Magento Industry News: Magento Development

Showing posts with label Magento Development. Show all posts

One of the fastest growing eCommerce platforms, Magento was launched in 2008. This platform has two best editions, i.e. Magento Community and Enterprise.

No doubt, both versions are best by their own ways. But, some people prefer Community version better than Enterprise one. The truth is its effectiveness depends on one’s requirements.

But to clear user’s mind, here, we have compared two different editions and conclude that which one is right for your business to choose.

Community Edition

Considering Community Edition, it is available for free and was developed as open source software. This simply means one can easily download community edition with paying any charges. Moreover, users enable to make changes according to their requirements. Many users are using this edition and have taken advantage of the available features in the free edition.

Along with inbuilt features, many users have developed different extensions to increase functionality and adopted various customization methods. Most of the small businesses are taking advantage of free editions by using inbuilt features. Additionally, they are also taking part in development tasks via site forum.

There are many different types of tips and tricks available in the Community Edition to deliver an advanced experience to its users. one can easily download this free edition via the Discussion Forum.

Enterprise Edition

Users of Community Edition think that this platform is not enough to deliver advanced functionality and thus, Magento Enterprise Edition is introduced with more customized option. Just like free version, this platform shares the same base with more function to fulfill the user’s needs with various business requirements.

The Magento team backs the premium version completely to enable eCommerce merchants to take business to the next level. Subscription offers to Magento Enterprise along with a Service Level Agreement. Moreover, 24*7/365 days support service is available through call and email. Enterprise Edition offers subscription with some extra features and product improvements. Importantly, Enterprise Edition comes with security updates.

What’s Differences?

Price:

Magento Community Edition is available for free and this is possibly the strong –point of this version. Interestingly, anyone can change anything to the software to fulfill system requirements. On the contrary, Magento Paid Edition comes with some advanced features. Choosing the paid version enables users to get a great return on investment. Multi-server and multi-year payment options are available to take advantage with Magento.

Security:

If we are looking at Community Edition, we find that it doesn’t have credit card tokenization or highly secured payment bridges, which is most needed features for credit card companies and banks.

In addition to this, in Magento Premium Edition, one can find a collection of powerful security features, such as a PA-DSS payment bridge, etc.

Performance:

Many of eCommerce platform users don’t have an idea that the free edition of Magento is faster than other software obtainable in the market. Its features meet the basic requirements of business, and if any business needs more modules can purchase the paid version.

There are some online merchants, who have enhanced functionality by adding extensions to its present free version, it is not so recommended. However, one can find much better performance with its paid edition.

Functionality:

There is no doubt both free edition and the Enterprise Edition comes with same functionality. But, with the paid version, one can have more advanced features to use, including minimum advertised price, promotion permission, customer segmentation with targeted offerings, an Enhanced Catalog and Content Management System, call center software, return management authorization, and many more.

Support:

Users cannot find any difference between in Support service as Magento owned by eBay and it provides 24*7/365 days support service for all its users, who purchased a Magento Enterprise. But, Community Edition, users can only get support via the support forum.

Other Difference Between Features

If we are looking at both the versions, we find that Community has some of the Enterprise’s features such as managing customer attributes, robust back up and so on.

In addition to, one can also find a collection of the best features like search capabilities, market segmentation, coupon generation, scalability, etc. in Enterprise Edition not in the Community.

Wrapping Text:

When choosing any edition for your business, you have to make sure to assess and plan well. If you have enough investment, then Magento Enterprise Edition is the best option to choose for enjoying best features. While, if you are thinking to go for the free version then you can only get basic features to use.

Looking for proper guidance and solution from Magento experts then,

contact us !

Is your Magento website secure? There is no doubt Magento has a collection of inbuilt security features that keep your website safe. However, there are some more steps you should take to make your Magento store safe.

We have searched 21 different security ways to protect Magento website from security breaches and hackers. Here are they:

Two-Factor Authentication

With Two-factor authentication extensions, you can make sure that only trusted devices can access your Magento backend. With this extra layer of security needs to know your unique username and password, along with a security code that you have to randomly generated every 30 seconds on your smart application and that can be purchased from the Magento Connect Marketplace.

