Do you aspire to transform your business from a retail outlet to a globally recognized e-commerce brand? Or, are you already on the lookout for the best e-commerce site-building platform to start your online venture? If that’s the case, search no more — you are at the right place!
Once known as Magento, Adobe Commerce is one of the most successful e-commerce development platforms because of its exciting features (some old, some new) and equally fascinating brand philosophy.
In this blog post, you will learn about Adobe Commerce, its versions, and some of its best features that excite us. Additionally, some benefits will be emphasized upon, and post that; we will be building an e-commerce website using Adobe Commerce (open source) to showcase how easy it is to work with. Let’s begin.
Table of Contents
What is an E-commerce Platform?
An e-commerce platform is a software application used by online businesses to manage their website, marketing, sales, and operations. This platform also provides an option to integrate with other business tools seamlessly. This integration will help you to stabilize and advance in your business.
E-commerce platforms can be categorized into three different types:
- Open Source
- SaaS (Software as a Service)
- CaaS (Commerce as a Service)
Choosing the right E-commerce platform plays a pivotal role in deciding the profitability of your business. There are a lot of criteria that you need to have in mind while selecting the right E-commerce platform for your business.
Here are a few tips to have in mind before choosing your E-commerce platform:
- Be sure whether you want to build a platform for yourself from scratch or integrate with the plugin’s existing site.
- Check the kind of hosting that works well for your site or store.
- Select the type of solution (Open-Source / SaaS/ CaaS) that you prefer.
- Ensure other features like security, stability, and customization abilities.
What is Adobe Commerce?
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce is an open-source e-commerce platform that allows merchants to strategize flexible online shopping systems, list products according to their preference, and customize website functionalities based upon analysis or gut intuition. The platform also includes robust marketing, cataloging management, and discounting tools that empower retailers — even some established brands — with reliable analytics and reporting forum, and flexible cloud solutions to rapidly innovate and grow.
Adobe Commerce is one of the key players in the B2B e-commerce world for businesses of all sizes. It stands out from the crowd with its exciting features and open-source flexibility. It offers marketing, search engine optimization, and catalog-management tools.
Key Features of Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce makes it simple for retailers to build up an enterprise-level e-commerce site. Some of the key features of Adobe Commerce include:
- User-Friendly Interface: This is possibly one of the most significant Adobe Commerce updates. The new user interface is both simple and elegant. The navigation tools are more user-friendly and easy to access.
- SEO Optimized: Adobe Commerce increases your consumer reach and search engine presence. It’s built to help you rank higher in search engines by providing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) optimized content on your website.
- Customizable Themes: It has a theme store with a variety of themes for every business and category. These themes make it easier to create an E-commerce site.
- Streamlined Common Admin Tasks: Adobe Commerce is known for its speed and efficiency. In the admin user panel, you may automate frequently performed actions, which can save you a lot of time in the long run.
Versions of Adobe Commerce Platform
This e-commerce platform offers two versions of its software:
- Adobe Commerce (Community Edition): This is an open-source, full-featured version of Adobe Commerce. The community edition is completely free and well-suited for small to medium-sized businesses. Magneto Community Edition provides an extensive extensions library used to customize the software and add the necessary features.
- Adobe Commerce (Enterprise Edition): This is a paid version of Adobe Commerce with a lot of premium features. This is best suited for medium to enterprise-level businesses. Adobe Commerce’s enterprise edition is the most preferred choice while handling frequent and large online transactions. This comes with 24/7 online customer support and a lot of security features.
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Benefits of Adobe Commerce Platform
Here are the benefits of the Adobe Commerce Platform and the reason why to choose it as your B2B e-commerce Platform.
- Adobe Commerce is an Open-Source Platform: Since Adobe Commerce is open-source, it becomes an ideal platform for your B2B businesses. You can customize your web development ideas using it. It provides developers with an exclusive library for extensions, themes, and integrations that link Magento(Adobe Commerce) to most other business services.
- Robust Features to Support B2B Growth: Adobe Commerce provides features like catalog capabilities customization, personalized price list, mobile commerce capabilities, site management, and many more.
- Manage Multiple Storefronts From a Single Interface: Adobe Commerce provides an amazing customer experience with its ability to operate across different brands, currencies, or languages. Using Adobe Commerce you can effectively manage multiple storefronts from a single interface.
