First released in 2008, Magento (or Bento as it was then known) has since become a favourite with e-commerce site developers. Known for ease of use, the shopping platform is thought to be among the fastest growing of its kind, currently used by 1% of all websites and with a 34% market share among the top twenty e-commerce platforms. Good looks and search engine optimisation friendly features are in part responsible for Magento’s success to date, but like all of its competitors, offerings are having to evolve to keep up with changing technologies.
Like other platforms, Magento is having to adapt to changing customer shopping behaviour. An increase in the number of shoppers using tablets and smartphones to purchase goods means that all online retailers are determined their sites are compatible with a range of devices. A site which becomes cumbersome and fiddly when viewed on the latest smart device is quite likely to put customers off – in today’s competitive marketplace, most sellers choose to invest in a site which works well in a variety of contexts. This is why Magento is focusing on providing responsive templates to its clients.
Responsive templates are useful because they adapt to fit device screen width and resolution whilst loading. This capability gives responsive designs the capacity to work on numerous devices and removes the need for the development of separate mobile sites and redirection, saving time and cost. The use of just one site means that analytics and reporting becomes more straightforward, as does site maintenance. On this basis, it is clear why Magento (and similar content management systems) are offering responsive themes to developers, enabling the creation of a vast array of ecommerce sites which customers can use on the device of their choice – and which allow owners to consolidate the upkeep and monitoring of sites for ease of use.
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