With this process, hackers unable to login to your Magento backend, as they need unique admin login page, your secure username and password and your smartphone in their possession.

Change Passwords Before & After Working with Outside Developers

Many a time, we need help outside developers to enhance Magento store. It is advisable to change your admin and FTP password before allowing them access and also change it again once the work is done. No matter you are keeping your Magento and FTP passwords safe, it doesn’t mean you’re hiring Magento Development Company kept safe like you.

Change Your File Permissions

You have to make sure that your folders and files are not writable except you. You just have to make some changes to your file permissions to 644 and folders to 755. Additionally, if you find 777 or 666, then fix it immediately. You can quickly do this by using below given snippet in SSH:

find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;

find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;

You will only find caution with the media and var folders which should remain 775. Note that this process can be a little tricky as file permissions are dependent upon your hosting environment and Magento version.

Use the Latest Version of Magento

The latest Magento versions come out to patch searched security risks in the software and thus, it is advisable to try updating and stable version as soon as possible.

Keep Updated Anti-Virus Software

There are many Magento store providers updated their anti-virus software once a quarter. However, you have to ensure to use commercial grade anti-virus software that updates on the daily basis, so hacker doesn’t set a key-logger on your laptop.

Don’t Make Mistake to Save Your Password on Your Device

In order to add an extra security level, you don’t have to allow your browser or password manager software to save your password on your device. There are cloud based services that can access all your passwords from any computer you want, however, their most sensitive data is out and hackers are waiting for catch. Keeping the password on your laptop (saving in word, excel) gets hacked or stolen.

Lockdown Your Magento Connect Manager

If you want to install this program quickly, then Magento’s Connect Manager is the best option. However, it also has a security risk due to the entry point for brute force attacks. It is recommended to change the /Downloader/ path just like an admin path to make it harder for hackers to crack your store. You can also restrict the new downloader path through IP address for extra security.

Choose Multifaceted & Long Admin Username and Password

It is recommended to choose almost impossible to crack username and password as there is a still a chance that a hacker will find your admin login page. Your password should be of at least 15 characters long that contain punctuation, numbers, a mixture of upper and lower case. Some of the examples are:

    oU^%aYKj*F{RM99hR

    Yh8:H:-cD&’4?F>

    )j%djk ~9cU=f[p[VBq4

Disable Any Unsafe PHP Functions

Ensure to add the following rule to your php.ini file: disable_functions = proc_open, phpinfo, show_source, system, shell_exec, passthru, exec, popen to avoid exploitation of the PHP functions that can be potentially unsafe.

Do not Use Your Magento Admin Password for Other Account

Ensure to have a 100% unique and solely dedicated Magento Admin password. It is advisable to avoid using the same password with other websites as it will invite hackers to get access to your usual password and thus, can be used to hack websites.

Restrict Admin Access to Only Approved IP Addresses

Another important precaution is to restrict admin access to only the IP addresses you have white listed. You can easily achieve via .htaccess, however, preferable is the Apache directive LocationMatch:

<code>

<LocationMatch "admin">

Order Deny,Allow

Deny from All

Allow from 10.10.10.0/24

</LocationMatch>

</code>

Use Secure FTP

Guess or intercept an FTP password is one of the simplest and easiest ways to hack a Magento eCommerce store. If you don’t want it happens to you, then simply use secure FTP passwords and FTP-SSL (Explicit AUTH TLS) or SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol). Even, for high security level, use SFTP and a Public Key Authentication.

Disable Directory Indexing

You have prevented a potential hacker from viewing all the files in a folder on your site to stop him/her to know what files you have in a particular folder that makes quite difficult for them to search the vulnerabilities in your site. You just have to add the following to your .htaccess file to prevent a potential hacker from seeing all the files located in a folder on your web server. You have to ensure to click on the return key to ensure that the file ends with a blank line.

Use Trusted Magento Extensions Only

Many advantages of an active community of developers and rule of security have been delivered by the Magento core code. But, the same doesn't apply to all the extensions that have been developed for it. Magento store takes vulnerability in one extension to deliver a hacker complete access and control over your website.

