However, if you are going to sell products or services online, you need to determine which ecommerce platform is going to form the foundation of your business. A recent study shows that the top platform choice for online retailers for ecommerce is still Magento. There is a reason for this. Magento has become the leading ecommerce platform, mainly because it works. With many businesses making the transition to m-commerce, you may be wondering what benefits Magento Mobile has and why your business needs it.
What is it?
Magento Mobile makes it easy for Magento merchants to generate native, customizable storefront apps for Android, iPad, and iPhone devices. The product can take the same product catalog information found on their website and integrate it into these apps. Users are also able to configure and customize their mobile storefront through the included admin panel.
What are the benefits and why do I need it?
You could go through and try to make your website mobile friendly. This means trying to anticipate how users are going to experience your mobile site and trying to establish the connection between your existing databases. However, the alternative provided by Magento Mobile is that you give your users a dedicated mobile experience on their smartphone. Magento Mobile allows you to create a separate application for your site altogether.
Responsive theme as opposed to an app
When using a responsive theme, any mobile web user is going to scale to the size of the mobile device. Tablet and smartphone users are going to be able to see your site and have it fit on their screen, this means that they will not have to rearrange it themselves. The framework within Magento is flexible enough to develop and design a responsive shopping cart website. However, with a dedicated app created with Magento Mobile, users have the same functionality as with a mobile device, including notifications, multi-touch functions, and swipe. The responsive theme is unable to use all the abilities of the device because it runs in the mobile device web browser.
Direct integration with the online Magento store
You are able to integrate your reporting, inventory, checkout, catalog, and many other features when using Magento Mobile. Because the platform and the app flawlessly integrate with one another, there is no need to start over or spend hours rebuilding your store information.
What about submitting the app?
In order to keep the app updated and in the Android or App Store, you are going to have to support it, which can be tedious and time consuming for most. However, for one monthly fee, Magento is able to help with the submission and support lifecycle of the created app.
If you want to guarantee that users have the best experience on their mobile device, Magento Mobile is the one way to guarantee that your store is represented perfectly and that your end-user retains the functionality over his or her mobile device. That is why any business owner should consider Magento Mobile.
Richard is a Magento expert, working for an Australian Magento partner. Richard is a strong advocate of mobile friendly ecommerce sites and loves contributing on the topic.
