Are you new to e-commerce and looking for a complete guide to Magento? Let’s start and see which things are important to know when searching for the best e-commerce content management system (CMS).
Magento is one of the oldest platforms for creating an eCommerce website. It’s a CMS (content management system) allowing you to create a website with a user friendly backend to manage the look and feel of the website, products, orders, customers etc. With this CMS, you can create an eCommerce website and start to grow your business. Magento can be a very complicated website builder. However, we will break down the important things to consider in a user friendly way. Even a beginner who has no idea what Magento is can get started after reading this guide.
Overview and Requirement
Magento is a self-hosted CMS. Since its first launch in 2007, it has been constantly improving and giving the best results possible to their customers.
You can always get started with Magento where you can install the framework on your server and then set up the website.
However, you will need hosting for that. Once you get the hosting, you can get started with the installation process.
Most of the hosting providers will give you a one-click installation for Magento. You can check out many hosting providers that provide Magento hosting.
You can either go with Magento hosting or you can buy a VPS. You will find many hosting companies that provide similar services. You can use any of them.
In most of them, you will get a one-click installation for Magento. You can use the one-click installation and you are all done from there.
You can then proceed to set up the website.
Explore the Dashboard
We first recommend you explore the dashboard. You can see that there are a lot of features available on Magento.
You will find all of them in the dashboard menus. You can check all of them one by one. There will be options for product, theme, plugins, etc.
Don’t worry, you will not have to see everything here. You just need to see the basic overview of all the menus. We will see in-depth details about all of them as we move further. Therefore, it’s nothing to worry about.
You can also check out the settings and do the basic things from there if you want.
Once you check out the details about the dashboard, you can proceed to the next step. In the next steps on this Complete Guide to Magento, we will see how you can set up Magento completely.
Adding the Products
Most people will suggest you add the theme first. However, we will tell you to add the products first. When you already have some products added to your store, you can easily set up the theme. It will show you the theme in a better way.
You can imagine this by yourself. Would you prefer to select the theme that has products or you will prefer to select the theme that has no product and just the frame?
In most cases, the answer is the theme with products, right? So, we will add the products here.
There are many types of products you can add.
When you go to Products > Add New. You will see the entire visual editor where you can add the product. There are certain things you need to enter.
You can add many types of products here. We will see what are products you can add.
Before that, you can understand the general product terms and enter all of them.
You can enter the following things.
- Product name
- Product short description and long description
- Category
- Tag
- There are usually two types of price. You can enter the regular price and sales price.
- Tax details
- Stock and inventory
- SKU
- Product image
The main things to keep in mind here will include the product name, short description, and image. For a long description, you can make sure that you are entering the right keywords.
Types of Products
Now, there are various types of products from which you can select one.
You will see this information directly on the product’s page. From there, you can enter all of the information.
Here are the different types of products and their meaning.
Simple Product
This is a simple product where you can enter the name of the product and then you can set the price. It’s the physical product that we upload. It includes products such as chairs, tables, etc.
Virtual Product
This has become quite popular nowadays. You can also sell virtual products if you want. The virtual products include things like paid services, support, and similar things, etc.
Here, when the user buys the product, they will not get anything. However, the service is often provided directly. For example, if the customer orders support, one of the team members can contact the customer and guide them accordingly.
Downloadable Product
It is quite similar to the virtual product but a bit different. When the user buys something here. They will get a downloadable product.
This can be simple things like eBooks, videos, doc files, or any other thing that can be downloadable.
You can use this product to sell software and other digital stuff. You can also set the expiration date for download.
Configurable Products
This is yet another popular type. If you are selling jeans, you might also want to allow people to select the size or color, right?
In that case, you can use a configurable product. In this case, you can select different attributes. Attributes are nothing but the variation.
If you are selling T-shirts, you can have “Colors” attributes where you can add blue, green, and yellow. You can also have two or more attributes. For example, you can have one attribute for color whereas the second attribute can be of size. Each of them can have a different value.
