DEV Community: Bhavik

Companies Are Using Magento 2 to Improve Their Online Business and So Should You

Bhavik — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 06:51:05 +0000

The success tale of Magento as an e-commerce framework has been remarkable as it has supported thousands of e-commerce websites globally. The launch of Magento 2 has taken it a step further with functionalities that are far better than the previous Magneto. More and more e-commerce websites are now keen to hire Magento 2 developer to avail the array of benefits of shifting over to the new version. We, at Rock Technolabs, offer the services of specialists who can develop your online business presence using this state-of-the-art platform.

From fresh Magento 2 development to transfer to the new version, our developer team has the skill to enhance your business with the best that it has to offer. We generate advanced and result-oriented solutions as per your requirements and the industry vertical. We have created several e-commerce solutions on Magento 2 for various requirements and we ensure that your store is built with the best functionalities without performance issues or any faults. Our solutions are SEO compatible and can help you increase traffic. We make sure that you avail high-performance stores within your budget and the deadline.

Rock Technolabs has expert Magento developers to create lucrative e-commerce websites that can outrank your competition. We don’t just build attractive websites; we make sure that they are rock-solid when it comes to performance. Before starting your web development project, we do a thorough analysis to understand what exactly your website should feature. We prepare a comprehensive strategy to deliver the finest user experience to your traffic; to create better conversion rates.

We offer a wide-ranging array of design and development services for Magento 1 & Magento 2 platforms. Therefore, If you are looking to hire Magento 2 developers, our veteran Magento programmers would be pleased to help you.

What is Magento 2?Why Magento 2

Bhavik — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 12:15:12 +0000

Magento is one of the best e-commerce platforms that help support any medium or large scale business to enrich their online store at a competitive price. In recent years the growth of the Magento platform has been tremendous and it is now being utilized by more than 200000 online retailers. With the high-performance features, rich scalability options and the large support community, it is easy to say that Magento is the best option that one can opt for when looking for the growth of their business.

What is Magento 2
Magento is an open source platform. Magento 1 was the first of its version for online stores, which served well for around 8 years. But with the growing online user base, the need for business growth with better performance became a necessity which was not so easily met by the use of Magento 1. And so in 2015, Magento 2 was released as its successor to meet the rising demands of the businesses. Thus Magento 2 is the latest version of the e-commerce software from the Magento family which aims in improving the speed and performance provided by various other high-level features and thus improving conversion rates for the online stores.

Why Magento 2
Magento 2 is the best possible shopping cart solution for your businesses. It offers a wide range of flexible tools that make it a better platform for your online stores. With the use of Magento 2, you can manage your store’s looks, content and functionalities with very much ease.

Following are a few of the detailed points which would help you in determining why Magento 2 is better and convenient as an option for e-commerce platform:

ADVANCED SCALABILITY AND PERFORMANCE

As compared to Magento 1, it is proven that Magento 2 works 20% faster on an average. The use of Ajax makes it convenient for users to add items to the cart without the page being reloaded. Also, the feature of full-page caching built into the platform has proven to load pages a lot faster thus making it scalable for even large scale business.

Read Continue What is Magento 2?and Why Magento 2

What Magento 2’s Latest Version Has to Offer?

Bhavik — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 11:51:18 +0000

When it comes to e-commerce, none other than Magento 2 comes to the mind and why not as it has taken the ecommerce development to a completely whole new level with its magnificent abilities. The features of Magento has always surprised and now with its latest updates, the list of Magento 2's features have gone far to a great extent. And today, we are going to take a tour of it.

What Are The Magento 2 Features?

We already have enjoyed the new file structure, optimized performance, improved flexibility, jQuery library and the addition of new inbuilt technologies in Magento 2 and now, with the latest addition to the Magento family - Magento 2.3, the possibilities have increased further.

Magento 2 New Features List

A brand new admin panel with simplified navigation of tools and that can be personalised to each user.

New admin security which means only one person can be logged in per admin user account.

