Envato Notes

Author Spotlight: Infortis on Why Magento Should Be Your Next eCommerce Platform

Posted: 12 Nov 2013 10:09 PM PST

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Magento is an open source eCommerce platform that has an active community and an abundance of resources. One Elite author who is finding amazing success with this platform on ThemeForest is Łukasz (Infortis). We recently asked him about the secrets of Magento, and what makes it such an effective eCommerce solution.

Infortis joined the Marketplaces two years ago, in November 2011. Since then he has rapidly risen through the ranks, and now has almost 8,000 sales under his belt. Almost all of these sales are of his two Magento eCommerce themes. Read on to discover why Magento is selling so well.

Hi Łukasz. How did you discover the Envato Marketplaces?

I can’t recall, though I’ve tried many times. I’m sure I found it by accident when I was searching for some icons or graphics for one of the websites which I was creating. I thought, “Oh, nice place. I will come back here later. Good prices.”

After many months, I bought my first graphics item. It took a few months more before I finally thought, “Hey, why don’t I try selling here?” Around that time I discovered an article on Envato Notes about Orman Clark’s great sales record, and I decided to give it a go.

That’s awesome. Why did you choose Magento? What makes it cool?

When I started searching for a good eCommerce platform, Magento was the most popular. So I chose it, and it turned out to be a great decision.

It’s had a big community for many years, which means you can find tutorials and articles almost about anything you need. If you have a problem in Magento, you can be sure someone has already solved it—you just have to Google it.

Infortis’ Ultimo theme

What are the most important features that make Magento a good platform for eCommerce?

It is 100% free, but still has lots of great features—more than most stores will ever use.
It is integrated with dozens of payment gateways and shipping carriers, and it can be integrated with many other systems (ERP, CRM etc.) through extensions.
It’s suitable for the sale of any type of product, from typical t-shirts and cellphones, to digital goods such as ebooks, music, and photos, and can even handle subscriptions.
It also has tons of great premium extensions for any occasion.
It is scalable—your store can grow with your company.
It also has a paid version (Enterprise Edition) which offers professional technical support and other benefits. You can have confidence that as your store grows, you’ll be able to switch to the professional version when appropriate.

Sounds good. In your experience, are there any key features that every eCommerce site needs?

Of course, an eCommerce site needs to be user-friendly, clean, and easy to use. People often do their shopping in a hurry, and don’t want to spend time searching for the right button to click. There are so many stores to choose from these days, they’re likely to go elsewhere.

Most store owners also want their site to be responsive, so their customers shop via mobile devices.

Infortis’ Fortis theme

Thanks. How do you work? Tell us a bit about your workspace and favourite software tools.

Like many authors on the Envato Marketplaces, I work from home. I always use a PC. I hate to work on laptops—I prefer a convenient workspace with a comfortable chair, an ergonomic desk and a big screen, where I can sit for hours without making my back hurt.

I use standard tools, nothing special: Photoshop, Dreamweaver and lots of other minor tools. My latest “discovery” is great text editor Sublime. It has really great and unique features for code editing.