You can also set the variations. For example, if you don’t have green color with XL size, you can set it as a false variation. In the same way, you can also set different prices and images for each of them.
Grouped Products
This is where one can group several products and offer them as a single product. Users can’t select a few from them. They are sold in a group.
For example, if you are selling stationery, you can also sell a group product with all the things at an affordable price.
These products will still be available to purchase individually.
Bundles Products
This type of product is very much similar to the above one. However, the big difference is that the user can select the quantities as per their choice.
For example, if you are selling pens, pencils, and books as a bundle product. The customer can select as many quantities of the pen as they want. The same applies to all the other products. This can also be a good way to sell more products.
Setting up the Theme
Now comes the theme part. You can also set up the theme here. Just head over to the themes section and you will see many themes there.
You can either get a free theme or you can buy one from the store. If you are getting a free theme, you can select any of the themes as per your wish. However, if you are planning to buy one, we recommend you to do your research properly and then buy the theme.
The theme will be the first impression for the users. If they love the overall design of the store, they will buy from you. If not, they will simply check out other websites and buy from there. Therefore, you need to make sure that the theme looks good.
Once you have installed the theme, you can also customize it as per your choice. There are a ton of customization options available that you can use. The customization part is easy but it will take some time.
You can set the colors, font, images, etc from the customizer. You can also add extra code if you want. The customization options will depend on the theme. Some themes don’t have enough options for customizations. In the same way, the premium themes have plenty of options.
As a result, we won’t be able to discuss all of them here.
You can also build your theme if you want. For that, you will have to hire developers. This will cost you way more than getting a ready-made theme. If you have it in your budget, you can consider this option.
Setting up the Store
You can always do a lot of settings where you will have to set up the most basic things.
For example, when you are running an eCommerce store, there are plenty of things that should be taken care of. This will include shipping methods, payment gateways, inventory, etc.
You can manage the entire inventory from the products page. You can see the details of the sale from the menu if you want.
Now comes the rest of it…
For shipping, you can enter the shipping methods and shipping zones from which you can set up the entire shipping.
If you want, you can also use Magento shipping where they are partnered up with many shipping services. You can utilize their services directly.
Further, you can set up the payment gateway and then get started with Magento. However, there are many things that you should consider..
With the default installation, you will only get the basics of all the things. If you want more things, you can always go with the extensions that can help you.
Now, we will talk about extensions. After reading, you will have a clearer understanding of what we are talking about.
Extensions
You can always check out different extensions and then use them to increase the functionalities of the website. There are many extensions that you can use here. We will see some of them here.
Extensions will help you increase the functionality of the website with ease. You can use plenty of extensions on each website.
Here, you will get many free extensions. You can either use the free extensions and get started with that. Alternatively, you can always go with the premium extensions and get more features.
Now, let’s talk about what an extension can do.
Let’s say, for example, you want to add a new payment gateway, you can do it with the help of an extension. In the same way, if you wish to have a lead collection popup, you can do it with the help of an extension.
In the same way, extensions can help you with everything.
Is Magento Easy?
Now, we have made sure to go through all the steps here. This is just for your understanding. If you start doing all these things by yourself, it’s sure to take a lot more time than you expected.
There are many more things to keep in mind here. You also need to check all of them. So, if you are thinking that it’s an easy CMS that you can start using, you are surely wrong here.
Instead, it can become a lot more complex than you think.
Therefore, you can always get help from the experts. You can get an eCommerce consulting service that will cover all the things you will need in the entire eCommerce journey.
There are already a lot of companies out there doing the same thing. Therefore, it becomes quite hard to survive if you don’t have the right experience and the right team to help you.
Our team has been working with eCommerce for years. This will ensure that you get the best results. You can contact us and we will help you.
Final Words
To summarize, this was a Complete Guide to Magento. You can follow this guide and you will successfully set up the entire website. Some of these steps are sure to take more time than expected. You can try out the website in the local host if you are doing it just for learning purposes. However, if you are doing it for your business, you can hire a team of consultants who can help you here. This will be the best solution for you. Good Luck!