- Long-Term Cost Savings: Adobe Commerce is an investment that pays you off over time. It reduces the cost to a great extent by integrating with other order fulfillment tools.
- Part-take With an Active Developers’ Community: Adobe Commerce comes with Adobe Commerce Community forums with various developers in one place, providing excellent assistance.
Steps to Build E-commerce Website Using Adobe Commerce (Open-source)
Pre-requisite
Step 1: Ensure to have all the requirements of Adobe Commerce’s Server
Adobe Commerce has a few requirements that have to be fulfilled by the server that is hosting this platform. Before choosing your hosting provider, ensure to have all these requirements.
You require all the following specifications to use Adobe Commerce:
- Operating System– Linux x86-64 and Linux distributions like RedHat or Ubuntu. Locally developed on Mac or Windows OS with virtualizations or MAMP applications.
- Web Server– Apache or nginx can be used as your web server.
- Memory- The setup requires 2GB of RAM or more sometimes.
- Database– Compatible with MySQL version 5.6 and 5.7.
- PHP– Recommends PHP is PHP 7.3.
- Security– For secured data transfer and PayPal integration, SSL certification is required.
Step 2: Select your preferable Web Host and Domain Name
The next step is to choose a Web Host to match all your requirements. Ensure to choose a Web Host that supports the Platform that you are going to use. Most popular hosts like Bluehost, Hostinger, and DreamHost provide easy installation options for Adobe Commerce. And also, check the price for each plan the company provides. Take into consideration the other parameters like performance, security, and some of its unique features while choosing your web host. One important factor to consider while choosing a Web Host for your Adobe Commerce store is to check for an SSL certificate. This is to ensure a secured payment gateway.
After picking the right Web Host, register a domain name or your website. While choosing your domain name, be extra careful since in many cases it’s like your website’s address. Mostly, you will get the domain name registration done with your hosting package. In case, your preferred plan does not provide the domain name registration, you must do it separately by yourself.
Step 3: Get started with Adobe Commerce (Open Source)
After purchasing your preferable plan from a hosting provider and setting up your account, you can install Adobe Commerce Open-source. For this navigate to the product page and click on the Get Started button. You will land up in a feature comparison chart of this open-source Magento(Adobe Commerce) platform. Click Download Open Source.
After this, you will see the Adobe Commerce Tech Resources page to download Adobe Commerce Open Source. The most commonly recommended way is using Composer. You will be given an option to download it with or without the sample data.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
You can still install Adobe Commerce Open Source with a one-click installation process only if your host offers such an option. For this, navigate to cPanel and select Auto installers.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
After clicking on the Adobe Commerce icon, the installation process commences by configuring all the administration settings.
Step 4: Administration Settings Configuration
Customize your admin credentials before installing Adobe Commerce. Mention the server path for your Adobe Commerce installation. After installation, select the Administrative URL and log in using your username and password credentials. You will land in your Magento(Adobe Commerce) dashboard to build your E-commerce website.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
Step 5: Select a Theme For Your Store
After all the setup processes, select and install a theme for your store. This theme will define the look of your store. You require access keys to download and install themes from Adobe Commerce Marketplace. You can retrieve your access keys from your user account. Navigate to Marketplace and choose My Products where you’ll find Access Keys.
You can create new keys and assign new names on the Access Keys page. After copying your public and private keys, navigate to the setting in your Magento(Adobe Commerce) store dashboard. From Web Setup Wizard in settings select Extension Manager.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
In the Extension Manager, enter the keys that you’ve copied. After establishing a connection between Magento(Adobe Commerce) Marketplace keys and your website admin panel, all your purchased themes or extensions will be shown in the Extension Manager list.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
Step 6: Theme Customization
After installing your preferable themes, you can access it from Configuration in Contents. You can now customize the website set up from the customization interface. You can upload your brand’s logo and add the elements that you need here.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
You can also edit your Web pages, Blocks, and widgets by navigating to Elements in Content. Magento’s content editing interface has a lot of exciting features like SEO panel for each page to improve your website;s visibility.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
Magento(Adobe Commerce) Content Hierarchy
It is really important to understand the Magento(Adobe Commerce)Content Hierarchy to organize your content. There is a hierarchy includes:
- Websites- You’ll start with the Main Website as you install Magento(Adobe Commerce). You can use the same installation and create multiple additional websites.
