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Ambitious. Feature-rich. Ecommerce evolved!

This year will be an exciting time for online commerce. Poised to make a huge impact is the Magento ecommerce platform. The Magento platfrom came to my attention in the summer of 2007. Through research of the company and team behind the product, I appreciate the sincerity and ambitious mission of the Varien team and I signed on at the first available opportunity to contribute to the continued development of the product. I am excited to be in on the forefront of a movement to revolutionize ecommerce. Magento offers unprecedented flexibility, control and features previously afforded only those with astronomical budgets.

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  • The Customer Experience (frontend)
    • Shopping Cart
      • Products List
        • - Product Thumbnail
        • - Product Name
        • - Unit Price
        • - Quantity (editable)
        • - Total (per product)
        • - Remove Button
        • - Update Button
      • Totals Section
        • - Subtotal
        • - Tax (if applicable)
        • - Discounts (if applicable)
        • - Grand Total (what the customer owes)
        • - Estimated Shipping, where a customer can enter a zip code and get a shipping quote
        • - The discount field, where a customer can enter a coupon code
    • Checkout
      • - A smooth checkout system has been proven time after time to increase conversions and customer satisfaction in your store. That's why Magento includes an intuitive checkout system to guide your user to complete a sale. Out of the box, Magento will provide a single page checkout and a multi-page checkout (used for ship-to multiple addresses functionality). You don't need to have a customer account to shop in a Magento store - instead, it offers a Guest Checkout option for those who don't want an account just yet. If they love the experience and want to sign up, they'll have the option to create an account at the completion of the order.
    • Customer Accounts
      • - Personal Information
      • - Recent Orders, which can be accessed individually for more information on each
      • - Default Billing and Shipping Addresses
      • - Current Newsletter Subscriptions - subscribe and unsubscribe from newsletters
      • - Recent Items Tagged
      • - Recent Items Reviewed
      • - Recent Items Added to Wishlist
      • - Number of items in the customer's shopping cart and access to the cart
      • - View and track orders
      • - Access all posted reviews
      • - Add, change or delete addresses
      • - Edit personal information, change password
    • Wishlist
      • Customers "See" What They're Wishing For
        • - Magento's wishlist feature includes product thumbnail images, allowing the customer to "see" what's on their wishlist. On the web product descriptions are important, but images make the sale.
      • Transfer Items from Wishlist to Shopping Cart
        • - Magento's intuitive system will never leave your customers wondering how to purchase the items in their wishlist. One click and the item or whole list is transferred to their shopping cart - no extra fuss, no added hassle.
      • Share a Wishlist Via E-mail
        • - Customers can send their wishlist to friends and family in an email from their account. The shared wishlist will offer the option to "Buy Now" from the e-mail, increasing the odds that a friend will be buying that wishlist item.
      • Wishlist Reports in the Admin
        • - Wishlist Reports will let the Store Owner see which items have been added to the wishlist the most, how long items have been in a customer's wishlist, and marketing data like number of wishlist referrals (customers who visited the store from a wishlist email) and wishlist conversions (wishlist referral customers who made a purchase at the store).
    • Product Reviews
      • Customized Rating Categories
        • - If you sell cooking products and computer products, you'll probably want differing characteristics to rate. Magento's review module allows the store owner to easily add more specific rating categories such as "Durability" or "Battery Life."
      • Easy-to-Read Reviews Report
        • - Date Review Added
        • - Review Added By
        • - Customer (if applicable)
        • - Product ID (of the product reviewed)
        • - Product Title (of the product reviewed)
        • - Review Rating: The average rating given in the review.
        • - Review Status: Pending, Approved, and Not Approved. Store Owners have full control of the reviews. Each review has to be approved by the Store Owner before displaying on a product page.
    • Product Tagging
      • - Add-a-Tag: Allow logged-in users to add a tag to the product's description.
      • - Tag Cloud: The tag cloud will display all tags associated to the product. Clicking on a tag will bring up a product listing page with all other products that share the same tag.
      • - Store owners have the option to customize their store with Popular Tags: A Tag Cloud that can go into any part of your site layout showing the most popular tags in the store.
      • - Store owners also have access to Tag Reports in which they are able to view tags by customer and product in order to provide greater insight into your customers and how they interact with your products.
    • Layered Navigation
      • - Layered Navigation allows your customers to filter products in a category using different product attributes. Customers can filter down a large number of items to fit their price range, size, etc., allowing them to find the right products quickly and easily. Customers will be able to filter by something as simple as price range or as specific as manufacturer or color. Once they've selected several attributes, customers will be able to view in the sidebar all of the filters they've applied - checking and unchecking will dynamically re-filter the results. This system can help your customer find exactly what they need fast.
