous purchase history, or remind them when it’s time to reorder their favorite items.

If you’re going to provide this kind of helpful service, you’ll need to record information about the customer’s habits and behavior. You can achieve this by adding membership functionality to your site using a plugin such as Members:

Members ensures that all the customer’s actions are added to their user profile, ready for you to use to craft tailored experiences. You could even use this plugin to sell members-only products or offer exclusive pricing to your best customers. Also, memberships can create a sense of exclusivity, which is another powerful way to encourage long-term loyalty.

2. Smartphone Shoppers Are Continuing to Increase

The number of global smartphone users has passed three billion. With so many mobile devices out there, it’s essential to optimize your online store for this demographic.

In 2019, mobile devices accounted for 65 percent of all e-commerce traffic, and 53 percent of sales. Depending on your industry, this number may be even higher. For example, fashion retailers receive 67 percent of their sales from mobile devices.

The number of smartphone users is projected to grow by several hundred million in the next few years. Therefore, we predict that mobile optimization will be a massive trend throughout 2021 and in the years to come.

To ensure that your store provides a favorable experience for smartphone and tablet users, we recommend using a mobile-responsive WordPress theme:

It’s also a smart idea to remove popups, as these are particularly obtrusive on the smaller screen of your typical mobile device. Similarly, consider reviewing each web page to look for opportunities to trim unnecessary content.

Remember that your typical smartphone or tablet screen can display far less content than a desktop computer. By streamlining your site, you can minimize how much mobile users need to scroll to access the information or features they need.

Chances are your e-commerce store features a lot of product images. Beautiful, high-resolution images are essential for driving conversions. However, they also impact your page loading times.

If your site takes too long to load or provides a poor experience, you can assume that consumers will be less likely to make a purchase. To meet consumer expectations and drive sales, it’s important to optimize your product images for mobile.

3. Omnichannel Selling Is Becoming Essential

Today’s consumer expects to purchase content in multiple ways, such as browsing your product catalog on both their desktop and mobile browsers. Some online stores even have a dedicated mobile app:

As an e-commerce site, it’s crucial that you meet your customers wherever they are, and provide a seamless experience across all channels. A headless e-commerce architecture can help you deliver this kind of omnichannel experience. By opting for a headless setup, you’ll be able to create your content once, and then publish it on multiple platforms.

If you’ve built your site using the popular WooCommerce e-commerce platform, you’ll have access to the WooCommerce REST API. This API gives you the flexibility to use your data in other contexts, including Single Page Applications (SPAs) and mobile apps:

As an online retailer, you’ll likely want to promote your content on every conceivable channel. However, it’s important to be selective about your omnichannel experience. Building and maintaining a presence across a long list of platforms requires a significant amount of time and effort. As a busy website owner, this may not be practical.

Different channels also have different target audiences, and there’s no guarantee that these people will be your ideal customers. Focusing on a platform that isn’t widely used by your target audience will likely deliver a low ROI.

Ideally, you’ll zero in on the channel(s) that your audience spends the majority of their time. Here, it may help to deep-dive into your visitors and their behaviors using a platform such as Google Analytics.

4. Environmentally-Conscious Consumers Are Encouraging Brands to Go Green

In 2021, environmental issues are no longer reserved for eco-friendly brands. Many major online retailers have taken the pledge toward sustainability, including e-commerce giant Amazon:

Sustainability is a great cause, and every business should strive to become more eco-friendly. However, there’s no denying that ‘sustainability’ is also a huge buzzword, particularly among millennials.

According to a recent study, 61 percent of consumers said that they would switch to a brand that’s more environmentally friendly than their current favorite. This means that taking steps towards sustainability isn’t just the right thing to do – it can also help you get an edge over the competition.

Your customers may even be willing to pay more for eco-friendly products, especially the younger generation. The same study showed that 61 percent of millennials and 58 percent of Gen-Z agree that they’d pay a higher price tag for a ‘green’ product.

This suggests that, even if you have to increase your prices, your customers may be happy to foot the bill. Sustainability could be one of the few ways for you to increase your prices, while also improving the customer experience.

To set your e-commerce store on the green road, we recommend reviewing your current offerings. Consider whether your products are made through sustainable processes or with eco-friendly materials. Wherever possible, it’s a smart idea to replace items that aren’t with more sustainable alternatives.

Additionally, if you ship to your customers, you might look into ways to reduce the amount of packaging used. You could also replace non-recyclable materials, such as plastic, with recyclable alternatives, such as cardboard. To boost your green credentials, you may want to provide instructions on how to recycle the packaging, or even the product itself.

5. Social Media Continues to Drive Purchasing Decisions

For years, social media has been an integral marketing tool for online stores. However, in 2020, we saw a few initiatives that strengthened this link between social media and e-commerce, such as the partnership between Shopify and TikTok and the launch of Instagram Shops:

These projects reflect the increasing number of customers who make purchasing decisions directly from their social media feeds. To capitalize on this trend, you can look for opportunities to create shareable content related to your e-commerce offerings. For example, you might create unboxing videos of your products.

You could also generate social media buzz by encouraging your customers to create their own content. Consumers generally perceive User-Generated Content (UGC) as more trustworthy than traditional promotional and marketing content.

Therefore, you may want to provide an incentive to shoppers for creating valuable UGC. For example, home-ware brand MADE has an ongoing Instagram campaign where customers share photos of their favorite MADE products:

How you promote your store on social media also makes a difference. Although it’s difficult to prove, there’s a common belief that social media algorithms reward the adoption of new features.

Every time new functionality is introduced, you may want to put it to the test by incorporating it into your social media activities. Then you can measure the impact it has on your engagement, conversions, and other key metrics. Armed with this information, you can adjust your social media efforts accordingly.

Experimenting with the latest social media features can also help boost your profile. You may even earn a reputation as a business at the cutting edge of social media trends. This can increase your appeal, particularly among the tech-savvy younger generations.

6. Online Influencers Are Assuming a Content Creator Role

An online influencer is someone who has a significant digital following. They can promote your business or products to their existing audience, similar to a traditional celebrity endorsement.

The influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $9.7 billion in 2020, making it clear why these partnerships deserve a spot on the list of important e-commerce trends to consider. The right person can send a fresh wave of traffic to your online store, and even increase your sales.

Influencers can promote your brand, but they also fulfill a content creation role. With more social media platforms than ever before, busy website owners may struggle to create enough content to feed the machine. Instead of partnering with an agency, you could consider teaming up with someone who will create content based on your brand.

The key to a successful partnership is to find a fitting match. Ideally, there should be some crossover between their fan base and your target audience, as this will typically result in more conversions.

It also helps if there’s some connection between the influencer and the product(s) they’re promoting, so the content seems more authentic. Even though the work is strictly business, fans like to believe that their favorite creators are discerning about brands they promote. If the audience thinks the promoter is genuinely passionate about your product(s), it’s more likely to result in sales.

