Magento, a popular choice for ecommerce development for many web designers was only released last march. In this short span it was downloaded approximately 425,000 times. That is an awesome number considering the infantile stage of the software.
Why are so many flocking to Magento, and is the hype really justified by the functionality?
Magento has the professional, Web 2.0 look many designers are looking for, and that is surely one of the main reasons for its popularity. In comparison to other ecommerce platforms like OScommerce, Zen Cart, etc. there is a definite improvement in both theme and display out of the box.
Magento uses custom themes and block positioning like most popular CMS software for design. The templates are clean and dynamic, and it is easy to set up your catalog display. Magento includes a shopping cart, a large number of payment gateways, product comparisons, tags, polls, internationalization support, advanced reports, analytics, and SEO optimized URLs.
There is support for coupons, discount codes, catalog management, wishlists, cross-sells, and related items. You can create orders from the admin section for offline or call center sales, and managing shipping is easy with built in calculation for USPS, UPS, DHL, Fed Ex, and other delivery services.
Magento will also automatically calculate sales tax on orders and supports multiple currencies on the same site. The user account stores existing order information, shipping and billing addresses, as well as a user’s wishlist, recently viewed, and recently compared products.
Users can submit reviews, edit and manage them from their account pages. They can also submit tags for products, subscribe to newsletters, and send recommendations and wishlists to friends.
Source: Web Developer News
Links:
Magento Website
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