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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Sprache: Englisch
Maximize the power of Magento 2 to improve your e-commerce business
About This Book
- Strategic planning for maximizing your Magento 2 store's operations and sales.
- Important guidelines and advice for optimizing your Magento 2 store.
- Packed with screenshots and step-by-step instructions to leverage the hundreds of Magento 2 features.
Who This Book Is For
This guide is for store owners who use Magento 2 on a daily basis to operate their online stores. Proprietors will use this guide as a reference for ensuring that they are utilizing the full power of Magento 2. Developers and solution providers will find this guide a helpful tool in identifying opportunities to help their clients navigate the complexity of Magento 2.
What You Will Learn
- Strategies for creating multiple stores within a single Magento installation.
- Use of complex product types such as bundles, downloadables and virtual products.
- Configuring payments, shipping and taxes.
- Accommodating multiple languages and currencies.
- Installing and configuring themes.
- Managing content and search engine optimization.
- Creating promotions, up-sells and cross-sells.
- Leveraging the customer relationship features of Magento 2.
- Securing and optimizing your installation.
In Detail
Magento 2 has been completely re-written and re-designed to take the world's most popular open source e-commerce platform to new heights of productivity and usability. With this overhaul comes improved opportunities to leverage the world's most successful open source e-commerce platform for your online retail and wholesale business.
The focus of this book is on operational aspects: those actions you, as a proprietor, can take to give your customers a more delightful shopping experience. In this guide, we delve into all aspects of managing a Magento 2 store, from product creation to marketing, customer management to search engine optimization. This book is not only a step-by-step course in setting up your Magento 2 website, it will be a handy reference as continue to improve and refine your online presence.
Style and approach
A step-by-step guide where it takes the reader from the planning step all the way through launching a new Magento-powered store by building on the initial sample data included in a default Magento 2 installation. Along the way, we explore using discrete action steps how to leverage the full power of Magento 2 for both simple and advanced uses. Screenshots and step-by-step instructions not only teach the new Magento store administrator, but also serve as a handy reference for the more experienced operators.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Table of Contents
Learning Magento 2 Administration
Learning Magento 2 Administration
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: May 2016
Production reference: 1270516
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
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Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78328-825-0
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Authors
Bret Williams
Cyndi Williams
Copy Editors
Sonia Mathur
Shruti Iyer
Reviewer
Mathieu Nayrolles
Project Coordinator
Judie Jose
Commissioning Editor
Vinay Argekar
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor
Vinay Argekar
Indexer
Mariammal Chettiyar
Content Development Editor
Rashmi Suvarna
Graphics
Jason Monteiro
Technical Editor
Kunal Chaudhari
Production Coordinator
Melwyn Dsa
About the Authors
Bret Williams, for over 20 years, has engineered the creation of hundreds of websites, including many profitable e-commerce properties, as well as several Internet “firsts.” Beginning with version 1.3 of Magento CE, Bret began an odyssey of becoming one of the foremost experts on leveraging Magento to build successful online businesses. Today, as CEO of novusweb llc, Bret continues to provide e-commerce management services from his office in Austin, Texas. Bret authored the wildly popular Mastering Magento and is co-author of the Mastering Magento 2 Second Edition, both Packt Publishing titles. His company also owns MageDaily.com, a Magento news and reviews blog, and MageRevolution.com, selling Magento enhancements.
Cyndi Williams has worked alongside Bret Williams—her husband of 35 years—building and managing e-commerce solutions, including their own successful online business, which they established in 2005, and later sold in 2009. As President of novusweb, llc, which is based in Austin, Texas, Cyndi focuses on managing online operations for select clients. Cyndi is an expert in operating Magento-based stores, as well as fulfillment, advertising, and social media management.
About the Reviewer
Mathieu Nayrolles was born in France and lived in a small village in Côte d'Azur for almost 15 years. He started his computer sciences studies in France and continued them in Montréal, Canada, where he now lives with his wife. Mathieu holds two master degrees from eXia.CESI in software engineering and UQAM in computer science. He is now a Ph.D student at Concordia University studying electrical and computer engineering, Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Dr. Wahab Hamou-Lhadj.
During his academic journey, Mathieu has also worked for worldwide companies, such as Eurocopter and Saint-Gobain, where he learned how important good technical resources are.