While it’s tempting to go after the biggest social media stars, sometimes it makes more sense to partner with a micro-influencer within your niche. They may have a smaller audience, but if their fan base represents your ideal customer, the collaboration could yield a high ROI.

7. More Online Stores Are Becoming Multilingual

Thanks to the internet, your store has the opportunity to reach audiences worldwide. With online shopping more prevalent than ever, we predict that more businesses will try to capitalize on this global increase by producing multi-language content.

According to estimates, 60 percent of all online content is in English, but 74 percent of internet users speak a language other than English. If you restrict yourself to a single language, you’re missing out on a huge audience – and a lot of potential sales. Plus, this is one of the e-commerce trends you can take advantage of to make your site more accessible.

Even if your customers are multilingual, most people appreciate a business that attempts to communicate in their first language. Research shows that 65 percent of consumers prefer to access content in their native tongues.

When it comes to translating your content, we recommend working with a native speaker wherever possible. They typically offer the highest quality results, and will have an innate understanding of the cultural etiquette surrounding the language. Rather than providing a word-for-word translation, a professional can use this insight to help you create interpreted content that is more engaging and persuasive.

After translating your e-commerce site, you’ll need to give visitors a way to switch between the supported languages. You can add a language picker to your online store using the Polylang plugin:

You can also use this plugin to optimize your site’s categories, tags, and custom taxonomies for the different languages your store supports. The tool can help your translated content appear in relevant search engine results, and drive more international customers to your online store.

8. Customer Support Is Getting an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Boost

Customer service is essential for driving sales. Studies indicate that a consumer will spend  140 percent more after having a positive experience.

Many factors contribute to the quality of your customer experience. However, how quickly you respond to inquiries is a huge one. Ideally, you’ll answer immediately, and at any time of the day or night. Of course, for many online store owners, this simply isn’t feasible.

Chatbots can be a powerful way to provide customers with instant access to support, regardless of the date, time, or number of other people currently seeking help. There’s also evidence to suggest that these AI tools are becoming increasingly popular, with over 67 percent of consumers using them for customer support in 2019.

Even if you have a 24/7 customer services department, chatbots can streamline your support process. For example, you might use one to automatically gather important information, such as the customer’s account number and contact details. This information will then be shared with your support staff.

In this way, chatbots can reduce the amount of time required to resolve a customer’s query. When it comes to routine questions, research indicates that they can reduce response times by up to 80 percent.

There are various chat tools that integrate with WordPress. If you’re using WooCommerce, the WoowBot plugin is a popular standalone chatbot that has full support for the e-commerce platform:

Another well-known option is Chatbot by Collect.chat. This plugin is free to use, and lets you add a chat widget to your site without any technical knowledge.

9. There’s a Growing Need for Online Businesses to Invest in Dedicated Hosting

Behind most successful websites are reliable, high-performance hosting providers. The type of hosting you use influences all aspects of your site, particularly its speed and performance.

Business-critical websites, especially online stores, come with a unique set of challenges and demands. Not only are fast page loading times and quick checkout processes necessary to ensure a seamless UX, but any amount of downtime can be disastrous.

As more companies move operations online, it ushers in an increasing need to invest in dedicated hosting:

In a nutshell, dedicated hosting means you aren’t sharing your server resources with other websites. In turn, you have the benefit of improved security and overall better performance. You can feel confident that your store will remain online, even during unexpected traffic spikes, and as your site continues to grow throughout 2021 and beyond.

Conclusion

Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many consumers to shop online and triggered an e-commerce revolution. Now it’s time to prepare your business for the next step.

To set your site up for success, it’s a good idea to provide a more personalized shopping experience. By offering membership features, you can encourage customer loyalty and increase your chances of securing repeat purchases. We also predict that consumers will continue to favor sustainable brands, and may even be willing to pay a premium for sustainable products in 2021.

Following the latest e-commerce trends is essential for driving traffic and conversions. This includes getting the foundations right, such as your web hosting. At A2 Hosting, we offer dedicated hosting plans that can help keep your e-commerce site up and running 24/7!

Image credit: Pexels.

The post 9 Important E-Commerce Trends to Watch in 2021 appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Introduction

We love the color green so St. Paddy’s Day is one of the best holidays in our book! This year we’re celebrating with  seven digital marketing tips and tricks to help your business take advantage of this lucky time of year. 

1. 1. Be Authentic and Use the Right Tone and Voice
   2. Be Culturally Sensitive
   3. Add Festive Decorations and Go Green
   4. Help Your Customers Call On the Luck of the Irish
   5. Don’t Miss an Opportunity to Go Live!
   6. Send Out a Holiday Themed Email Campaign!
   7. Do Research on Other Successful Campaigns to Help Plan Your Own

1) Be Authentic and Use the Right Tone and Voice

As with any major holiday or promotion, it’s important to be authentic to your company’s brand when coming up with a digital marketing campaign. It’s all good fun to come up with holiday puns and green themed campaigns, but above all you must do your research and make sure your posts align with how you want to portray your company to the marketplace.

Know Your Brand’s Personality on Social and be Consistent

Do research on past posts and make sure your tone aligns with what you’ve published previously. It’s important to follow your brand guidelines and be consistent, even as you play with puns that fit the St. Patrick’s Day theme. Posting something that’s drastically different from previous content won’t help in building a strong brand

It’s also important to remember why people follow you. What are they looking for when they come to your site? For example, if you own a crafting store people are likely following you to see the latest trends in crafting materials or what cool things you’ve created with your craft supplies. Likewise if you own an outdoor clothing store, people may follow you to see your clothes in action or find awesome new hiking trails. It’s important you can deliver what your customer wants to see on your social platforms. This will make it easier to keep your followers engaged with your content and refer them back to your site. The perfect combination is:

2) Be Culturally Sensitive 

Be creative! Come up with new puns or ways to make old puns fit your brand. Remember to be historically and socially conscious before you post. Don’t be tone deaf and post offensive or charged content. Be relevant and timely while also socially conscious. A good publicity stunt can work wonders on brand identity and public image, but make sure to do it in the right way. Have your public relations team and any marketing members meet before posting and discuss implications of your campaign from all angles in order to uncover any miscommunication or issues that could arise later on. 

3) Add Festive Decorations and Go Green

It’s always important to follow online trends and be timely in your advertising, and one of the biggest trends during St. Patrick’s Day is the color green. Historically green was worn to represent the Emerald Isle and the people of Ireland, but today it has turned into a folkloric attempt to avoid the pinch of an errant leprechaun. St. Patrick’s Day marketing is a perfect time to use this color to entice your audience to purchase from your online store!

If you have merchandise that’s green or your brand uses this as one of their colors, this is a great time to highlight this. It’s also a great opportunity for online creativity. Add green banners to your website or pop in some green accent colors here and there.  Reap the rewards of your environmental efforts while joining in on the holiday spirit. Use this opportunity to advertise any “green initiatives” your company is participating in!