- Stores- Multiple stores can be created within a single website. Each store can have its own main menu. You can feature a variety of products within the same catalog shared between different stores.
- Store Views- This is an alternative way to offer a flexible experience to your customers. A single Magento(Adobe Commerce) store can have many views.
A scope consists of all these elements. These elements will help you to apply settings in a particular content at a global, website, store, or store view level. These features will be available in the Adobe Commerce dashboard. You can find them with brackets.
Step 7: Check out Extensions For additional Functionality
The Adobe Commerce Marketplace has all the extensions to add functionality to your store. This includes everything from Instagram Widgets to checkout options.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
To add an extension to your website, you can follow the same steps used to include a new theme. You can choose the extensions in the marketplace by filtering based on a number of factors like price. After choosing one, you can check it out and download it to install.
The choice of your extension depends on your online store’s goal. Some general categories include:
- Security: To ensure security you can add the security-related Magento(Adobe Commerce) extensions. You can use the Google reCAPTCHA to your checkout page to deter bots.
- Marketing: Strategise for elevating your business by using Beeketing for upselling and cross-selling. You can also use a blog extensions for content marketing.
- Analytics tracking: Knowing about your customer behavior will help you take calculated decisions to improve your business. An extension to collect data and create reports can be helpful.
- Payment gateways: You must have a payment gateway for customers to purchase on your site. Popular ones such as PayPal and Stripe.
- Shipping: While you sell physical products, you must add extensive features to help customers track the shipping progress. Some extensions can help you with order management.
Step 8: Modify Your Store Settings
Before actually adding products to your store, you need to personalise your E-Commerce store settings. For this navigate to Stores then select Configuration from Settings.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
Ensure to include all these details:
- Location, timezone, and currency settings
- The email address for transaction notifications
- Choose either [Global] or [Website] price scope
- Customer account settings
- Shipping and payment options
Any extensions you add that have settings you might need to adjust will also appear in this list of possible configurations. Once you’ve made changes, you’ll need to click on the Save Config button in order for them to take effect.
Step 9: Set Up Product Pages With Prices and Images
You can set up the products page of your Magento(Adobe Commerce) store with products, their prices and images. For this, navigate to Catalog and select products. You will find a list of products from your existing merchandise. Click Add Product button to include that product to your product page.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
When you click on it, you can select the type of product to add from the dropdown menu:
- Simple products: A standard physical product.
- Configurable products: Simple products that come in multiple variations.
- Grouped products: A collection of simple products that can be purchased individually or together.
- Virtual products: Services, online courses, or other ‘products’ that don’t require shipping or downloading.
- Bundle products: A collection of items that cannot be purchased separately.
- Downloadable products: Digital products that can be downloaded, such as e-books.
The product type you choose will decide the template to create the corresponding page. You must also add the product’s name, price, and Stockkeeping Unit (SKU) number. You can also add additional information like weight and dimensions, stock quantity, and a description.
After this, upload an image or video for that product to show your customers a view of your product. In case you are selling a service or a digital or downloadable product, add a picture or graphic of the service or digital product. After adding everything, click on Save button on the top right. When you are sure about the product to launch live, ensure the Product Online switch is on. Be sure to add everything before launching your products.
Step 10: Select Your Payment and Shipping Options
Magento(Adobe Commerce) comes with a variety of options for payment and shipping. You can find these in the configurations page from settings. Payment methods will be available under Sales in the menu of left sidebar. You can configure the payment method with Magento(Adobe Commerce) from there. You can also use extensions to broaden the options for your customers.
Image Source: websitesetup.org
You can configure each payment gateway available from the list of settings. For this, you must add information like your card type and whether to store credit card details for future purchases.
Step 11: Launch Your Website
It is not a good practice to edit a live website since it creates chaos for visitors. So previewing your website before launching it’s essential. Always prefer to use a staging environment or local location to create or your website or make changes and then push it to your server.
When you develop your website locally, push all of your Adobe Commerce files to your webserver. This can be done with the help of your local development application or with a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client. This will publish your website on the internet easily.
Conclusion
From this Blog, you would have learned about Adobe Commerce, its versions, and its features. The benefits of Adobe Commerce will be emphasized clearly to you now. You would have understood the steps in building an e-commerce website with Adobe commerce open-source.
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