Thus, here we recommended you to use tested extensions that have proven track record of dependability. Moreover, you also have to update your extension like Magento store when new versions come out.

An Encrypted Connection is Must

Avoid sending data over an unencrypted connection. One might be more vulnerable to hackers, so unless to configure Magento to use secure logins. One can also have to need login information that can be sent over a secure connection by changing your setting available in the system configuration menu.

Avoid cPanels

No doubt cPanels serve well in managing your Emails, FTPs and monitor resources, but they really secure? When your cPanel is used by someone, it creates a threat to your data from hackers. If you are using cPanel then adding cloud hosting is best option to access admin panels and power dashboards on your custom Magento website.

Obscure Your Admin Path

If you have found your admin path like “your-site.com/admin” then you have made incredibly easy for hackers and password-guessing robots to guess your password. You can choose another word Instead of having the address end in “admin” to make the admin path more secure.

Utilize a Private Email

Magento will send your administrator’s password through email, if you have forgotten. Additionally, you have to use an email address, which is not publicly known to other people. Your mail address should be connected with a security question that it would be not possible for anyone to guess.

Secure Hosting

Using shared hosting seems like a good idea, however, when you setup your store, it is quite difficult to connect with something that is more secure and stable. With cloud hosting, you will get stability along with it saves you from being redundant. Your data is more secure with cloud hosting.

Backup Your Magento Store Regularly

One can have to backup their Magento files and database on a regular basis to minimize the amount of damage that an attack can cause. Ensure to remember to back up a different server than where your Magento store is hosted.

Update your PC Regularly

You would receive updates and new patches at regular basis, if you are part of Magento community. Such updates are needed to make sure your store and PC is secure at all times. With new patches that available in the community site will make your store secure.

So, these are some remarkable tips that help your Magento store stay away from hackers. If you want to develop a secure Magento website then contact Magento Design Studio.

Images designed by: freepik.com

“Recently, Magento launched a new version Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 offering a lot of new capabilities to merchants to develop a unique online experience possible for consumers. Check-out this blog for more information on this new version and share your views by commenting below!”

On 16th November, 2014, Magento launched a new version of Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 and declared Community Edition 1.9.1. With the new Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1, merchants got the capability to create a unique and appealing online experience for consumers. Now, existing customers are able to download this new version that helps them in boosting their business sales and productivity in different ways:

Magento Launches A New Version of Magento Enterprise Edition

A Completely New Way of Merchandise

With the all new version ‘Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1’ merchants are able to organize products on different category pages simply and cleanly. Merchants are also able to preview what a category page will look like to shoppers and adjust product positions with the simple click of a mouse using a new drag-and-drop visual merchandising tool.

It also allows them to develop more visually appealing pages and make real-time updates in response to change in consumer demand as well as inventory levels. At the time of developing and updating categories, the visual merchandising tool saves merchants’ time. They are able to add in bulk and remove products, set-up rules to automatically assign products to categories and develop exclusive categories.

There are various other merchandising features that include the capability to constantly fix hero’s products at the top-most position of a category and automatically sort products as per the special rules. It will be also helpful for users to optimize category sales. Moreover, users will also get new access to critical information within the tool such as inventory levels, pricing, product images and more that help merchants make more informed merchandising choices.

With On Tap Group, the visual merchandiser tool was developed in partnership and it is a proof to the unmatched power of the Magento global partner network to speed-up the addition of new best-of-breed capabilities in Magento products. From the tutorial videos, you can get more information about the visual merchandising tool that is obtainable under.

Optimizing Sales on Any Device

Recently, Magento has improved its responsive design reference theme in order to comprise gift registries, multiple wish lists, downloadable products, add-to-cart by SKU, private sales and a lot more. The new version has responsive default email templates so that customers can easily read your order confirmation emails and newsletter on any device.

Determine Technical Problems Quickly

There is also a new support tool in the Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 that empowering merchants to produce detailed reports in order to help diagnose and decide important technical problems. When it comes to talk about the reports, it offers system information like your Apache version, extensions database corruption status, MySQL settings and more, offering complete support teams important information to determine problems instantly.