4) Help Your Customers Call On the Luck of the Irish

In addition to decorating your store, St. Patrick’s Day is a great time to run discounts and deals on your site! Use this opportunity to give a percentage off on all green items (color or environmentally sound) or create a custom sales item with your favorite St. Patrick’s day slogan or image. Create a sense of urgency and run your sale for a limited amount of time. Encourage User Generated Content (UGC) by creating drawings or picture-sharing promotions asking followers to participate if they’re “feeling lucky.” This is a great way to create talk about your brand and encourages followers to interact with your posts. 

5) Don’t Miss an Opportunity to Go Live!

You could use St. Patrick’s Day as an opportunity to do live video on your social accounts by sharing real time updates with your followers. Dress up and stream your live reactions as they send their selfies in or record as you contact the winners of your promotional contest. Create a funny behind the scenes video of your employees as they grant wishes or chase the rainbow. This is a great way to personalize your accounts and share the people behind your brand! 

6) Send Out a Holiday Themed Email Campaign

To increase touches, send out a holiday themed email campaign. You could stick a shamrock themed logo on your header and cross-promote any social media campaigns you have running. Increase your marketing reach by requiring email sign ups to enter social promotions you have planned. Then attach a secret promo code that can be used by people who subscribe! The possibilities are endless and it works well to coordinate your overall marketing strategies across all marketing channels and promotional materials.

7) Do Research on Other Successful Campaigns to Help Plan Your Own

We know all of this might sound like a lot, but sometimes it helps to look at successful campaigns when trying to come up with some ideas of your own. We’ve got three examples below that may help spark some ideas for your own festive campaigns. 

Guinness: Make St. Patrick’s Day the Friendliest Day of the Year

Their Friendliest Day of the year campaign was a huge success. By emphasizing coming together with friends and family, they were able to tie the theme of community to their product, eliciting warm feelings when followers thought of their brand. They included infographics with St. Patrick’s Day facts that could be shared worldwide, helping spread their brand awareness through increased follower interaction. They were timely, relevant, and socially aware as they ran their St. Patrick’s Day campaign. 

M&M’s: Ms. Green Campaign

M&M used their iconic candy personas to bring their brand to life. Ms. Green embarked on a spokes candy campaign around Ireland, stopping off in famous cities to meet the locals and see the sights. Her tour was documented and shared as she educated her followers on Irish history and phenomena. Not only was the campaign relevant and shared accurate cultural details, but it encouraged fans to interact with their brand by posting selfies in order to win a trip to New York. They used ‘here for the craic, not as a snack’ as their tagline, an Irish pun that had the right comedic tone to spark laughs rather than controversy. 

McDonald’s: Shamrock Shake

Finally, shamrock shake season. Every year McDonald’s releases their limited edition shamrock shake, a mixture of chocolate and minty goodness. Their timely release, limited timeline, and extensive media coverage creates a sense of urgency as people line up every year to get a green milkshake while it’s available. Rather than just releasing a mint chocolate chip shake they were able to turn their St. Patrick’s Day campaign into a hot commodity. 

Conclusion

Most importantly, make sure you use this holiday as a point of connection with all of your customers. You want your brand to be engaging and personal, so celebrating this holiday together is a great way to achieve this! Personalize your campaign and share any employees with Irish descent. Use real time trends  as a way to connect with your socially savvy customers. Run video marketing campaigns and highlight topics relating to St. Patrick’s Day. Holidays are a great time to gain new customers and connect with loyal followers. Personalize your marketing content this year and make this the best celebration yet!

The post 7 St. Patrick’s Day Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Ecommerce Sales appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Thankfully, with the right tools you can build a fast, reliable online store without having to write a single line of code. Using these tools, you can launch your e-commerce business and start collecting payments, with minimal effort and very few upfront costs.

In this article, we’ll show you how to launch an e-commerce store using WordPress and the popular WooCommerce platform. Along the way, we’ll share advice on how to maximize your sales, by prioritizing your store’s performance and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Let’s get started!

Why You’d Want to Start an Online Store

Over the last few years, e-commerce has completely changed consumer habits. Today, online shopping is an indispensable part of the global economy, and online-only stores such as Amazon and eBay are some of the biggest names in retail. It’s difficult to even imagine a modern company that doesn’t offer customers the option to purchase products and services online.

In 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to $3.53 trillion, and 2020 seems set to be a record-breaking year for online retail. Throughout 2020, physical stores around the globe were forced to close in an attempt to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This caused online shopping to skyrocket, as consumers embraced e-commerce as a way to access goods and services in a safe environment. In June 2020, global retail e-commerce traffic stood at a record 22 billion monthly visits.

With more people shopping online than ever before, you could find a large audience for your e-commerce business. By launching your online store now, you can maximize sales while helping your customers access the goods and services they need, without the risks currently associated with in-person shopping.

Introducing the WooCommerce Platform

There are a number of e-commerce plugins available for WordPress. However, with over five million active installs, WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms.

Out-of-the-box, WooCommerce provides everything you need to build an engaging online store, sell products, and accept payments. This has made WooCommerce a popular choice among online stores of all shapes and sizes.

Today, WooCommerce is used by many big-name brands. Aeropress, Weber, and the All Blacks all rely on WooCommerce to power their online stores.

There’s also evidence to suggest that WooCommerce can help you build a successful e-commerce store. According to research, 28 percent of the top one million e-commerce stores use WooCommerce as their e-commerce technology of choice.

WooCommerce was originally developed by WordPress theme developer WooThemes. However, in 2015, WooCommerce was acquired by Automattic – the company behind WordPress – who run and operate WooCommerce today.

As an Automattic product, WooCommerce is a stable, reliable e-commerce solution that’s regularly updated. If you want to create an online store, it’s always worth considering WooCommerce.

Why Build Your e-Commerce Store With WooCommerce

As a free WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is accessible to organizations of all shapes and sizes. This includes startups and smaller businesses, who typically have tighter budgets than established enterprises. Using WooCommerce, you can launch an e-commerce store with minimal upfront costs.

WooCommerce has a range of features built-in, but it’s also extensible. If vanilla WooCommerce doesn’t meet all your needs, you can choose from a wide range of WooCommerce extensions.

If you can’t find the perfect extension ready-made, WooCommerce is open-source software. This means you can always modify or extend the WooCommerce code to suit your exact needs – or hire a coder to make these changes for you.

WooCommerce is also designed to be user friendly. Using WooCommerce, you can potentially build a professional e-commerce store without having to write a single line of code. If you have previous experience with WordPress, building a store using WooCommerce will likely feel intuitive and easy.

Collecting payments is one of the most important parts of running a successful e-commerce business. WooCommerce can securely accept cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers. It also integrates with over 100 payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, and Square.

Today, many customers shop on their smartphones and tablets. In 2017, $1.4 trillion of total retail e-commerce sales were made using a mobile device. In 2021, it’s estimated that mobile e-commerce could account for $3.5 trillion of total e-commerce sales.

If you’re going to maximize your revenue, it’s essential your e-commerce store is mobile-friendly. WooCommerce works across all devices, including smartphones and tablets. The WooCommerce team is also continuously improving the plugin’s performance for mobile. For example, WooCommerce 3.0 optimized the product gallery for mobile users, and added support for touch gestures.

How to Start an Online Store (In 9 Easy Steps)

In this section, we’ll show you how to build a complete e-commerce store, using WooCommerce and WordPress. As promised, you won’t have to write a single line of code. Let’s dive in, and start your e-commerce business!

1. Choose the Right Web Hosting Provider

Your choice of hosting provider has the potential to make or break your e-commerce business. Downtime is always bad news, but for e-commerce stores downtime can mean an immediate drop in sales. To avoid downtime, we recommend opting for a provider that offers an uptime guarantee.

Performance is another crucial factor, as today’s consumer isn’t willing to wait around. Amazon calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second would cost them $1.6 billion in lost sales each year.

Performance can also impact your e-commerce store’s SEO. In particular, it can affect how quickly crawlers can index your content and serve it to customers. If your hosting provider doesn’t prioritize speed, your latest products and special offers may not even appear in Google’s search results for a significant period of time.

Google also uses page speed as a ranking factor in both its desktop and mobile search results. Research indicates that 39 percent of online purchases are influenced by a relevant search. Where your store appears in Google’s search results can have a huge impact on your sales and revenue.

There are many factors that can impact your site’s performance. However, your choice of hosting provider is one of the most important decisions you can make, particularly at this early stage.

At A2 Hosting, we take performance seriously. That’s why we’ve created a series of e-commerce hosting plans that are optimized for WooCommerce. These plans can deliver 20X faster page loads than competing WooCommerce hosting providers.

2. Set up WooCommerce

After activating the WooCommerce plugin, you’ll encounter a Welcome to WooCommerce screen. This is the WooCommerce configuration wizard, which is the quickest and easiest way to create a basic e-commerce store. By completing the wizard’s various screens, you can fast-track through much of the initial configuration, and get your e-commerce business off to a strong start.

If you accidentally dismiss the Welcome message, don’t panic! You can simply select WooCommerce from WordPress’ left-hand menu. WordPress will now display a list of all the steps required, in order to successfully complete the initial WooCommerce configuration.

You can now work your way through this list, by clicking each item in turn and following the onscreen instructions. Once you’ve successfully completed each task, it’s time to progress to the next step.

3. Add Extra Payment Gateways

As part of the setup process, WooCommerce will prompt you to add a payment gateway. A payment gateway enables customers to pay for goods and services using a payment system such as PayPal. By default, WooCommerce supports a number of core payment gateways. However, you can also add payment gateway extensions.

As part of the initial setup process, WooCommerce should prompt you to add at least one payment gateway. However, to maximize revenue we recommend offering at least two payment gateways.

There’s no guarantee all your customers will have access to the same payment gateway. Some gateways may also experience downtime. If you only support a single gateway, you’ll be unable to process payments until that gateway is back online. This could result is missed sales, and a significant amount of frustration on behalf of your customers.

Payment gateways may also have varying rules, regulations, and associated charges. Depending on factors such as geographical location, some payment gateways may represent better value for you and your customers.

You can enable additional payment gateways, by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings and then selecting the Payments tab. This screen displays all the payment gateways WooCommerce supports.

To add a payment gateway, click its accompanying Set Up button. This will open a menu where you can configure your chosen gateway. For example, if you’re configuring PayPal you’ll need to enter your PayPal email address and PayPal API credentials.

Once you’ve configured your payment gateway, select Save Changes. You can then enable the payment gateway by pushing its accompanying slider into the on position.

You can repeat these steps to enable multiple payment gateways. Just be wary of offering too much choice, as a list of unfamiliar payment options could potentially confuse your customers.

4. Create Your Product Categories

Product categories are an important way to organize your products, and help visitors find the items that matter to them. To ensure your e-commerce site is easy to navigate, it’s worth taking the time to define your product categories in advance.

You can always create more product categories as your store grows. However, by defining some product categories now, you can lay the foundations for an organized, logical e-commerce store.

To create a product category, navigate to WooCommerce > Categories. In Add New Category, enter the name of the parent category that you want to create.

In Description, provide a description for this particular category. By adding a description to each product category, you can help search engines such as Google understand your site’s content, and rank it appropriately. Relevant, keyword-rich product descriptions can also help boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Once you’re happy with the information you’ve entered, select Add New Category. Rinse and repeat to create multiple categories.

You may also want to create product subcategories. For example, you might create a Clothing category consisting of Sweatshirt, T-shirt, and Jeans subcategories. To create a subcategory, open the Parent Category drop-down. You can then select the parent category that you want to assign to this subcategory.

5. Create Shipping Zones and Shipping Methods

If you’re going to physically ship products to your customers, it’s important to create at least one Shipping Zone. A Shipping Zone might be a country, region, or even a specific zip code where you ship your items. Your customers will see only the shipping methods that are available for their zone.

To create a shipping zone, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping. You can then select Add shipping zone.

Give your zone a name, choose a region, and select Add shipping method. WooCommerce supports several shipping methods by default, including free shipping.

According to a recent survey, almost half of consumers prefer stores that offer free shipping. What’s more, 77 percent identify free shipping as the most important factor when making purchasing decisions. To drive conversions, you may want to offer free shipping when certain conditions are met.

WooCommerce also provides a local pickup option. This is great if you’re selling bulky items that are expensive to ship, or you anticipate lots of local trade. Note that if you offer local pickup then store base taxes will apply regardless of the customer’s address.

Make your selection, then click Add shipping method. You can repeat these steps, to create multiple shipping zones.

By default, WooCommerce generates the following option: Locations not covered by your other zones. If no appropriate zone is found, WooCommerce will default to this shipping zone. You can edit or delete this zone, as required.

You can also add more shipping options, using a WooCommerce shipping plugin. These plugins give your customers more options, and some even integrate with well-known shipping services such as DHL. Some popular choices include WooCommerce ShipStation Integration, and Advanced Shipping.

6. Create Your First WooCommerce Product

It’s time to stock those shelves! To create a product, select Products > Add New from WordPress’s left-hand menu. You can then give this product a name, enter a description, and upload some images that represent the item or service you’re selling.

Next, open the Product data drop-down menu and specify the type of product you want to create. Here, you have a few choices. WooCommerce supports simple products, which are defined as products that are shipped and have no options. The opposite of a simple product is a variable product. A variable product has multiple options, for example a coat that’s available in different sizes and colors.

