It was a few years ago, I think it was somewhere in 2008, when I first heard about Magento as the new ''Top open source e-commerce solution''. Actually, at that moment it wasn't yet that good, but I could see the potential of the software already. Especially thinking about other open source solutions such as osCommerce at that time, or VirtueMart running on Joomla. No, those were the days when the e-commerce market was still dominated by large-scale companies and expensive solutions, but things have rapidly changed since then.
During 2009, the first edition of this book was published by Packt, written by William Rice. And at that moment it was actually one of the very first books in the market giving readers the opportunity to learn to work with Magento. Also in that area, times have changed and various new versions of Magento have been released since then. So it's time for a completely updated and rewritten version of that first, popular Magento book. And here it is.
Since 2009 we've been working on several Magento projects and learned to get to know Magento the hard way, sometimes just by trying and failing every now and then. Everyone already experienced with Magento will know what I'm talking about. But don't worry, this book will give you a complete overview of what Magento is, how to install it, and how to use it. When you create an online store with Magento, you usually follow a defined series of steps. This book is arranged to support that process. Each chapter shows you how to get the most out of every step.
By the time you finish reading this book you'll have a basic, but complete online store built on Magento that is ready to start selling.
Robbert Ravensbergen
Sander Schoneville
Magento is an ''open source'' software, which basically means that you are allowed to view, edit, and contribute to the source code. A lot of people also think that ''open source'' means ''free''. Although it is certainly true that most open source solutions are available for free, it isn't a mandatory part of the open source principle. Looking at Magento we immediately recognize that, because Magento is available freely as well as in a paid for version. We'll cover more on the differences between those versions later on.
As we already mentioned in this Preface, Magento isn't the only open source e-commerce solution in the market. There are other ones as well. We'll name a few alternatives, without being complete:
The first two candidates in this list are the more serious options, whereas the other ones are generally used for smaller shops. But don't get me wrong, as I've already seen excellent shops based on something relatively simple, such as WordPress with WooCommerce as well.
Looking at the commercial/paid market, there are really lots of players and it's hard to make a choice if you're new to the business. Also in here, we'd like to name a few solutions, so that you could get an idea of what's available in the market:
Moreover, we see solution providers offering an online solution that you can use straight out of the box, without having to do any installation. Magento is doing this as well and we'll tell you more on this possibility in our Magento version overview.
It was way back in 2001 when Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner founded a company named Varien. They did many e-commerce implementations during those years, especially using osCommerce. But they were never satisfied with the solution. The lack of stability and flexibility made them think that it could be done better. So they decided to start a new e-commerce project in 2007 and named it Magento. The very first beta version was released in August of that year and it took them until March 2008 to release Magento Version 1.0. From that moment on, things moved fast. The solution became incredibly popular within a couple of years and new versions were released once or twice per year. Starting from that first version in 2008, we've currently reached Version 1.7 at the beginning of 2013.
Meanwhile, a lot has changed in the Varien company. It is now called Magento Inc. and has been acquired completely by eBay during 2011. The Magento community is a bit worried about the plans that eBay has with Magento, especially now that one of the original founders, Yoav Kutner, has left the company. Even keeping possible scenarios in mind, Magento has currently grown to be by far the most popular e-commerce solutions available:
Especially knowing that older solutions such as osCommerce and VirtueMart are losing market shares and Magento is still growing makes this picture even more clear about the major role Magento is playing in the e-commerce market at this moment.
Magento being the number one choice at this moment is great, but what does that mean for the company delivering the solution? How are they making money to continue to support the platform? This is where the various Magento versions come in. During the first few years of Magento, only the free 'Community Edition' was available. Actually, this free Community Edition is the one we'll be covering in this book since most users will start using that version. Magento currently offers two other possibilities:
The Enterprise Edition is Magento's flagship solution, made for large-scale online stores. The Enterprise Edition has functionality on board that the Community Edition is missing and we currently often see that new features are first released in this Enterprise Edition. For companies using this version, the important fact is that Magento offers support on it. The Enterprise Edition has its own version numbers that do not have anything to do with the version number of the Community Edition. Magento Enterprise Edition is currently at Version 1.12 and is currently priced at over $14,000 annually. If you'd like to read more on the Enterprise Edition and its features please browse to:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/enterprise-edition.
Formerly, Magento also offered a ''Professional Edition'', which was priced in between the Community and Enterprise Editions. It was discontinued, forcing its customers to the more expensive Enterprise Edition.
Seeing more and more competitors like, for instance, Shopify and Volusion offering online e-commerce solutions, Magento has decided to offer such a service as well. Magento Go is an online Magento platform, that you can simply rent by paying a monthly fee. The good thing is that you do not have to worry about hosting, installation, and maintenance. Magento will do it for you. The downside however, is that Magento Go isn't yet suitable for every market and you cannot expand its functionality like you can in running your own installation. If you are interested, please pay special attention to anything that is required for your local market, payment service providers being the most important one. Pricing of Magento Go currently starts at $15 per month for a single store in one language.
More information on Magento Go can be found at:
We've already mentioned that Magento is currently the most popular e-commerce solution, but why would you choose Magento? There are plenty of alternatives, so what makes Magento so popular? Since you're reading this book you have probably already made your choice. Still it is good to look at a few pros and cons of Magento, to make sure that you made the right decision for your business.
A book about Magento describing the downside of the software? Yes, we feel that it is important to tell you the whole story. We are indeed Magento fans, but there are downsides to every solution. And Magento has them as well. Let's take a quick look at them: