3 Common Magento Mistakes

Ecommerce is one of the hottest things right now and almost everyone has heard about it in some shape, way or form. They are hundreds of thousands of online shops that allow you to buy anything you can possibly imagine from the comfort of your own home 24 hours a day. When it comes to Ecommerce, Magento is the leading CMS (Content Management System) solution across the globe and is the most widely used CMS for running an Ecommerce website today. Choosing to go with Magento development for your store is a no brainer and many well-respected companies such as Nordstrom, Adidas, North Face and TOMS to name a few rely on Magento.

The Magento CMS is based on PHP/MySQL making it easy and possible to install on any server. In addition, Magento is open-source (free to use/no licensing fee) and it can be customized around your business with the help of a Magento development professional if need be. If you a large merchant or company, you can even opt for Magento Enterprise which gives you even more features than standard Magento out of the box Magento. Even though the Magento CMS is the most popular when it comes to going for Ecommerce, you really need to know what you are doing before starting your Magento development project. Below, we will discuss 3 common mistakes that happen with your online Magento store that many people and even companies make:

✓ Configuration of Server – As mentioned earlier, the Magento CMS can be easily configured on any server that supports PHP5 and MySQL. Firstly, never-ever install Magento on shared hosting as this is one of the most common mistakes when launching an online store. The Magento CMS is a big application that utilizes a lot of resources and many people don’t realize that. It will not function correctly and survive on a shared hosting as we have seen time and time again for multiple Ecommerce websites. Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to your Magento development by opting for a shared hosting solution. One thing you can also do to speed up your Magento online store is install a PHP accelerator such as APC which will help speed up things.

✓ Cache – If you don’t have a decent caching system, Magento will give you serious problems. A normal Magento request flow for example (a user types in the URL to a page fully loading on a website) included many bulky and other resource consuming actions. When loading a Magento page, the application is very busy in that it is merging content, loading it, opening XML files, processing it and so on. Always remember that Magento is a CMS system that heavily depends on data that is stored in the database as it is constantly accessing, loading and saving that data which is a time-taking slow process. Lastly, these are all things that are relevant to your local Magento installation and when you add third-party services that are using a network API for example, this can be even slower so you get the idea. As a result of this, a good Magento development company can advise you about the multiple levels of cache that are available for your online store. It’s very important that the cache configuration that you go over has been configured correctly otherwise you will face issues for both yourself as well as clients.

✓ Coding – Cache is a beautiful thing but you need to still share changes with your customers. When it comes to Magento development, certain things need to be kept in mind when it comes to the Magento codebase in our experience time and time again. Don’t modify the original Magento Core code especially if you want to install an extension or update your Magento instance even later on. In addition, follow the Magento conventions during development including the styles if you want your Magento instance to be easily maintained otherwise it will cause you problems in the future. Try your best to follow Magento architecture principles when creating or modifying extensions. Use best practices if you want the extension you create to be transparent to the rest of Magento without adding even more ways to screw it up. Lastly, always check to see if your Magento version is compatible with the third party extension that you are looking to install. Use some of these best practices during the Magento development phase or even afterwards to ensure minimal headaches. Alternatively, an experienced Magento provider should be aware of these issues and can help you steer clear of them as the will have hands-on experience with some of these issues.

Summary
Magento is a beautiful CMS platform that can really take your online store to the next level. If you avoid some of these common mistakes which happen during/after Magento development, it can save you both time and money in some cases. An experienced Magento development company will know the in’s as well as out’s when it comes to creating an online store that can really deliver what you expect. The world of Ecommerce is booming and if you have a great Magento-based online store, it can really take your business to the next level. If you are not developing your online store in-house, ensure that you choose a company that has the necessary expertise and experience to deliver the quality of work you are looking for. If you are looking for an experienced, trusted and reliable offshore Magento development company, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital for any of your needs.