A grouped product is a collection of related items. Finally, an external/affiliate product is sold on a third-party website, but featured on your e-commerce store.

The next steps will vary, depending on the type of product you’re creating. For example, if you select Grouped product, you’ll be prompted to enter the product’s Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU). This is a unique string that represents this product in your e-commerce store. Alternatively, if you select Simple Product, you’ll be prompted to specify whether this product is downloadable.

After creating your product, it’s time to set your price. You can specify the everyday, non-sale price in the Regular price field.

You can now assign this product to at least one category, and add product tags. Both of these elements are essential for helping visitors navigate your store, and find the exact items they want to buy.

7. Create an Inventory and Stock Notifications

At this point, we’ve entered some basic information about our product. However, before we go ahead and publish the product, it’s a good idea to perform some stock management. This involves entering the total number of units currently in stock, and configuring some optional low stock warnings.

Stock management ensures you know when to order more stock. It also helps you avoid unpleasant situations, where you have to explain to customers that the product they’ve just paid for isn’t actually in stock.

To start, select the Inventory tab and create an SKU for this product. You can then enter the number of units you currently have in stock.

WooCommerce can email you when you’re running low on stock. If you want to receive these notifications, select the following checkbox: Enable stock management at product level. In Low stock threshold, specify the point where you’d consider this product to be approaching low stock.

By default, WooCommerce doesn’t allow for back orders. However, back orders can help you secure sales, even when an item isn’t currently available. This can be particularly useful during peak retail seasons, where it’s generally accepted that some items may be temporarily out of stock.

If you want to permit back orders, open the Allow back orders drop-down. You can then select either Allow or Allow, but notify customer. If you choose the latter, the product page will display an Available on back order notice. The customer can then decide whether to purchase this product, fully aware that it’s not currently in stock.

8. Build an eBay-Style Product Menu

To drive conversions, your customers should be able to find their perfect product, in just a few clicks. WordPress supports a range of navigational menus. However, drop-downs are particularly popular, as selecting a parent category displays all the associated product subcategories. This is exactly what we see with many popular e-commerce sites, including eBay.

By default, you can’t add product categories to a WordPress menu. To enable product categories, select Appearance > Menus > Screen Options. You can then select Product Categories.

Next, scroll to the Add menu items section. You can now add product categories to your WordPress menus.

Since we’re creating a drop-down menu, position each subcategory beneath its parent. You can then grab each child category and drag it slightly to the right, so it appears indented beneath its parent.

You can now create your menu, as normal. To ensure this menu appears across your entire e-commerce store, we recommend setting it as your top menu.

9. Boost Your Revenue With Related Products

As an e-commerce store, you’ll naturally want to push customers towards purchasing additional products, or more expensive alternatives. One method is to display related products.

WooCommerce tries to generate related products automatically. However, you can often get better results by linking products manually. To start, navigate to Products > All Products. You can then open any product for editing, and select its Linked Products tab.

You can define two types of linked products: ‘upsells’ and ‘cross-sells’. Upsells are typically more expensive alternatives, whereas cross-sells are complimentary items. For example, potential cross-sells for a laptop might include a Bluetooth mouse, or a laptop bag.

Conclusion

If you sell products or services, chances are your customers are already online and looking to make a purchase. If you aren’t offering your goods via an e-commerce platform such as WooCommerce, you could be missing out on sales.

When building your online store, we’d recommend paying particular attention to your product tags and categories. These elements are often overlooked, but are vital for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

To climb Google’s search engine rankings, it’s also important to choose the right hosting provider. By opting for a hosting package that delivers high performance and an uptime guarantee, you can give your store the best possible chance of attracting a large volume of traffic, and securing lots of conversions.

Image credit: freestocks.

The post How to Start an Online Store (in 9 Easy Steps) appeared first on The A2 Posting.

To answer that question, it’s worth taking a look at both Magento’s past and its future. Understanding where the platform has been and where it’s headed now will help you better decide how it fits (or doesn’t fit) into your strategy moving forward.

In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about Magento as it stands today. Let’s get started!

A Brief Introduction to Magento

Before we discuss the future, let’s talk about Magento in a more general sense. Magento is the most popular e-commerce Content Management System (CMS) online, powering over 25% of online stores. A CMS is a type of software that helps you manage websites and other online content, without needing to know how to code.

Like many CMS platforms, Magento is also an open-source tool. Open-source software is open to the public and developed by a community rather than a company, which means that it’s always getting bigger and better.

Magento’s popularity is largely due to the fact that it’s designed specifically for e-commerce, unlike many other CMSs that have a wider range of applications. Plus, there are a few things that set Magento apart from other e-commerce platforms.

For example, Magento is self-hosted, so you can purchase the exact amount of hosting space that you need. This means the platform is easily scalable, and able to grow alongside your store. Magento also has hundreds of extensions that can add a wide variety of advanced features to your site, such as extra-secure payments and customer support integration.

The major downside of Magento is its learning curve. With some training or research, you can learn how to create an online store that does anything you want. However, it is a less beginner-friendly CMS than some of your other options. Still, it’s become a very popular platform, with a highly dedicated user base.

Magento’s History, in a Nutshell

Magento has been an e-commerce company for over a decade. When he was in college, a man named Roy Rubin started a web design company called Varien. In 2007, he and Yoav Kutner began Magento as a part of Varien, because they recognized a need for a flexible e-commerce solution. They launched the product in 2008.

The pair originally wanted to title the new product “Magenta,” but changed it slightly to “Magento” after realizing that Magenta.com was taken. The platform grew quickly, as it was one of the first customizable tools for creating online stores. In 2010, Rubin renamed the company itself from Varien to Magento, reflecting the new focus on that product.

The past seven years have been a turbulent time for Magento. In 2011, tech giant eBay acquired Magento in a $180 million deal. Co-founder Yoav Kutner left the company in 2012, not long after the eBay merge, and Roy Rubin followed suit in 2014. Then, the company briefly went private again in 2015, since investment company Permira Funds bought out eBay’s shares.

In 2018, Magento was purchased by Adobe for over a billion dollars. In the next section, we’ll look at what that acquisition might mean for the company going forward.

A Look at Magento’s Future

With the company changing hands three times in the past seven years, Magento users are no strangers to turbulence. At this point, anyone who has a Magento site may be wondering where Adobe will take the platform in the future.

A big worry on some people’s minds is whether or not Adobe will change the CMS’s payment structure. As we mentioned earlier, Magento is currently open source, which means that anyone can use the software for free. Adobe has promised support for Magento 1 through at least June 2020.

However, it’s possible that Adobe may roll Magento into a paid product in the future. Some business experts think that Adobe may combine Magento with its Experience Cloud, an enterprise business solution offering advertising, marketing, and commerce tools.

Keep in mind that this merger was a very recent event, and it’s still unknown what other changes may be coming to the platform. Adobe has already caused a furor by closing down a program that rewarded bug-reporting with cash (although it reversed course soon after the announcement, and decided to continue the program).