Increase Conversion With Efficient Product Information

Now, merchants can get huge help in optimizing the way their products are shown on their websites as Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 makes it easy. With the new “Swatch” capabilities, merchants get the capability to show off a lot of product attributes to increase conversion rates. Comfortable with product information such as fabrics, obtainable colors, sizes and enhance consumer confidence to proceed with the purchase.

Get a Quick & More Safe Website

By adding support for MySQL 5.6 and PHP 5.5, the all new Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 increases the performance and security. Merchants can also get advantage from enhanced website speed and flexibility, improved debugging tools, and decreased memory usage on the database server with MySQL 5.6.

Moreover, PHP 5.5 offers security enhancements and makes sure merchants have constant access to code updates. Merchants upgrade from PHP 5.3 to 5.4 as they have reported performance gains of up to 25%, so merchants move to PHP 5.5 important performance improvements.

Authorize Larger Teams

The new version Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 extensively increases back-end flexibility, allowing administrators to make product updates. The companies that are with larger administrative teams can boost productivity without decreasing the performance.

Advantage of Quality Improvements

Offering more than 70 updates related to products, security, payments and other features, Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 committed to constantly enhancing product quality.

A New Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 is Also Coming Soon

In the new few weeks, the new Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 will be obtainable for download once the final testing is complete. It will come with lots of advanced features to help merchants increasing in sales and productivity of their business. All new features include an improved responsive design reference theme, new product swatches, support for PHP 5.5 and MySQL 5.6 support for Google Universal Analytics and other improvements.

If you are looking to get practical information about Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1, you can go through below given links of videos:

1. Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 Visual Merchandiser Tutorial – Drag-and-Drop Merchandising
2. Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 Visual Merchandiser Tutorial – Adding Large Numbers of Products
3. Magento Enterprise Edition 1.14.1 Visual Merchandiser Tutorial – Category Smart Rules

Keep visiting our blog for more information on the upcoming Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 as we will provide you complete information on the new upcoming version.

“If you have decided to begin with Magento store development, you should some mistakes that can turn your business on the wrong side. In this blog, I have listed 3 mistakes that every developer should avoid while working on the Magento platform.”

With the constant increase in the trend of online shopping, the demand of eCommerce websites has been increased as most of the people worldwide are adopting this new and modern way of shopping style by saving their lots of time. It is must for every merchant to develop a flexible, customer-friendly and elegantly designed and developed website that works exceptionally.

Make sure that your developed website neither a fuzzy nor a bright. Every merchant needs to ensure that they designed and developed a perfect website avoiding different mistakes that could be harmful to their business. You should severe yourself and avoid making those mistakes in order to offer a quality platform to your customers to purchase.

If you have decided to begin developing an online store on Magento platform, I have listed 3 must to avoid mistakes while working on Magento platform, so go through it and avoid those mistakes. To get more information on Magento platform, you can go through it – Few Things That You Must Know about Magento platform.

3 Mistakes That Every Developer Should Shun While Working on Magento Platform

Technical Mistakes –

There are lots of people, who change the core files of Magento website so that they can do speedy development, but such changes in core files are considered to be harmful and can give adverse effect on a website.

Apart from this, various developers used to disable the caching module at the time of testing a module or plugin during the time of creation. It is must not be done as it can reduce from getting proper results. Moreover, lots of professionals make a wrong choice while selecting a hosting plan as it is must that hosting plan should be chosen in a such manner that directly targets your audience.

SEO Mistakes –

The most common mistake that most of the people do is they forget to change the title of the home page as it is essential for them to change the title and turn it into something pertinent and useful. Apart from this, developers also forget to change the logo that appears on the top left hand side of the web page.

With the help of sample products and categories, developers can make the sitemap and upload it on Google. Various users are also not making use of canonical URLs and messing up the site with deception. If you have a layered navigation on a website, remember that it is strictly no for SEO.

Marketing Mistakes –

Now-a-days, social media becomes an extremely powerful thing and it is important to promote your Magento website on different social networking platforms. There are lots of website owners, who forget to make use of this medium.

Ensure that you have a check-out process of your store easy as well as contented so that customers will not leave your website. Avoid providing incomplete and partial information as it is important to provide complete information.

