What’s in our Magento hub?
Latest updates: Magento security flaws and more
Magento Connect: Extensions marketplace
Magento tutorial: Useful resources
How Magento works
Magento is an ecommerce platform – one of the two most popular, alongside WooCommerce – that was first made generally available in 2008. It gives merchants the tools to create an online store with the trappings we’ve come to expect such as a flexible shopping cart system (you add an item and carry on browsing before returning to your cart to checkout).
It is open source and based on PHP, a widely-used coding language well suited to web development.
Magento comes in two flavours: the free Magento Community Edition (currently on version 2.0); and the paid, more feature-rich Magento Enterprise Edition, aimed at larger businesses which need assistance with implementation.
October 2015 saw the release of Magento 2 with new features such as full page caching, a streamlined checkout process and a generally cleaner, more modern codebase.
Magento updates: What’s the latest news?
JANUARY 2016 – Security flaw
Some websites that use Magento may be at risk of hijacking assaults if they use Magento Community Edition and Enterprise Edition prior to 1.9.2.3 and 1.14.2.3 – Ars Technica.
Critical Magento Flaws Expose Sites to Takeover https://t.co/y2UT94TniN
— SecurityWeek (@SecurityWeek) January 25, 2016
The latest patches can be found on Magento’s website.
DECEMBER 2015 – Extension
The latest Magento extension from Optilead means shopping cart abandonment doesn’t automatically have to translate to a lost sale – eCommerce Insights.
NOVEMBER 2015 – Demerger
eBay sold eBay Enterprise for $925 million to a group of buyers, splitting it up: London-based global investment firm Permira took ownership of Magento Commerce, meaning the company became a standalone entity – New York Business Journal.
Pic credit Coolcaesar
Magento Connect: Extensions store
If you want to make your online store do more, Magento Connect opens up the possibilities with its extensions marketplace.
Firebear Studio have assembled a list of must-have extensions covering performance, SEO, UI a so forth. As has AddShoppers and Jake Sharp.
Some popular extensions include:
Yotpo, an extension that enables customer product reviews with sharing to social media
Lesti_Fpc, for full page caching, speeding up page load time
Fishpig’s WordPress Integration which does exactly what it says on the tin – integrates your Magento store with your WordPress blog.
This five minute video from Veeqo talks you through a few more:
integer_net counsels against installing modules via the Magento Connect Manager for various reasons including security.
Magento tutorial: Useful resources
Most of the online resources centre around the free Magento Community Edition, with the Magento Enterprise Edition enjoying more formal customer service.
SiteGround has created a very simple step by step guide to installing Magento as well as other beginner-friendly tutorials or you might prefer to stick to the official Magento developers documentation.
Magento itself hosts a blog, covering best practice, customer stories and more.
TemplateMonster has created a vast YouTube playlist of bitesize tutorial content for beginners that is annotated rather than voiced.
YouTube user Salma Urmi has created an extensive, in-depth playlist of Magento how-tos.
eCommerce Insights interviewed Magento expert Jason Bramsden of InventCommerce about the Magento platform, resulting in five insider tips.
The post Magento updates: Themes, tutorial, extensions, API appeared first on eCommerce Insights.