Edmonds Commerce Blog

The latest version (1.7) of Magento has been released and features native support of a real enterprise level ecommerce feature: A-B or Multivariate testing.

This involves presenting slightly different versions of pages to portions of web traffic and then monitoring the effectiveness of each version. This method then allows you to fine tune your site to maximise conversions and ultimately turnover.

The release also includes native Google Base integration meaning you can upload your product catalogue to Google’s Base system (most usefully used in Google Product Search - A.K.A. Froogle).

These kind of hard hitting features really cement the fact that investing into a Magento based ecommerce platform is not just a sound decision for right now, but also a sound long term tactical decision for an ecommerce business.

There is probably no bigger decision you will make as a start up ecommerce business than which platform to invest in. Should I go for a paid for package? Should I go for the tried and tested package? Should I go for a hosted package?

I think the answer is becoming more and more - go for Magento!

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Edmonds Commerce specialise in Magento Ecommerce and are available for Freelance Magento projects and installations. If you are looking to set up a new ecommerce venture and are considering using Magento - get in touch today.

Magento is certainly making waves. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Magento is looking likely to become the successor to osCommerce as the most popular open source ecommerce platform.

There are many things which make Magento a much better option than osCommerce. However for some people the tried and tested, ‘better the devil you know’, huge knowledge, customisation and support base of osCommerce  makes it the platform they would still prefer to put their development investment into.

These justifications are valid to a point, however I now believe that the time is right to move into Magento and whilst I am not certain that it is worth worrying about upgrading if you already have a perfectly functional osCommerce site, I would recommend anyone looking to set up a new ecommerce site takes a close look at Magento.