Functionality of Magento

The rapid growth of Magento platform popularity is generated by its extensive functionality which can easily shame not one commercial e-commerce platform. In the West Europe, already 70% of the stores are based on the Magento platform. Below I place just a small part of the most important features that have an impact on a such large spread of the platform.

Magento – store administration:

– Defining powers of administrator – Magento allows almost any allocation permissions for each user by definition user roles. We can custom individually permissions for each administrator,
– Multistore – it’s the ability to manage multiple stores from a single control panel,
– Flexibility in the use of applications for integration with external systems (payments, accounting, auction, CMS and many others),
– Complete freedom of creating unique layouts, allowing for allocation to individual pages of the graphic or define unique layout at suitable time intervals,
– The ability to manage multiple languages,
– The ability to use multiple currencies.

Magento – manage categories and products:

– The possibility of defining any number of categories and subcategories,
– The ability to assign any number of products to multiple categories,
– Wholesale import/export products directory from CSV files,
– The ability to integrate with programs that support a stock levels management,
– Inventory management including the determination of the minimum and maximum levels of stock,
– The possibility of editing meta tags on any level of the category tree and for every products,
– The possibility of assigning different prices for different customer groups,
– Tax rates depend on the type of product or group of customers,
– Different types of products (plain, group, configurable),
– Virtual products (e.g. music, e-book, services),
– Setting long and short description,
– The ability to specify a set of characteristics (attributes) for the product (manufacturer, size, color)
– The possibility to include any number of photos of the product,
– The ability to set a custom shipping cost dependent on weight or product,
– The possibility to define of related products and alternative products,
– Automatic scaling od uploaded photos,
– Assign a watermark to images,
– Simple and advance search (by features) to shop,
– Accept, edit and delete tags and review products,
– The ability to add files to the products (e.g. instructions, technical specifications, drivers).

Magento – orders:

– Full history and statistics of orders and reporting,
– Full configurability of payment options and the type of delivery,
– The ablity to print invoices and tracking letters,
– Getting to order by order number, date, customer, date, customer data, the amount of the order or his status,
– Any defining stages of the order process related to the information sent to the client,
– Create one or multiple invoices (shipping) for orders allowing a partial realization of the order,
– Notification of new orders via e-mail or RSS feed,
– Comprehensive management of orders from admin panel,
– The ability to edit orders from admin panel.

Magento – delivery and payment:

– The option of free delivery ( for a specific amount of the contract or as a promotion),
– Delivery to multiple locations for a single contract,
– Informing the customer of shipment letter number,
– Payment by credit card,
– Integration with rate system,
– Integration with payment gateways (e.g. PayPal, etc.),
– Different ways of delivery: mail, courier, personal reception, personal transport.
– Basic forms of payment: payment on account, payment on delivery,
– The cost of delivery depending on weight and place of delivery, the contract value and the place of delivery, the quantity of products and place of delivery).

Magento – statistics and reporting:

– Reports of customers by the number and amount of orders,
– Search in a search engine statistics,
– Abandoned baskets,
– Reports sales taking into account the nuber of orders, the volume of taxes, the cost of supplies, etc.
– Product reports: most frequently purchased, most viewed, low availability, the products in the basket,
– Integration with Google Analytics,
– RSS feeds for new: orders, products, opinions.

Magento – marketing tools:

– Search engine friendly links,
– Newsletter,
– Probes and surveys,
– Offering other products from the same category (in the basket),
– Offering additional products (on the product page),
– Promotional sets consisting of two or more products,
– Integration with a price comparison,
– Integration with Ebay and Amazon,
– View recently viewed products and comparable products,
– My list of wishes,
– Comparison of selected products,
– Price ladder – different prices of different quantities,
– Rabat coupon according to the needs to the product orders or customer group,
– The option of free delivery (for a group of products or for orders with a value cart level),
– Support for positioning,
– Notification friend function,
– URL rewriting (URL rewrite, sub-adress shotering),
– RSS feeds for new: product, promotion and category,
– Automatically generated site map,
– Google site map.