Covid-19 and eCommerce

Covid-19 has changed the way we live, interact, socialise, shop and do business.  The pandemic has rewired many aspects of our lives. More people are working from home now. More people have taken up baking, gardening and other hobbies to keep them busy, active and healthy. We all have had an excellent opportunity in 2020 and during the national lockdown in early parts of 2021 to spend valuable time with our families. However, on a more serious note, businesses have shut down and retail has suffered but on the contrary online shopping has sky rocketed.  In fact, high street businesses that were quick on their feet and reinvented themselves by going online have survived really well. I have seen cafes and bakeries invent make-at-home recipe boxes, introduce new merchandise, use whatsapp to bulk deliver vacuum packed food to locations further away from their delivery zones.

Ecommerce grew by 46% in 2020 and this figure will continue to increase in 2021. Similar results are being seen in the rest of the world. There has been a 129% growth in ecommerce in the US and Canadian markets. Sadly the pandemic is not going away and it is here to stay just like the flu. Hey, they may even introduce a Covid passport to show your vaccination history. So if you have not yet taken your business online, this is the time to do it.

eCommerce Platform of Choice – Magento

Merchants new to ecommerce are often faced with this very important decision, which ecommerce platform is best for their business. Think of the online store as a representation of your high street store. It needs to have the capability to showcase your brand, present your products, provide customer support, offer promotions and discounts, cater to your consumer and wholesale requirements, provide seasonal offers, integrate with multiple sales channels, provide shipping options and allow customers to checkout in their local language. The ecommerce platform should allow you to optimise the customer journey and allow your business to run 24/7 even when you are not around.

Magento by Adobe is a highly trusted ecommerce platform which is suitable for every website size and type of business.  It is a platform of choice by thousands of house hold brand. Now owned and supported by Adobe, Magento has a large development community across the globe and a marketplace that offers a wide range of themes and extensions to support your online business. Adobe is a 2020 Leader in the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and caters to both B2C and B2B markets with powerful enterprise level features like the multistore capability right out of the box. In other words, Magento is highly scalable and will allow your business to grow whether you are looking to expand your product catalogue or reach new markets.

Which Magento Edition is Right For You?

Magento is suitable for every size of business no matter which industry it belongs to. You can use it to sell products, downloadable services like music or software, subscriptions and more. Adobe has made magento available in three main version, which are:

  • Magento Open Source
  • Magento Commerce
  • Magento Commerce Cloud

Which magento edition is right for you depends on a number of factors such as your business requirements, goals and budget. Here is a quick overview of each edition:

Magento Open Source

The open source license means it is completely free to use and Adobe Magento provides you with complete source code which can be customised to your requirements. You can host the application at the service provider of your choice and thus have complete ownership of your website.  The new versions and updates are released frequently which can be installed by your chosen development company. However, you also need to keep in mind that this version does not carry any support from Adobe. Support, maintenance and often hosting are services provided by your selected develment company.

Compared to many other proprietory enterprise ecommerce platforms on the market, magento open source offers excellent set of features out-of-the-box which can help you run your online store in 2020.

Magento Commerce

Magento Commerce is a feaure rich ecommerce solution provided by Adobe. It has all the features of the open source edition and it carries 24/7 support by Adobe. Magento Commerce is highly customisable to your requirements and provides seamless third party integrations. You can choose to host it on your internal network or a hosting provider of your choice.

Another excellent feature provided by Magento Commerce is Content Staging, which allows creating, previewing and scheduling a wide range of content updates directly from the admin panel. For large businesses who can afford the Magento Commerce license, this is a must have feature.

Magento Commerce Cloud

Magento Commerce Cloud carries all the features of Magento Commerce plus a fully managed and automated hosted platform by Adobe. This edition also comes with the Content Staging functionality and full support by Adobe. In simple words, this is a highly secure and scalable ecommerce platform which you can use to code, test and deploy your content changes. The cloud platform also allows you to manage your integration, staging and production environments.

Which edition is right for your business? We can help you make that decision so get in touch with us.

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