Magento Appeals to the Modern Internet Retailer

Pete Prestipino
by Pete Prestipino 13 May, 2014
Magento Appeals to the Modern Internet Retailer

eBay Enterprise has released new versions of its Magento Enterprise Edition (version 1.14) and Community Edition (version 1.9) - one of the most popular ecommerce platforms on the 'Net today.

Both editions now have access to a new Responsive Reference Design Theme, include Bill Me Later as a payment option, and offer several improvements to the PayPal Express Checkout feature. There are also some new extensions which will empower online retailers to engage in remarketing and affiliate marketing.

The new responsive theme, however (which uses CSS3, HTML5 and natively available jQuery), will be appealing to retailers looking to obtain a tablet and smartphone friendly site quickly - something that's clearly important with upward of 30 percent of all digital sales now coming from mobile. See screenshots below.

The payment-related improvements are also quite noteworthy. The addition of Bill Me Later should help retailers sell more to consumers that may not have sufficient funds during checkout (upwards of 18 percent more according to an eBay study - "The Total Economic Impact of PayPal's Bill Me Later Financing Banners"). The improved PayPal Express Checkout allows merchants to offers alternative payment options if the customer's credit card is declined, both increasing conversion rates and sales.

Better payment processes and being mobile friendly will certainly be welcomed by online retailers, but as with any good software platform, it's the extensibility that really matters - and eBay isn't letting merchants down in that regard.

eBay Enterprise also announced the availability of two new extensions for Magento merchants through its Magento Connect marketplace. The eBay Enterprise Display Extension offers integration with a retailers' existing Magento product feeds, enabling them to deliver product-specific ads to retarget customers that abandoned a session. The eBay Enterprise Affiliate Extension will enable Magento merchants to integrate with eBay Enterprise's network of 200,000+ performance marketers and leverage reporting tools to analyze, track, and launch affiliate programs.

Pete Prestipino
Pete Prestipino
Digital marketing executive with proven experience in all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO), performance-based advertising, consumer-generated/social media, email marketing, lead generation, Web design, usability, and analytics. - 20-year Internet marketing veteran, currently serving as the Digital Marketing Campaign Manager at Antenna Group (formerly Chicago Digital). - Former Editor-In-Chief of Website Magazine, and a regular speaker on Web technology digital marketing strategy - Author of several books on digital marketing Including Web 360: The Fundamentals of Web Success; Affiliate 360: The Fundamentals of Performance Marketing; Domains 360: The Fundamentals of Buying & Selling Domain Names, and SEO 360: The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization.