Magento is the fastest growing eCommerce platform on the market today. It’s robust, flexible, and completely customizable. In addition to tons of useful features, you can add a wide variety of plugins and tools to further enhance performance.
1. CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Speed matters. Visitors expect sites to load and function quickly, and so do search engines. A slow load speed will increase the probably of visitors leaving your site and can decrease your authority & visibility in the search engines. A viable CDN decreases your site’s load time for better user experience. After all, the faster your site loads, the more time visitors have to engage with the content on your site.
Aside from an incredible hosting service, Nexcess also provides a Content Delivery Network solution for any business, tailored specifically to your needs. It will help ease server load and will help load more media on your page, much faster.
2. Marketing Platform
Email marketing is an extremely useful, but underutilized marketing & lead nurturing strategy. Having a platform to handle email marketing is essential, having one that integrates with mobile and social campaigns is even better.
Bronto Software is a marketing platform that can do all of this and more. Not only does it easily integrate with Magento, but with advanced segmentation and automation, including abandoned cart reminders and transactional emails, you can create a truly personalized campaign for your customers, building loyalty and increasing their lifetime value.
3. Rewards Program
Because of lifetime value, a loyal customer is more beneficial to your business than a string of one-time buyers. One-time buyers may bring you some immediate revenue, but loyal customers bring in far more over their lifetime. Loyal customers purchase more often and tend to have a higher AOV than other segments of customers.
By using a rewards program, you can reward loyal customers in order to maintain a repeat customer base and you can build loyalty with new customers by rewarding them for doing business with you. Sweet Tooth is the customer loyalty program at the top of the game. With it you can reward customers for virtually anything they can do within a Magento store; reward points for social media interactions, newsletter signups, birthdays, referrals, and more!
4. Easy Navigation
Customers use a site’s navigation to get around your site – make it easy for them. If your navigation is difficult to use or confusing, your visitors won’t move around your site, they’ll just get frustrated and leave. This can be a big problem for eCommerce sites; if you’re using too many categories or not enough, you may be overwhelming your visitors and impeding their progress.
Using Magento Layered Navigation makes your navigation menu easy to use and to understand. With SEO friendly features, advanced categories menus, filters, and more, your navigation can make the pathway from website entry to product simple, clear, and user-friendly.
5. Sales Tax Compliance
eCommerce means you sell just about anywhere, at any time. This also means different regulations on sales tax for each state in which you meet nexus standards. With broadening definitions of nexus & increasing requirements for out-of-state sellers, it’s getting increasingly more difficult and time-consuming to maintain sales tax compliance.
Using a an automated sales tax calculation and filing solution built specifically to meet eCommerce merchants’ needs is a smart business move. That’s where Avalara AvaTax comes in. With AvaTax on your side, you don’t need to worry about different filing deadlines or regulations for different jurisdictions; they handle the heavy lifting, so you don’t have to, making sales tax less taxing.
6. ERP Integration
Your ERP system gives you an integrated view of your processes, allowing you to manage your integrated applications from one place. It collects, stores, and manages your data in one place for efficient interpretation. With it, you can plan products, manage inventory, and more. Shouldn’t your Magento site hook into it as well?
With XTENTO, integrations with various systems is easy and seamless. Connect and seamlessly integrate your off-line system to your on-line business for increased efficiency and productivity. Use a different ERP system than those on the list? No problem, ParadoxLabs has you covered.
7. Payment Methods
You’re running an eCommerce store online; it should go without saying that you need some way for people to pay you for your products/services.
Payment Extensions
Payment extensions allow you to add various functionalities to your checkouts and transactions. They allow you to process credit cards, store customer payment information, handle recurring profiles, and more. All you have to do is choose your payment gateway; we have payment modules using Authorize.Net, BluePay, and First Data.
PayPal
If your customers want to give you money, make it as easy for them as possible. One of the best ways to do this is to offer as many payment options as is practical. Payment extensions can help, but the addition of PayPal can really help decrease abandonment and increase conversions. It simplifies the checkout process down to an e-mail and a password and easily offer guest checkout options.
8. Social Sharing
Social is important; there’s no doubt about that. A lot of applications are built with social included, but if what you’re using doesn’t have it included, that’s okay! There are plenty of quick & easy plugins and tools to expand social sharing functions and stylishly encourage visitors to share your content.
We’re big fans of ShareThis. You can choose social sharing buttons or a social share bar for various platforms, including email. It’s customizable, so you can easily choose the platforms you want to feature and pick from a variety of styles to get the function and look you want.
9. Customer Support
Customer service and support that is truly above and beyond the standard can set you apart from your competitors and increase customer loyalty. With multiple projects running and an inbox that is quickly filling up, offering incredible customer support isn’t easy. Customer emails can easily get lost in the shuffle.
By implementing a support ticket system, like Freshdesk, offering outstanding customer support goes from chaotic to controlled. Nothing gets lost, everything is organized, and it benefits both you and your customers.
10. Blog
Every website needs a blog; it’s the easiest way to add fresh, useful content to your site. eCommerce sites are commonly thin on content, which can be a problem when it comes to relevancy and visibility in the search engines – using a blog makes your website more robust.
Blog Pro is a powerful Magento extension that is both easy-to-use and SEO-friendly. With a host of other useful features, like post scheduling and author tags, it’s a great addition to your Magento site and a great tool to have working on your side.
11. Simple Checkout
Cart abandonment can be one of the biggest hits to your bottom line; abandoned cart reminders can help, but a long or confusing checkout process perpetuates the problem. If a confusing or lengthy checkout is contributing to cart abandonment, it’s an easy fix.
Implement One Step Checkout to cut all of your steps down to one, easy page. Instead of a step for each, customers fill in their information and choose their payment/delivery options on the same page. A great way to decrease cart abandonment is to decrease the number of steps between placing a product in the cart to order fulfillment – this option makes it easy.
With these essential plugins and tools on your side, and on your site, you’re well on your way to offering a digital experience customers will want to repeat again and again (and maybe even share with their friends).