Responsive and has touch-friendly navigation. With its drag-and-drop layout editing, you can edit your online store as you want within a few minutes of time.

New and improved product section with new options for user notifications
Increased customisation options for the ‘Sales – Order grid’ page and the ‘Products – Catalog’ grid page.

Excellent M2 Filters that are great for organising the results on the page and to look at a specific subset of products or orders. Using which, you can also analyse data and monitor to keep track of customer behaviour on your store.

Less complicated checkout processes. The quicker checkout process greatly helps in increasing conversion rates for store owners.

Safe and secure payment methods. Popular extensions such as payment gateways like PayPal and Braintree for stores better functionality.

Now that you got a bit hold of Magento 2 feature list, let’s take a look at Magento 2’s latest version - 2.3

Continue Read Magento 2 Features and Latest Version

Want to Succeed in e-commerce? Find all what you need to know….

Bhavik — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:12:48 +0000

TYPES OF E-COMMERCE BUSINESS:

Business-to-Business (B2B)
Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
Consumer-to-Business (C2B).
Business-to-Administration (B2A)
Consumer-to-Administration (C2A)
BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS(B2B)

An electronic transaction where both the sender and receiver are companies. For instance, a tire supplier supplies tires to a car manufacturing company.

BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER(B2C)

E-commerce between businesses and consumers is characterized by the establishment of electronic business relationships between businesses and end users. This is the same as online retail, where traditional retailers usually operate. For example, Ebay.

CONSUMER-TO-CONSUMER(C2C)

When a consumer sells directly to another consumer through the medium of E-commerce. Generally, these transactions are performed by a third party providing the online platform on which the transactions are executed.

CONSUMER-TO-BUSINESS(C2B)

In C2B, there is a complete reversal of the traditional exchange of goods. A large number of people provide their services or products to companies that are looking for exactly this type of service or product.

BUSINESS-TO-ADMINISTRATION(B2A)

This is an area that involves a significant a variety of services, particularly in areas such as fiscal, social security, employment, legal documents, and registers, etc. These kind of services have increased considerably in past years with investments made by government.

CONSUMER-TO-ADMINISTRATION(C2A)

Any transactions take place between the consumer and the administration. Tax, security, social security, Health, etc.

ASPECTS OF E-COMMERCE:

ADVANTAGES:-
Easy to use
More options
Can reach to more customers
Easy to start and manage
Even competition
DISADVANTAGES:-
Lack of Authenticity
No guarantee of the product
Depends on Internet connectivity
Security issues

OPEN SOURCE E-COMMERCE:
It allows users to modify work freely, use said work in new ways, integrate the work into a larger project or derive a new job based on the original.
Removing obstacles among open source innovators supports an open exchange of views in the community to support creative, scientific and technological progress.
You can add functionalities and perform modifications according to your own needs.

BEST E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS:
Before going forward let’s make a thing crystal clear, there is nothing like the best E- commerce platform. It depends on your needs and your resources. But still, there are some measures which can help us to choose the best platform for our business.

This is the most critical decision you will have to take before opening an E-commerce store because this decision will affect your business at every step going forward. Hence, it is very necessary to analyze, measure and gauge every aspect of your business and relevant platform. Here, I am going to talk about one of the most versatile E-commerce platforms which have routed its aroma in this field, Magento.

TALKING ABOUT MAGENTO:
Magento is an open source E-commerce platform which has been used for store development. It has been used by the top brands, and roughly 25% of the E-commerce stores are made using Magento. It is easy for anyone to start up an E-Commerce store and customize that store according to their desires.

FEATURES OF MAGENTO:

1) THREE VARIATIONS
Community edition
Magento enterprise
Magento cloud

2) FREE
Magento is an open source platform and therefore has many features that are completely free. It is a significant and rapidly growing technology. Developers also like Magento because of their unique

3) SEO FRIENDLY
It is known that Magento keeps pace with website design standards and offers advanced SEO solutions at the same time. Mobile visitors expect a great landing experience on a specific website. If this site is completely satisfied, it is likely to continue browsing this website.

4) CURRENCY AND LANGUAGE SUPPORT
The most popular open source E-commerce platforms have little or no choice in relation to foreign currency. Magento dynamically supports all currencies around the world. This team is effective for US stores and international businesses to use Magento. Magento is also known to be compatible with different languages.

5) LIMITLESS OPTIONS
Magento is a limitless eCommerce platform. It is known for its instant flexibility and customization. Magento provides advanced solutions in a much simpler form. Magento has a very friendly community and any time that there is any new update or security fix to the platform, upgrades and free support is available.

6) MOBILE FRIENDLY
Magento shopping carts are developed with sensitivity for smart phones and make them without problems in smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. This contributes to the trend of consumer purchases, which continues to move towards mobile use.

7) CUSTOMISATION
Magento provides vast options to enhance the web designing aspects . The Magento team supports and give great info on the latest web trends and tips on responsive web design.
MAGENTO 2.0
Change is the nature of the world, and everything evolves with time to be in the race. Hence, after the successful implementation of Magento 1, in 2015 an upgraded version came into existence, i.e. Magento 2.0

SHOULD I UPGRADE TO MAGENTO 2?
Better Admin panel
Magento 2 Dashboard shows Lifetime Sales, Average Order, Last Orders, Last and Top Search Terms – that helps to monitor your current state of the business.
It’s all in touch
Improvised product section
The product can be handled through manual or wizard.
Streamlined Approach to Common Admin Task
Customisable data grids
The M2 Filters are great for organizing your results on the page.
To save admin’s time, Magento 2 has included a new ‘Save View As’ feature to the ‘Views’ tab.
More columns options.
New drop-down list
Simple Product
Configurable Product
Grouped Product
Virtual Product
Bundle Product
Downloadable Product
Improved Checkout
Magento Marketplace
Framework improvements
BRIEF ABOUT IMPROVEMENTS:
One user logged in per username
Streamlined product and attribute creation/configuration
Touch-friendly navigation in admin
Responsive admin
Customizable data grids in admin
Improved checkout
Built-in full page caching
New Magento 2 Marketplace

MAGENTO 2 EXTENSIONS:
The provided extensions comply with all Magento 2 standards and enhance the native functionality of the platform. You and your customers benefit from improved workflows, improved performance, enhanced usability, and expanded code.
Extensions are used when you want an additional feature which is not in the predefined set. It is more like customizing. It provides various alternate modes to perform a task which eventually will make your task easier.
There are many extensions in the market which can enhance your website and give an edge to it.
But there are few extensions which are very necessary for an E-commerce store, following are some of the names you should refer:-

Magento 2 Store pickup
Magento 2 Free Gift
Magento 2 Social Login
Magento 2 Product Labels

FROM WHERE TO PURCHASE MAGENTO 2 EXTENSIONS?
Magento itself provides a marketplace where you can visit and purchase extensions as per your needs. But apart from that, there are many IT companies which also sells extensions. Now, according to me buying directly from a company will be a better option as there will be no intermediate.
An online marketplace is nothing but a particular space on the internet which has been purchased by someone and now it is used for buying and selling, just like a Supermarket or a retail shop.

So when you purchase from a retail shop, you end up paying more, but when you buy directly from a wholesaler, you save a lot. Hence, this theory applies here too, buying Magento 2 extensions directly from a company will save you money and various other benefits like support, discounts, membership, etc.
So now the question arises about which company to choose because there are many providers some of which are genuine but some might fail you. Selecting an appropriate company is important because that extension will be a part of your E-commerce site. Hence it will affect your business directly. I have prepared a list of top 3 companies which provides Magento 2 Extension:-

1) MAGEANTS:
MageAnts, agents assemble the future into technology. MageAnts have rooted their aroma in the IT Sector, and they offer the whole Gamut of Magento 2 extensions.
MageAnts are comprised of Certified Magento developers with experience of minimum five years and which are eager to accept and excel any challenges. Once a start-up, has now become the first choice of many E-commerce giants.
The grand success of Rock technolab (parent company of MageAnts) with more than seven years of experience and 500+ satisfied customers which lead them to commence MageAnts as a dedicated company which provides Magento 2 extensions. The uniqueness about MageAnts is the quality of after-sales support they provide.
MageAnts are probably the best when it comes to value for money, the cost of their Magento 2 extensions can never match the services which they provide.
There 30 days money back guaranty is the reflection of their proficiency in forming Magento 2 extensions.
MageAnts also creates unique, dynamic and interactive Magento 2 extensions at an affordable price.

2) AMASTY
Amasty is a renowned Magento 2 extensions development company offering a wide-range of E-commerce solution services to their clients.
They are expert in crafting highly-interactive and professional looking E-commerce e sites with the help of Magento 2 extensions that can uplift the standard of your business to the next level.
Amasty is equipped with Magento certified professionals who seek the prospects and form Magento 2 extensions for the same.
They have developed various Magento 2 extensions which resulted in many satisfied clients.

3) MAGEPLAZA
The Company’s team is known for its creative approach. They create captivating content and Intriguing Magento 2 extensions to elevate the overall look and feel of an E-commerce site to the higher level.
You have to only pay one time for a lifetime using. Additionally, that is a no-risk investment with their support policy, 30 days money back, 1-year free support and lifetime free update.
Mageplaza will continue to improve their products and come up with new ideas to provide the most effective, the most economical and the best Magento 2 extensions to the clients.

CONCLUSION:
E-commerce store is the need of the hour, if you are in this field, then it is must have an online store, so it becomes indispensable to have proper knowledge about E-commerce platforms before entering the race.

How to Install Magento 2?

Bhavik — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 09:11:52 +0000

Magento 2, the latest upgrade of the previous version Magneto 1 which was officially released with present modern technologies and simplified customization as well as modified directories, in no time became the favourite eCommerce platform for over 200,000 online retailers.

Magento 1 is infamous for it’s slow-loading compared to alternative platforms. Upgrading to Magento 2 is as a result of it’s speedy and temporary caching setup. Magento 2 features an easy and intuitive interface that allows you to create distinctive styles for every article using the inbuilt WYSIWYG editor or directly writing the HTML source code. The key to Magento’s quality is in its standard structure, strong design, and underlying technologies. To get Magento 2 running on your online store, here ’s the complete Magento 2 installation guide for you.

HOW TO INSTALL MAGENTO 2?

Step 1: Download the Magento 2 package
Step 2: Verify the prerequisites
Step 3: Select the installation method from different archive sorts (zip, tar.gz, tar.bz2), with and without sample data.
Step 4: Upload to your server
Step 5: Run a check
This is just the basic way of installation. Now let’s see in detail how to install Magento 2 in different OS. Before that, the following are the common system requirements which are must for Magento 2 installation.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Operating systems: Windows, Linux distributions such as RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, and so on. If less than 2GB of RAM, we tend to suggest you produce a swap file; otherwise, your upgrade may fail.

Composer: Latest stable version, necessary for developing Magento extensions..

Web servers: Apache 2.2 or later

PHP: 5.4.11, 5.5.x, 7.0.13–7.0.x, 7.1.x (Note: Magento 2 does not support PHP 5.6.)

Required PHP extensions: PDO/MySQL, mbstring, mcrypt, mhash, simplexml, curl, gd2, ImageMagick 6.3.7 (or later) or both soap

Database: MySQL 5.6, 5.7

Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) or an SMTP server

OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED:
php_xdebug2.2.0 or later (development environments only; can have an adverse effect on performance)
PHPUnit (as a command-line tool) 4.1 or later
SSL: A valid security certificate is required for HTTPS. (Note: Self-signed SSL certificates are not supported.)