You can discover some of his works through his books, Xamarin Studio for Android Programming: A C# Cookbook, Mastering Apache Solr: A practical guide to get to grips with Apache Solr, Instant Magento Performances, Magento Performance Optimization: How to and Mastering Apache, his blog (https://math.co.de/),or its latest realizations bumper-app.com, mindup.io, and toolwatch.io.
Follow @MathieuNls on twitter for even more information.
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Preface
The release of Magento 2 marks a major milestone for the world’s most successful open source e-commerce platform. This new version was completely rewritten, retooled, and redesigned to allow its merchants to move forward into the modern age of online commerce.
With this new version, many store owners will be joining the ranks of others who embrace the power and flexibility of Magento. However, like these Magento veterans, new owners will find Magento a bit intimidating at first. To be powerful, a platform must seem complex at times. To be sure, any top-end e-commerce system requires a depth of configurations, tools, and processes to truly be useful for merchants.
If you’re familiar with Magento 1.x, you’ll be happy to find much about Magento has also remained the same. At the same time, the core functionality that made Magento 1.x so very popular is now wrapped in a new and friendlier user interface. Workflows are improved and, as to be expected, much of the original functionality has evolved to be better than before!
In our work managing e-commerce stores and helping Magento store owners maximize profitability, we know that managing a Magento store can take a long time to master. We wanted to change this by condensing years of real world experience into a concise, easy-to-use manual that is specifically aimed at the Magento store operator.
Learning Magento 2 Administration is meant to be both a course of learning as well as a handy, daily reference book. In this book, our focus is on those who will be configuring and using Magento on a day-to-day basis. There are other great Packt Publishing books that dive deep into the technical development opportunities of Magento. Our book answers the question, “now what?” Once you have an installed Magento store, what can you do to give your store a competitive advantage? To leverage all the features of Magento? To operate your store efficiently?
We hope you find this “labor of love” as useful to you as it has been enjoyable for us to write. We also suspect you’ll find many nuggets within these pages that make it a valuable asset for your Magento-related endeavors.
Regardless of where you are in using Magento 2 — considering, planning, launching, or operating — we suggest that you start by reading through this book in order. Learn where everything is and watch, especially, for the Tips sprinkled throughout. Then, use the book as a basis for creating your own action plans for improving your use of Magento.
Above all, enjoy using Magento 2. Embrace it and you’ll prosper. You’ll soon join the ranks of successful Magento-powered online stores.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introducing Magento 2, gives you a basic overview of the capabilities of Magento, what’s new in Magento 2, and what’s required for success with Magento.
Chapter 2, Settings and Configurations, is a menu-by-menu, screen-by-screen explanation of the Magento 2 backend configurations.
Chapter 3, Catalogs and Stores, give you an in-depth explanation of the powerful multistore feature of Magento and how to create manage multiple websites and languages.
Chapter 4, Preparing to Sell, discusses payments, shipping and taxes, and techniques and configurations to handle the “money” aspects of operating a Magento store.
Chapter 5, Products, contains explanations and guides to create and leverage different product types and tools.
Chapter 6, Themes, contains insights to choose and configure themes that give a Magento store a branded look and feel.
Chapter 7, Content & SEO, discusses specific instructions to manage nonproduct information and how to optimize information for search engines.
Chapter 8, Promotions and Communication, provides the reader with detailed guides to create promotional discounts, coupons, and newsletters to increase customer visits and engagement.
Chapter 9, Security and Administration, has key configurations to ensure that your Magento store is secure and optimized for speed and usability.
Chapter 10, Startup Checklist, this chapter is a step-by-step guide to prepare your new Magento 2 store for a successful launch.
What you need for this book
This book was written on the premise that you have — or will have — a working installation of Magento 2. The only tool that you’ll need is your web browser to access your new site, both on the frontend and the backend.
Who this book is for
While developers should certainly learn the contents of this book in order to provide better counsel to their clients, this book is primarily aimed at the Magento 2 Store Owner. The day-to-day use of Magento as an e-commerce platform requires a deep understanding of many concepts and functions, some of which are unique to Magento.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "you could view the category in your store by going to yourstore.com/sofas.html in your browser."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Click on the Main Website Store link in the Stores panel"
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Questions
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Chapter 1. Introducing Magento 2
It's no secret that Magento is the world's leading open source e-commerce platform. According to BuiltWith website, since its introduction in 2008, the versatility and power of this system has helped it grow into an installed base of over 220,000 online stores. Thousands of developers work with store owners like you to harness this power to accommodate a wide variety of products, markets, and customer types. The "Magento ecosystem" includes thousands of third-party add-ons, design themes, and services that increase Magento's ability to fulfill almost any online commerce need.