For those worried about the uncertainty surrounding Magento, we recommend scoping out some other options for your store ahead of time. There’s no guarantee that the platform will change significantly, but if it does you may want to consider switching to a less unpredictable tool.

The Alternatives to Magento

If you’re worried about the upcoming changes, you’ll be glad to know that there are many excellent alternatives to Magento. We still don’t know for sure that Adobe will shutter Magento or put it behind a paywall, but it’s best to start planning your contingency plan now, while the platform is still being supported.

Let’s look at a few of the other e-commerce solutions you may want to try out. First up, there’s Shopify:

This is another hosted e-commerce CMS, which is very easy to use. It’s also less scalable than Magento by default. However, it can also be integrated into the flexible, scalable WordPress CMS.

Speaking of WordPress, the WooCommerce plugin is a very popular e-commerce platform:

Finally, OpenCart is an excellent tool if you want a simple, user-friendly solution. It also enables you to easily manage multiple stores at once:

Since Adobe has promised to maintain Magento at least until 2020, there’s no rush to move your store right away. If you start scoping out the alternatives now, you’ll be well prepared to choose an alternative platform when (and if) the need arises.

Conclusion

Magento is a powerful e-commerce CMS, powering over a fourth of all online stores. The future of the platform is now somewhat hazy, however, following Adobe’s June 2018 purchase of the company.

We know that Adobe has promised to continue supporting Magento 1 at least through June 2020. After that, the fate of the software is up in the air. Current Magento users may want to make a contingency plan just in case, by checking out platforms such as:

1. Shopify: This platform offers a hosted e-commerce CMS, and can also be integrated into WordPress.
2. WooCommerce: An e-commerce plugin for WordPress, this is a popular and easy-to-use CMS.
3. OpenCart: When it comes to e-commerce solutions, this one is about as user-friendly as it gets (while still remaining flexible).

Image source: Pexels.

The post A Brief History of Magento (And a Look at Its Future) appeared first on The A2 Posting.

Magento and WooCommerce are two of the best-known names when it comes to self-hosted e-commerce solutions. The former is known as one of the best enterprise options, whereas the latter is an excellent choice for WordPress-powered stores of all sizes.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to both platforms, explain what features they offer, and discuss how much it costs to use each one. Then we’ll talk about how to extend their functionality and choose the right solution for you. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s jump right in!

An Introduction to Magento and Its Key Features

Magento has a built a reputation for itself as a go-to solution for enterprise-level e-commerce stores. However, that doesn’t mean its Open Source version isn’t a solid option for smaller-scale operations.

Setting up a Magento store isn’t overly complicated. As a self-hosted platform, you’ll need to find a good hosting provider and install the solution yourself via cPanel (or have someone else do it for you). The tricky part is learning how to configure your store and get it ready for primetime. Magento offers a lot of customization options, which means that despite its sleek interface, it has a bit of a learning curve.

To be fair, the same could be said of any other e-commerce platform if you don’t have any experience running a website or an online store. As long as you’re willing to spend some time going through Magento’s documentation and tweaking your store so it’s just right, you should be fine even if you’re a total beginner.

Key Features:

• Enables you to receive in-depth analytics reports.
• Lets you take advantage of multiple advanced features for your product catalogs, including wish lists, reviews, and more.
• Offers the option to import and export batches for your products, to save time.
• Makes it easy to set up customer accounts with detailed order information and purchase histories.
• Supports multiple payment and shipping options.
• Provides several built-in tools to optimize your store for search engines.

An Introduction to WooCommerce and Its Key Features

Technically, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin rather than a full-blown platform. However, it is powerful, comprehensive, and offers all the features you need to create a thriving online store. Even with all that, it still manages to keep things simple, thanks to its WordPress roots.

If you’re already familiar with WordPress, implementing WooCommerce should be simple (if not, getting started with WordPress is also fairly straightforward). Just install and activate the plugin as you would any other, and then check out its onboarding wizard to begin the setup process. It should only take you a few minutes to go through all the options, and this will start your store off on the right foot.

Keep in mind that the onboarding wizard doesn’t cover all of WooCommerce’s settings. You’ll probably still want to check out the plugin’s documentation if you don’t want to miss anything. However, the learning curve isn’t as steep as it is with Magento. That makes it a solid option for those of you who want to set up a store quickly.

Key Features:

• Is built on top of WordPress, which makes it highly user-friendly.
• Offers optimization for mobile devices.
• Integrates with other types of WordPress content, such as posts.
• Supports multiple payment and shipping options.
• Enables you to add various types of products to your store, including digital and group offers.
• Provides you with basic analytics features.

The Costs of Setting Up Magento and WooCommerce Stores

Both platforms we’ve introduced in this post are self-hosted and open source. That means they’re free for anyone to download and modify, but you’ll still need to pay for hosting to set up a store using either one.

Website hosting varies in price depending on which provider you use and which type of hosting you need. Our shared hosting plans are usually a good place to start if you want to keep costs low:

You’ll also want to go with a host that offers strong performance. After all, people don’t want to shop on a slow online store, so it isn’t smart to cut corners. The more performance you want, the more you’ll generally have to pay for hosting, but you can always upgrade plans when necessary to save on initial costs.

Moving on, both Magento and WooCommerce enable you to improve your store’s functionality using extensions. Each platform offers free and premium extensions, and some of the most extensive options can be quite pricey:

If you want to add multiple extensions to either platform, chances are you’ll have to spend a few hundred dollars to do it. Professional-level extensions do tend to be a lot more expensive for Magento, so keep that in mind before settling on that platform.

How to Add More Features to Magento and WooCommerce Stores

As we mentioned in the last section, both Magento and WooCommerce enable you to expand their feature set through extensions. Magento offers over 1,520 extensions in its Marketplace, covering everything from accounting features to site optimization:

WooCommerce is no slouch when it comes to extensions either. The platform’s official extension database lists over 300 options, but you can find more if you look in WordPress plugin directories such as CodeCanyon:

Once you’ve selected the extensions you want, both platforms make the process of downloading and installing these additions straightforward.

Which Platform Is Best for You?

So far we’ve covered a lot of ground, so let’s take a minute to review each platform and its major selling points:

• Magento: This platform’s flexibility, scalability, and broad set of built-in features make it a solid option for large-scale e-commerce websites. If you don’t mind a bit of a learning curve, you can also use it to set up more modest stores. Plus, you can add nearly any functionality you need via extensions. Do keep in mind that some of these extensions are quite expensive, so take a look at them beforehand to check out if you’ll need any of those features.
• WooCommerce: If you’re looking for ease of use, WooCommerce is the obvious winner in that area. Its integration with WordPress makes it easy to set up and start using the platform right away. As far as we’re concerned, WooCommerce is a more logical option for small-to-medium-sized operations. It doesn’t offer quite as many extensions as Magento, but they’re often more reasonably priced, and there is a large community of developers creating new themes and plugins for WooCommerce stores every day.

Overall, both platforms actually have a lot in common, and can be well adapted to many types of stores. As long as you have a good idea of what features you need upfront, and follow the advice above, you shouldn’t run into any major issues with your pick.

Conclusion

Both Magento and WooCommerce are excellent e-commerce platforms. Each offers just about all the features you’ll need for a successful online store. However, there are a few fundamental differences between the two platforms, and knowing what they are is important if you’re struggling to pick one. Of course you can always migrate between the platforms if necessary.

Let’s recap what each of these platforms can bring to the table for a new e-commerce store:

1. Magento: This highly scalable and professional platform is a great option for large e-commerce stores.
2. WooCommerce: This powerful, easy-to-use WordPress plugin is ideal for small-to-medium sized operations.

Image credit: Pixabay.

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Thankfully, there are plenty of top-notch e-commerce platforms available these days. That means you have the luxury of picking and choosing your favorite before jumping into anything.

To make your life easier, we’ve taken a look at three top e-commerce platforms: Magento, OpenCart, and PrestaShop. In this article, we’ll look at their features and ease-of-use, then tell you which one we think will fit your needs the best. Time is money, so let’s get started!

Magento

When people think Magento, their minds often jump to the word “enterprise”. However, while the platform is a professional e-commerce solution, it can also power stores of any size. Magento is feature-packed and includes a simple admin interface, built-in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) functions, and integrated inventory management.

Magento powers over 200,000 online stores, and comes in three editions: Enterprise, Cloud Enterprise, and Community. This final option is free and is the one you’ll want to opt for if you’re new to e-commerce.

Magento’s Key Features

• Open-source, with a healthy development community contributing to its ongoing development.
• Offers a library with hundreds of extensions and can also interface with third-party applications.
• Provides built-in SEO functions.
• Includes order management tools such as wish lists, rewards systems, and gift registries.
• Enables you to customize the checkout process.
• Offers excellent scalability.

Ease of Use

To be honest, Magento isn’t the simplest e-commerce platform out there. You don’t need to be a developer to use it, but you’ll need to spend some time sorting through its documentation if you want to take advantage of its advanced features.

That may sound like a hassle, but the rewards are well worth the effort. Furthermore, Magento offers extensive documentation and a Resources Library, with dozens of talks and video tutorials on hand.

Who Would Benefit From Using Magento?

We would recommend Magento to e-commerce users that are fully committed to seeing their stores grow. The platform scales very well, and with its advanced set of features, your site will be able to handle just about anything.
However, learning to use Magento and growing a store could take some time. You should anticipate spending quite a bit of time learning, or even plan to hire a Magento developer to take care of the advanced stuff for you.

OpenCart

OpenCart is an open-source e-commerce platform designed with ease-of-use in mind. Users can launch new stores quickly and customize its look thanks to a wide variety of free and premium themes. As is the case with most similar platforms, OpenCart also includes an extension system, which enables users to add advanced functions to their stores as needed.

The OpenCart admin dashboard is one of our favorites. It provides users with a comprehensive overview of their store’s sales and analytics at a glance, and it looks reasonably stylish.

OpenCart’s Key Features

• It’s an open-source platform under regular ongoing development – in other words, it isn’t going away anytime soon.
• Offers a comprehensive catalog of themes and extensions, with free and premium options.
• Automatically tracks your store’s most important metrics and displays them prominently in the admin interface.
• Accepts over 20 payment methods right out of the box.
• Provides management of multiple stores from a single dashboard.
• Enables you to differentiate your products according to their attributes (such as colors and sizes).
• Built-in affiliate and discount systems.
• Helps you manage backups right from your interface.

Ease of Use

It doesn’t get much simpler than OpenCart. Their official documentation can guide you through the entire process of setting up a store, and there are also plenty of advanced resources available.

Who Would Benefit From Using OpenCart?

OpenCart is an excellent choice for e-commerce users looking for a simple solution. It’s also ideal for those who need to manage multiple stores at once, since you can do so from a single dashboard.

We’re big fans of the way backups are built into the platform. If you struggle when it comes to performing regular backups, you might want to give this platform a shot.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop shares rather a lot of similarities with the two other entries in this article. It’s an open-source e-commerce platform with an extensive collection of themes and modules, and it’s also backed by a vibrant community.

PrestaShop’s Key Features

• Open-source e-commerce platform.
• Hundreds of free and premium themes and modules available.
• The default theme is fully responsive.
• Offers a live editor, which enables you to customize the look of your store from the front end.
• Provides a network of certified partners that can provide help with any aspect of the platform.

Ease of Use

If you’ve ever used WordPress or any other similar Content Management System (CMS), PrestaShop’s interface should be easy to grasp. As is the case with OpenCart, the PrestaShop back end displays your analytics prominently, but in this case, the information is much more detailed.

The platform offers excellent documentation to help you learn the ropes. And if you choose to skip the documentation and dive right in, you should have no trouble learning the platform on your own if you have a bit of prior experience working with websites and CMSs.

Who Would Benefit From Using PrestaShop?

If you like OpenCart, PrestaShop should be right up your alley. The platform feels a bit more polished, and you get access to a lot more modules and themes than the former.

However, the real decision comes down to expense. A lot of PrestaShop’s modules and themes have a price tag, and they tend to be quite high. If you don’t mind spending some money to get your shop looking and behaving the way you want, consider this platform.

Conclusion

If ease of use and low cost are your primary considerations, OpenCart is a natural choice. It doesn’t offer the advanced features or scalability that Magento does, but it’s a lot easier to get up and running. PrestaShop, on the other hand feels more polished, but costs can ramp up quickly even for small stores.

Overall, each of these e-commerce platforms offers a unique set of features, and each one is perfect for certain users. Let’s take one final look at each:

1. Magento: Provides the best scalability and many advanced features.
2. OpenCart: Is the simplest platform to use, and it’s costs are relatively low.
3. PrestaShop: A very polished platform, with a broad range of premium modules and themes available.

Image credit: StockSnap.io.

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There is a multitude of e-commerce platforms available nowadays, each with its own unique features. The first step you need to take is to choose one to serve as the backbone of your e-commerce empire. And it all begins with a simple decision: hosted or self-hosted?

Hosted and self-hosted platforms each come with their own set of pros and cons, let’s find out what they are and why you should care.

Self-Hosted E-Commerce Platforms

When we say self-hosted e-commerce platforms, we’re referring to a variety of open source applications that require web hosting to function. Think of purchasing a hosting package and installing WordPress. Self-hosted e-commerce is pretty much the same thing. Only, rather than setting up a blog, you’ll be installing a platform for an e-commerce website.