So, these are the three mistakes that every developer should avoid while working on Magento platform. Moreover, it is also essential for you to hire a professional magento developer from any trusted Magento development company to get best quality Magento services.

“Looking to download best Magento related products extension? If yes, you should checkout this blog as it has a list of best Magento related products extensions that you can use on your store. Share your views on it by commenting below!”

Now, you can easily make your customers most interested in your e-commerce store as well as goods by showcasing them all the related products. However, showcasing all the related products to your customer’s is often very expedient thing. By this way, you can increase sales of your products and also boost profit of your business.

Many times, it happened with customers that he may not like the product because of the price, color or for any other reason. But if you are offering the substitute one at a much affordable rate, desired color and maximum functionalities, the chances are increased that visitor may purchase the substitute product that you are offering.

So, it is the best option for you to use appropriate Magento related product extension that can change the situation. It will help you to automatically generate related products for the whole catalog of your web-store. In this blog, I am going to discuss about some best Magento related products extensions that you can use for your store:

Related Products:

Related Products is the best Magento extension that helps you to set related products, Up-sell products, cross-sell products easily and assistant powerfully. Using this extension, you can set related products by categories, set up a sell-products by categories and more. So, Magento website users can go with this related products extension and get lots of benefits.

Related Products Manager:
It is another wonderful Magento related product extension that automatically generates related products, up-sells and cross-sells for your whole catalog with one single click. Moreover, this extension uses existing shopper data that results in providing your customers with necessary information that they required. Being a perfect extension, Related Products Manager is amazingly managed everything, so using it on your store is the best decision for you.

Best Magento Related Products Extensions That You Should Use

iWeb Auto Related Products:
Now, you can remove the hassle of manually associating products to each other as iWeb Auto Related Products are a great Magento related products extension, which auto relates products in the same category to one another. By using existing buyer’s data to automatically generate related items, cross-sells, up-sells and more for your entire catalog, it manages well your customers.

Automatic Related Products:
Automatic Related Products is a great Magento related products extension that enables you to define the rules for related products and offer people alternatives to the current product automatically. Users are allowed to create dynamic rules as per the certain item to make the related products look more engaging and relevant to all those people, who are visiting your store.

Above mentioned related products extensions for Magento users are completely best in terms of features, functionalities and performance, so try out any of these extensions and get maximum number of benefits.

Moreover, if you want to get your own Magento extension that meets your business requirements, you just need to hire an expert Magento developer and discuss your needs.

With lots of Magento Live Chat Extensions, it is difficult to choose only best and advanced Magento extensions that have advanced features, so in this blog; users can find a complete list of Magento Live chat extensions that are best.

In the last couple of years, Magento has gained huge popularity in the market as it is the fastest growing open source platform that enables businesses to run an online store without any hassle and issue.

The best thing about this platform is that it has flexibility, scalability and various features that make your online business grow at a high rate. The user base of this platform is constantly growing as most of the businesses worldwide wanted to have a website that's based on this platform as it offers assortment of pugins to its users.

Using Magento extension, website owners can make their website more functional and flexible, so customers can enjoy visiting on this website. For all the Magento users, Live Chat plugin plays a very important role as it allows your customers to connect with your representative to solve their queries. Here, I have listed 2017’s best Magento live chat extension that you can use in your store:

Olark Live Chat Extension:

With Olark Live Chat Magento extension, Magento platform users can immediately answer their customers and keep them browsing their Magento store and increase the sales. We all know that if you contact your customers with phone and email, it makes them abandon your shopping carts, so it is better you opt for this live chat extension that allows you answer questions quickly, so customers keep shopping.

2014’s Best & Highly Advanced Magento Live Chat Extensions For Your Store

LiveAgent - Live chat & Helpdesk Extension:

LiveAgent is the best Magento Live Chat and helpdesk solution extension that is an excellent choice for any Magento powered website. Stuffed with some high-end features, this feature-rich Magento extension can be set-up in your Magento store by few simple clicks and be live within 5 minutes.

Official Zopim Live Chat:

Official Zopim Live Chat is one of the best Magento live chat extension that allows visitors to chat with you directly clicking on the Zopim chat button. It is one such extension that boosts engagement between you and your visitors by enabling them to chat with you with live chat.
It is a great option for enhancing interaction with your users, so make use of this Magento extension to boost the time of your customers that they spend on your site.

Provide Support Live Chat:

Provide Support Live Chat is a highly advanced Magento extension that offers powerful integration features and it also enables users to configure the chat button’s look and feel. It is a powerful integration for reinforcing Magento websites with a Live Chat solution, so website owners can enjoy various features like placing text chat links that support HTML formatting and more.

So, these were the excellent Magento Live Chat extensions that all the Magento users can use on their website and stay connected with their customers. However, one can also get his desired Magento extension as he just need to hire an expert Magento developer from professional Magento development company.

Just think the latest retail enterprise solution leverages new technologies while upholding a low total cost of ownership and a hasten time to market. Now, it becomes possible with eBay Inc.'s new retailer solution.

The existing gateways within eBay Inc.'s latest version of Magento Enterprise Edition are leveraged by the new solution that specifically geared towards enabling omnichannel success for mid-sized retailers. It gives access to eBay Enterprise's omnichannel enabling capabilities.

Now, the flexible enterprise-class eCommerce platform, Magento and eBay Enterprise, the leading provider of commerce technologies work together to deliver emerging retailers with the same capabilities that leveraged by the top 100 Internet Retailer companies.

Roy Rubin, chief operating officer of Magento, said “As our customers scale beyond $100 million dollars in revenue, flexibility and extensibility of ecommerce technologies become mission-critical to survival and success.”

He also added, “We are excited to announce that new and existing Magento Enterprise Edition customers now have an unprecedented competitive edge in the marketplace with eBay Enterprise’s comprehensive omnichannel solution suite.”

One of the best things about this joint solution is open source front end customization of the Magento Enterprise Edition with eBay Enterprise’s modular omnichannel solution suite include a retail optimized order management platform, which is a combination of omnichannel inventory visibility, distributed order management, drop ship management and store based fulfillment.

One can also find modular options from eBay Enterprise’s Demand Generation, Fulfillment and Customer Service capabilities in this joint solution. Furthermore, a robust partner program will support the joint solution that leverages Magento’s massive partner and developer network that particularly aligned to serve the unique requirements of mid-sized retailers, and can be available for both new and existing Magento Enterprise Edition customers.

Chris Saridakis, president of eBay Enterprise said, “By integrating Magento with the eBay Enterprise omnichannel solution suite, new and existing Magento merchants can take advantage of our leadership in large scale retail technologies, and get access to the solutions they need to grow without having to re-architect or re-evaluate their existing storefront implementations".

He also added, “Retailers large and small understand the importance of swift technology enablement as a strategy to win in an increasing competitive environment.”

Magento, one of the most flexible enterprise-class eCommerce platforms, is creating advancements to make their platform more efficient. We are also excited to share this news that Magento now official supports PHP 5.4. Now, you surely were thinking that what is special about PHP 5.4, aren’t you?

Let me tell you, some of the prominent changes in PHP 5.4 are seen, i.e. a change in language syntax, numerous bug fixes, improved performance, and reduced memory changes. Because of PHP developer’s efforts of removing deprecated language features, PHP 5.4 supports multi-byte languages and has a cleaner code base.

A built-in webserver is also included by PHP developers that help in application development process and for extra testing purposes in Command-line interface (CLI) that would make workflows for development and testing more methodical. Furthermore, a method called Traits is also included in PHP 5.4 that reuses of codes in single inheritance languages.

With the help of this intended, one can easily minimize the limitations of single inheritance language and allows developers to use independent classes in different hierarchies of code. Moreover, adding traits also helps you to minimize the problems and complexity that come with multiple inheritances.

Magento wants its users to get out of this and thus, patches for both Magento Community and Enterprise editions has been released by the Magento team. If you want to download PHP 5.4 then visit http://www.magentocommerce.com/download?icid=BLOG_php54_downloadpage. Moreover, if you are facing problem in downloading then simply upgrading to 5.3.28, which is the latest version if the PHP .3.x product line that includes the same PHP 5.4 security fixes.