People are seeing the benefits of online shopping. They don’t have to drive anywhere, get stuck in traffic, try to find parking and finally lug those shopping bags home. Home delivery, free shipping and global products are the buzz words nowadays. This short Magento Tutorial is for businesses thinking about opening a Magento store.
Choosing your version
The debate about choosing Community or Enterprise is entertaining, but can lead to confusion. Forums are filled with opinions about which is best for business. The honest truth is only you can determine which will work for you. Besides budget, things you need to consider include much custom work will go into building your site. And, whether the type of extensions you need are available for the version you choose.
Hosting Issues
Magento is a stand-alone program. As a result you need to select your a hosting company. Magento is also a huge program and needs sufficient disk space to work properly. So you need to ask around and see which hosting plan will meet your Magento version requirements. Remember Magento allows a multiple store setup. So if you want to use that feature, you will also need to look for a hosting plan that supports multiple stores. Also, whether you want different domains, or to create sub domains, etc.
There are 120,640 US businesses that use Magento. Source: Builtwith.com
Magento Tutorial Installation Videos
Installing Magento isn’t easy if you don’t have the technical expertise. As a result it is probably better to contact a web development company like Web 2 Market. However, if you want to give it a try, here are some videos to watch:
- How to install Magento
- Magento Tutorials – How To Install Magento
- How to Install Magento step by step tutorial for beginners
- How to download and install Magento
- Install Magento and start an on-line store within an hour
Designing Themes
Themes come in all shapes and sizes for every business conceivable. You need to choose one that is responsive. Also don’t forget Google’s 2017 trend of Accelerated Mobile Pages that allow pages to load quickly on mobiles. We recommend you choose a theme from TemplateMonster.com. Again, check for the right version of Magento.
Configuring the Basics
You do need to configure a many things on your backend for your storefront to function. Here a few of the basics to think about in advance:
- Mode of payment
- Shipping rules
- Also, Shipping Options
- Taxes
- Order email templates
- Search engine friendly URLs
Extensions
Magento has over 3,500+ extensions and you do tend to get lost and awed when shopping in the Magento Marketplace. So to make things simple, here a few add-ons to consider:
- Blog
- Ultimate SEO Suite
- Video Testimonials
- Follow Up Email
- Frequently Bought Together
- Points & Rewards
In conclusion, we hope this short Magento tutorial for new store owners is a good start. Of course, you’d like a quote to do it for you, please give us a call.