However, as we all know, you can't stand still in the competitive world of e-commerce. Changes in the marketplace constantly force all of us to re-evaluate every aspect of our online efforts. Whether it's a change in Google's search algorithm, the impact of mobile commerce, or the ongoing influence of social media, those who stand still quickly fall behind.
The same goes for e-commerce technology. Despite changes in ownership over the past 3 years, Magento management has continued to push their teams to create the next, improved version of Magento. As we in the Magento community championed for some time, Magento needed more than incremental changes if it were to remain at the top of the charts. Magento needed a complete review and reworking of all its systems.
Today, we can now celebrate the completion of this huge undertaking. Magento 2 represents a total overhaul, poising it for the demands of e-commerce today and in the foreseeable future.
In this chapter, we'll cover:
First, let's discuss for whom this book is primarily written.
A store owner's primer
This book is crafted to be an ideal companion for Magento store owners as they explore and benefit from the features and power of Magento 2. After installing and initially configuring a new Magento 2 store, what comes next? Once you read through this book, you'll be able to not only understand the various tools at your command, but you'll also be able to profit from operating a Magento-powered online store by leveraging these tools to your advantage.
You should also make a copy of this book available to others in your organization who:
Once you read through Learning Magento 2 Administration, you'll find a great checklist in Chapter 9, Security and Administration to make sure you address all the key configurations and processes when launching a new store.
What's new in Magento 2
If you currently use or have previously used a Magento 1.x store, you'll notice that many things look different in Magento 2. Throughout this book, you'll note from various screenshots that the backend interface is easier to use and rich in new operations features. We'll explore these in later chapters.
While the new UI is pretty slick, it's the under-the-hood improvements that you'll come to truly appreciate in your Magento store. Magento has long been challenged by a lack of speed. Even on servers and systems specifically tuned for Magento, heavy traffic from online visitors, large backend operations (for example, importing, reports, and so on), and inherent code bottlenecks have made many Magento stores slower performers than similar stores on other platforms. At times, it's even made us step back and compare the benefits of Magento against other platforms, although we keep coming back to Magento due to its unique features.
The Magento team focused considerable energy in making Magento faster. At the expense of getting too "geeky", let's explore some of the most important improvements:
Using Magento for e-commerce
People often ask us why we recommend Magento as an e-commerce platform more times than any other platform. After all, there are so many solutions available, many with less startup costs (and many with higher startup costs too).
The key to our recommendation is that as owners of e-commerce businesses ourselves, we know that operating a profitable and vibrant online store is much more complex than many would guess. If you've been in e-commerce already, you know too well that establishing, growing, and managing a web-based retail business can be every bit as challenging as building a brick-and-mortar business. Although the downside is much less than a traditional storefront, e-commerce adds business considerations and processes that are unique to online commerce, especially in today's highly competitive online marketplace.
If you haven't already, let's discuss some of the primary considerations of running an e-commerce business you do or will do and how Magento can help resolve them.
Selling complex products
It would make e-commerce so much easier if all products were alike—if we only sold shoes or backpacks online. Of course, this would make for a very small group of online stores.
Apparel, for instance, is one of the most complex products to sell online from a configuration and presentation aspect. Sizes, colors, collar styles, gender, and so on—so many attributes for each product. Add to this the idea that inventory for each variant may need to be tracked, and you can quickly see the challenges any platform has in providing customers with easy-to-use selections while meeting back-office business needs.
You may want to sell bundles of products, such as a bed linen collection with sheets, pillowcases, and duvets, yet also offer these products separately. This complexity can truly exceed the capability of many platforms.
We work with clients who have tens of thousands of different products and others with many complex product types, such as variants and bundles. Magento's unique and extremely powerful management of attributes and product types is one of the most powerful reasons as to why we prefer Magento as a platform. We have yet to experience another platform that gives the store owner the depth and power to manage products from tractor parts to cleaning products and t-shirts to computers.
Managing multiple online stores
Many online businesses begin as sole stores selling a particular line of products or services. However, the relatively low cost of entry allows many merchants to develop multiple product lines or retail brands that can be managed by the same staff and resources.
Without having to install and manage multiple platforms, a company can manage all the products, customers, and web content with a single login. Although not generally a good idea due to logistical considerations, we've seen as many as 96 separate websites managed in a single Magento instance.