HOW TO INSTALL MAGENTO 2 ON WINDOWS 10?

Step 1: Install XAMPP Server on your computer from https://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/
Step 2: Configure Xampp. Run your XAMPP web environment and start Apache and MySQL Service
Step 3: Enable the specified php extensions by clicking on the “config” button of apache and selecting the php.ini configuration file.
Step 4: In the configuration file enable the extension “intl” and “xsl” by finding the lines for the extensions using “ctrl+f”. Remove the semicolon before the line to uncomment it and finally save and close the file. Now, stop and start the Apache Service.
Step 5: Download Magento 2 on your Windows machine in zip format. You can also find the clone in Git GUI software fromhttps://github.com/magento/magento2
Step 6: Download and install the Composer via the Composer-Setup.exe file using the default settings. Specify the path of php.exe file. Provide the path and click next and finish
Step 7: Install Magento2 dependencies using Composer by extracting the zip file in the htdocs folder present in the XAMPP installation directory. Go to the Magento2 folder and select “Open command window here”. This will open the command prompt on that location. Run the command “composer install” on the command prompt. This will install the required dependencies for Magento2.
Step 8: Create a MySQL Database. Open your favourite web browser. Enter the URL “http://localhost/phpmyadmin” and press enter to open your phpmyadmin page.
Step 9: Go to menu>new and create a database by the name magento2.
Step 10: Install Magento2. Open your web browser, and enter the URL “http://localhost/magento2” and hit enter. You will see a Magento Installer screen. Click on readiness check to verify if all the dependencies are present. Click on next to configure the database. Configure your web storefront and click to “Customize Your Store” in terms of currency, language, and time zone. Create an “Admin Account” to set up a Magento administrator and perform all the required actions. At the welcome page, click Agree and Setup Magento.

HOW TO INSTALL MAGENTO 2 ON UBUNTU?

Step1: Install Apache2 HTTP Server by running the following commands;
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install apache2
Step 2: Enable apache rewrite and headers module using the below commands
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod headers
sudo service apache2 restart
Step 3: Install MySQL as the server using the MySQL client - apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
Step 4: Now change as per the requirements Apache config file - vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
Step 5: Change the PHP memory limit in the Apache server by entering the code - vim /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Step 6: Start the Apache web service using the following commands; /etc/init.d/apache2 start
Step 7: Now, get the MySQL DB ready for the Magento 2 setup. Please follow the steps to configure correctly - mysql -u root -p
Step 8: Create a DB using the name “my_store” (or anything you like). mysql>CREATE DATABASE my_store;
Step 9: Create a user name “my_store_user” mysql>CREATE USER my_store_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'user_pass';
Step 10: Next, setup privileges for “my_store”. As “my_store” must have all privileges for the Mage DB: mysql> GRANT ALL ON my_store. * TO my_store_user@localhost;
Step 11: Download Magento 2 from MageAnts
Step 12: Extract the Mage 2.2.0.zip file and make a copy of the contents to the following path:
/var/www/html
unzip Magento-2.2.0.zip
cp -Rrfv magento/* /var/www/html/
Step 13: Next, change the permissions as following; chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/
Step 14: Edit file permissions as per requirements - chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
Step 15: Finally, using the following commands restart Apache & the MySQL DB
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
/etc/init.d/mysql restart
Step 16: Install Magento 2 on Ubuntu
Step 17: Open the following link in the browser; http://127.0.0.1/index.php/install
Step 18: Click next to continue with the setup.
Step 19: Further provide the DB credentials (user_name, pass etc.).
Step 20: Two options will appear on the screen. Now, click to the backend. It will redirect to the login page. Then log in using your admin account details and you're done.

CONCLUSION

Migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2.0.will benefit you in terms of extensions, themes, custom development, and data as well. Plus, with the addition of suitable extensions of MageAnts to your Magento 2 bases online store, sales and customer experience will shoot up high like a rocket in the sky.