    • Product Comparison
      • - Product comparisons let your customers skip the tedium of manual comparisons, and allow them to compare products side by side (on the same page) without having to negotiate several parts of your store at once. While browsing, customers can add items to the Compare Box from multiple categories providing the ability to make a catalog-wide comparison. Make it easier than ever to leave a customer satisfied.
    • Search Capability
      • - The first thing a majority of your customers will do on your site is search for a product. Magento's search lets store owners get the most out of their search capabilities, and helps your customers find exactly the item they're searching for.
    • Search Engine Optimization
      • - Search engine-friendly URLs make it easier for search engine crawlers to index your site, which ultimately drive more organic search visitors.
    • Customer Communication
      • - Email Notifications
      • - Email Newsletter
    • Ship to Multiple Addresses
      • - Convenience for your customers should be a paramount priority for any eCommerce retailer. That's why Magento includes Ship to Multiple Addresses functionality right out of the box, helping avoid the frustration that can occur when a customer is shopping for multiple recipients at one time. Instead of forcing customers to place multiple orders, they can quickly and easily ship to multiple addresses with a single transaction. This can be especially useful around the holidays, when more and more people are doing their primary holiday shopping online.
  • The Store Owner Experience (Administration/Backend)
    • Marketing Features
      • - Multi-Tier Pricing
      • - Coupons
      • - Price Rules
    • Reports
      • Sales Report
        • - A detailed overview of number of orders, items sold, revenue, shipping charged, discounts applied, taxes collected, etc.
      • Shopping Cart Report
        • - This shows a per product breakdown of how often products have been added to cart, conversion rate, etc. An additional view shows a breakdown of customers and number of items in their saved shopping carts.
      • Wishlist Report
        • - A per product breakdown of popularity in wishlist, number of times purchased from wishlist, percentage of wish lists purchases vs. regular purchases, etc.
      • Reviews Report
        • - The reviews report will show the most active customer reviewers, most frequently reviewed products. Store owners can also view all reviews written by individual customers, or all reviews applied to individual products.
      • Tags Report
        • - The tags report will show the most active taggers, and most frequently tagged products. Store owners can also view all tags added by individual customers, or all tags added to individual products. The report will also show most popular tags, regardless of product.
      • Search Report
        • - Will show most popular search terms, or search terms with the highest number of results.
    • Defining Tax Rules
      • - Define multiple tax rates per state, county, or zip
      • - Create tax classes, like "Normal" or "Wholesale"
      • - Define product tax rules for things like "Apparel Tax." In Magento, you can easily associate different product groups with tax classes
    • Products and Catalog
      • Catalog Management
        • - Create/edit products
        • - Edit and define product attributes
        • - Manage stock
      • Grouped Products
        • - Multiple products on a single product page. One or more of these can be added to the shopping cart at one time, in desired quantity.
      • Configurable Products
        • - A product with selectable variants. (e.g. color, size, processor speed, RAM size, etc.)
      • Sorting
        • - On the front-end, customers will be able to sort any product listing page by predefined attributes such as price, popularity, manufacturer, etc, or by any sortable attribute as defined by the store owner.
    • Content Management System (CMS)
      • - With Magento's Content Management System (CMS), you'll be able to create an unlimited number of static pages and landing pages using HTML.
    • Customer Groups
      • - Not all customers come into your store with the same needs. That's why Magento includes the ability to create customer groups. Each customer account can be associated to a group, and each group can be assigned 1)customized tax information and 2)customized pricing rules.
      • - Want to cater to wholesale customers? No problem, create a customer group called "Wholesale" and give this group 30% off all products. Now add customers to this group and you're all set.
    • Batch Import/Export
      • - With Batch Import/Export, you can easily manage your catalog without having to edit within the admin. Instead, export your data (you can customize exactly what data you export), edit it (add or modify items), and then import it back to see the changes in the catalog. Keep track of all of these actions with the Import/Export history, which tracks 1)Import or export date and 2)Data imported or exported
    • Permissions (ACL)
      • - Not everyone in your company should have access to every facet of your store. That's why Magento features an easy-to-use Permissions Editor. Create users for all your employees then assign them to groups, eg. "Full Admin", "Customer Service", "Warehouse". Creating a group allows you to fully customize the access it provides, keeping your permissions organized with a few simple clicks.