A few days ago, Magento announced they would be shutting down Magento Go and ProStores; two platforms built specifically for small businesses. Although these two platforms will remain active (for those who already have it) until February 2015, businesses currently using them should start the transfer process.
The businesses who need to transfer aren’t starting the process alone; Magento and their partners are there to help out. Magento is advocating three different possibilities: Bigcommerce, Magento Community, and Magento Enterprise. Along with providing a familiar platform, Magento Community and Enterprise will give these businesses even more options for their site.
Here are a few reasons why shutting down Magento Go and ProStores is actually a good thing for small businesses:
1. Flexibility
Many Go customers felt that the architecture was too limited; it was good if all you wanted was a simple store, but simple stores don’t cut it anymore. As a small business transferring from Go, Magento Community will give your site the flexible foundation to allow for the updates and changes necessary for a site that keeps up with (and surpasses) the competition. For fast-growing or larger companies who need a more robust platform and enterprise feature, there’s Magento Enterprise.
2. Customization
With limited architecture and prohibited file uploads to the site, stores had to be simple. As explained above, simple stores just won’t do – you need to be able to customize the online experience to fit your business. With Magento Community and Enterprise editions, the potential for customization is endless. You can have custom portals for different channels, custom pricing for different segments of customers, and more!
3. Freedom
One of the most important reasons why switching to Community or Enterprise benefits your business is the freedom that comes with it. With Go, customers could only install from a list of “approved” extensions, and a really short list at that. On top of that, file uploads to the site were not permitted. These factors really limited what businesses could do with their stores.
With Community or Enterprise, businesses can choose from a wide variety of extensions, choose & manage their hosting, edit & maintain the code base for integrations with other systems. In addition, Community & Enterprise have multi-store capabilities built-in, allowing businesses to run different domain names, different languages, and more, all from one Magento installation.
Magento Go and ProStores were great products; they allowed small businesses who didn’t have an online presence to build a site and break into the ecommerce sphere. At the time, that was good enough. However, with competition, new technologies, and mobile use continuing to rise, it’s more important now than ever before to have a flexible, customizable platform robust enough to handle your current business efficiently and expand its potential. Magento Community and Enterprise unleash your business’ potential and grow with you – they’re some of the best foundations to build a better business for the life of your business.