Ecommerce Development

WordPress is a free, open-source content management system (CMS), perhaps the most popular CMS today. It’s written in PHP and uses a MySQL or MariaDB database. If the benefits of these technical details are not immediately apparent, then let’s clarify that you can host WordPress with most hosting providers. So if you’re not happy one place, you can move your site elsewhere. That’s not the case with proprietary systems like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace or the sites offered by Yell which are popular with businesses new to the web. While these platforms have their merits, they run on software which is copyrighted by these companies and as such cannot be transferred elsewhere. That of course means your site is tied to the platform and so if you want to move, you need to start from scratch.

WordPress is easy to use, regularly updated and has a huge choice of free and paid add-ons (known as plugins) to extend its basic features. One of these plugins is WooCommerce, which adds a full ecommerce store to WordPress. This enables you to publish and sell products online as easily as you would publish a blog post. All you need to do is add product information, photos, add a payment method (easily done with integrated PayPal and Stripe set up), shipping rates and you can start selling online right away. As your business grows, this set-up can grow using either some of the plug-ins that add functionality to WooCommerce itself, or through bespoke integration. Whichever path you take, we can be there to support you every step of the way.

Magento 2 is comes in two editions. Firstly, there’s Magento Open Source, which is a free, open-source product that can be hosted on any compatible web server. Then there’s a commercial product, Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce) which offers a larger feature set and can optionally be hosted in the cloud by Adobe as a SaaS package. Pricing on the latter remains somewhat opaque, and support is provided via Adobe and certified partners.

Web Age are expert Magento web developers and as such, we provide a complete hosting, development and support service for Magento Open Source. We believe that this is an ideal platform for businesses who wish to take their e-commerce website to the next level. It strikes a balance of cost versus performance and functionality, gives our customers access to personalised support and creates the opportunity for extensive customisation tailored to business goals.

To get an insight into whether or not Magento ecommerce development is the right choice for your business, we might consider some of the features of Magento Open Source and see if these coincide with your objectives.

Magento’s architecture, and particularly its database structure, is entirely designed for e-commerce, rather than being an add-on to a content management system. Magento is designed for high performance under heavy load with the ability to handle high volumes of simultaneous transactions.

Support for multiple inventory locations (e.g. stock in different shops or warehouses) and multiple languages are offered as standard as native features. Multiple stores can be run from a single installation of Magento with no need for extensions. However, a wide range of extensions and themes are available to add extra functionality.

Magento is intended to be fully extensible and customisable, both in visual design and in functionality. Therefore it lends itself to bespoke development such as integrations with third party systems.

If these sound like features that meet your requirements, contact us today for a no-obligation discussion on how we can help with your Magento 2 development.