Pick an open source e-commerce platform and you’ll know exactly what you’re getting. The most popular platforms are well-documented and you (or your developer) can make any changes you require. This gives you a degree of control over your online store that hosted platforms simply cannot match. If you need additional features, you can either find plugins and extensions to enable them, create them yourself, or hire someone to build them for you.

Since self-hosted platforms can be set up anywhere, you’re free to choose your preferred hosting service. Not being tied to a centralized service means you can move your store if you outgrow your provider or find a better deal elsewhere. It may sound complicated, but these days most hosts, including us, will help you set things up.

Self-hosted platforms sound pretty great, right? However, you shouldn’t make up your mind just yet. Let’s move on to discussing their shortcomings before jumping to any conclusions.

The Cons of Self-Hosted E-Commerce Platforms

• They are usually harder to set up than their hosted counterparts. At the very least, you will need to find a hosting provider, choose your e-commerce platform, and go through an installation and setup process.
• In most cases, there is no centralized support system you can contact if you need help or run into an error. So you will need to become adept at looking through the documentation and searching community resources to troubleshoot problems for yourself, or hire a qualified developer to help you.
• Depending on your hosting provider, costs can pile up once your store begins to grow.

Now that we’ve detailed both sides of the coin let’s take a look at two examples of self-hosted e-commerce platforms.

WooCommerce

Technically, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, but that doesn’t make it any less potent. This platform powers 30% of all online stores and is part of the Automattic family of WordPress products.

What’s more, the WooCommerce team will happily answer support questions through their help desk. This platform is a great fit for users that are comfortable using WordPress and can be used to power stores of all sizes. Click here to get started hosting WooCommerce.

Magento

Magento is a leading e-commerce platform which powers over $50 billion in transactions per year. It’s not as easy to pick up as WooCommerce, but most people would agree that it’s a more robust platform.

That being said, we would recommend Magento only to users with at least some basic level of web development experience. Despite its thorough documentation, the platform can be a bit much for first-time e-commerce users. It’s overkill for small operations, but a perfect solution for professional businesses.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop may not be as popular as the previous two entries on this list, but this scrappy open source e-commerce solution shouldn’t be discounted. The platform has grown tremendously over the past few years and is now used to power over 250,000 storefronts.

PrestaShop is remarkably simple to use. It’s a perfect fit for users looking for a free and open-source platform with a friendly interface and powerful shop-building capabilities. In addition, PrestaShop maintains a roster of partner agencies that will happily set up shop for new users who don’t want to do it themselves.

OpenCart

Despite its somewhat-outdated website, OpenCart remains a strong contender among self-hosted e-commerce platforms. Its setup process is as simple as any of the other three we’ve mentioned so far – anyone who knows their way around a web host should be just fine.

As far as features go, OpenCart integrates 20 payment gateways right out of the box, supports multiple currencies, and enables you to sell digital products. These features make it a solid pick for users that wish to support sales across the globe instead of focusing exclusively on local markets.

Hosted E-Commerce Platforms

Hosted e-commerce platforms are another option worth considering. These platforms provide an all-in-one e-commerce solution that includes hosting, a shopping cart function, and technical support. In most cases, you pay a monthly fee that varies depending on the size of your store, and most hosted e-commerce platforms offer reasonable prices and discounts if you pay for several months in advance.

Moreover, hosted services have a clear advantage over their self-hosted counterparts: they are far simpler to manage. In exchange for a fixed rate, you get hosting and access to a support team that takes care of any issues for you. You will, of course, still have to add items and customize your store yourself, but everything else is taken care of.

To put it simply, hosted platforms lower the technical barriers to entry, and offer premium support and customization capabilities (usually in the form of themes and plugins). That’s a pretty sweet deal. So you must be asking yourself, what’s the downside?

The Cons of Hosted E-Commerce Platforms

• Hosted e-commerce platforms generally cost more than their self-hosted counterparts.
• Your monthly or annual fees will grow as your store attracts more traffic and requires more powerful features.
• Customization possibilities, while available, will be limited. You will only be able to use pre-approved themes and plugins. This protects you from a security standpoint but can be stifling in terms of creativity and limit the store features you can implement.
• Switching platforms is costly and time-consuming, if not impossible, depending on the scope of your store.

With those caveats in mind, lets check out two popular hosted e-commerce platforms.

Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms around these days. It powers more than 300,000 stores which, together, have made approximately $20 billion in sales. On top of powering complete online stores, Shopify also provides basic shopping cart functionality for websites built using other platforms such as WordPress.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an ambitious platform that markets itself to both small businesses and enterprises. Some well-known brands, such as Toyota and Martha Stewart, have built their online businesses on the BigCommerce platform. Despite being a hosted solution, it offers in-depth customization and a robust set of features.

Conclusion

Both self-hosted and hosted e-commerce platforms are powerful and flexible enough to fulfill even the most demanding set of requirements. So, the choice boils down to how you prefer to run your business:

1. Self-hosted e-commerce platforms: They provide you with absolute control and can be set up and run on a shoestring budget, but they require more time to set up and maintain.
2. Hosted e-commerce platforms: They enable you to get things up and running quickly, and take care of the technical details for you. Yet, they cost more than self-hosted platforms and are less customizable.

Image credit: Negative Space.

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Here is the list of A2 Hosting’s top 5 significant launches in 2015:

• Turbo Reseller, VPS & Dedicated Servers

Our most exciting product launch in 2014 was the launch of our Turbo Web Hosting service, offering page loads up to 20X faster compared to our competitors. We expanded our Turbo product line to our Reseller, Virtual Private Servers and Dedicated services in 2015 allowing those users to experience the same speed benefits.

• A2 Optimizing More Software

Just as expanding our Turbo product line built on what we accomplished in 2014, we can say the same thing about A2 Optimizing even more of the most popular software solutions. We previously only offered A2 Optimized WordPress. In 2015 we expanded our A2 Optimized software options to PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, Drupal and Joomla. Now all of these solutions come pre-configured with the best performance and security settings when installed at A2 Hosting.

• Amsterdam & Singapore Data Centers

One of the easiest ways to get faster page load speeds for your site is to bring your content closer to your site visitors to reduce latency. We were able to help our customers with primarily European and Asian visitors to do just that with the launch of additional global data center options.

• Patchman Launch

Speed is important at A2 Hosting, but so is security. Patchman, launched on our Shared SSD Hosting accounts and on HDD servers numbered 81+, is an exciting security solution for a number of reasons. Patchman helps keep your sites secure by notifying you when you have out of date software installed, it quarantines infected files on your account and it also patches WordPress, Joomla and Drupal security issues.

• Custom Dedicated Servers

Your sites come in all shapes and sizes. The same can now be said about our Dedicated Servers. You can now customize the amount of RAM, storage and drives included with your Dedicated Server.

There you go! Those were A2 Hosting’s most significant achievements in 2015. As we look through our project plans docket for 2016, you’re definitely going to want to stay tuned. It’s going to be one exciting year!

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