The multistore feature of Magento also allows the easy creation of multiple language versions of the same brand. Many global brands use Magento in order to provide content in multiple languages.
It was the multiple store feature of Magento that originally lead us to commit our own resources to learning Magento several years ago, and it continues to feed our interest in this evolving platform today.
Extending functionality
We have yet to work with a client that doesn't need to add some feature or function to the base Magento installation, not because Magento is weak but rather because Magento is so capable of supporting the myriad of business needs across so many retail and wholesale sectors.
Many popular hosted solutions, such as Shopify and BigCommerce, are subject to limitations in functionality because their code base is "locked down." In other words, if you want additional features added to these platforms, you're limited to only what these platforms expose via their Application Programming Interface (API). While there are many add-ons available to these platforms, customization is still limited.
Magento is an Open Source platform. This means that the code is fully exposed and can be customized however needed. We've worked with a client who wanted to present their products in a unique manner that was not natively supported in Magento, and there was no third-party extension to meet their needs. We were able to easily add code to the Magento code that solved their requirement. This particular modification would not have been possible with a closed platform.
In addition to the customization of the Magento code, more features can be added using third-party extensions. With Magento 1.x, there were over 3,000 extensions offered on Magento Connect (www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect). Hundreds more are available via other outlets such as Code Canyon (www.codecanyon.net). This is, by far, the largest collection of add-ons for any popular platform.
Global e-commerce
Of all the popular platforms we continue to review and analyze, Magento remains the leader in providing true global e-commerce capabilities. From the built-in currency conversion updater to the inline language translation feature, Magento is built for global commerce.
What you need to succeed with Magento
Some might answer "courage." In fact, after writing Mastering Magento (also from Packt Publishing), we heard from a lot of readers how they struggled with Magento and how undertrained developers jeopardized their Magento stores with poor coding. Many store owners have less than stellar experiences with Magento, and as a result, Magento has earned a dubious reputation on many blogs and forums.
We would suggest that a better requirement for success is "planning." In fact, planning is the focus of Chapter 9, Security and Administration of this book. If you understand how Magento works and take the time to construct a proper plan to fulfill the requirements of this incredible platform, you'll have much better success.
As a store owner, though, don't expect to install, configure, and design a Magento store by yourself. Unless you have real experience with Magento, it's best to find a professional with strong Magento skills. And, hopefully, you find one that understands e-commerce and not just the programming aspects. The right partnership will ultimately save you thousands of dollars in lost opportunity as well as direct costs. If you already have Magento 2 installed, we suggest giving a copy of this book to your developer, as well, so that both of you are on the same page. The more they know about how you wish to run your business, the better they can help make sure that Magento is configured "under the hood" for your purposes.
Summary
If you're building a store in Magento, you're embarking on a wonderfully exciting journey into serious e-commerce. You may be moving from a less powerful platform or migrating from an earlier version of Magento. However you arrived to this point, you'll be using the most advanced open source platform in the world. The power of Magento also gives this platform considerable complexity. This book is created to help you navigate the operational aspects of your Magento store and give you the confidence to build a successful and profitable online business. Magento 2 is more powerful, runs faster, and has more features than Magento 1.x. With this book in hand, you're ready to take full advantage of Magento 2.
In the next chapter, we'll begin this journey from the topmost level: your stores and catalogs.
Chapter 2. Settings and Configurations
If you've ever used Magento in the past to operate an online store, you'll find that the backend of Magento 2 has changed considerably. The developers at Magento basically started from scratch in redesigning the administrative portal.
The user interface (UI) of the backend is much cleaner, more readable, and more logical. It was created on top of a responsive framework so that you can manage your store using anything from a tablet to a desktop computer, and the UI adjusts accordingly. The backend still won't work on a smartphone, as managing a Magento store on a phone would be incredibly difficult. The UI designers also improved grids—the table—style listing of products, customers, and so on—which makes it much easier to get your work done.
But more than just a pretty face, the Magento backend is your store's "back office." It is the place where you control how your store will operate, as well as what it will sell. Any retail business has certain business rules, such as shipping, payments, inventory management, returns and refunds, currency conversions, and much more.
Once you understand the many configurations possible in a Magento 2 installation, you'll realize your desired processes better, and will be able to leverage Magento to increase sales, satisfy more customers, and improve your e-commerce profitability.
In this chapter, we will do the following things:
Introducing the Magento 2 backend
The new UI of Magento 2 is quite a change from the original Magento admin backend. Whereas Magento 1.x had a more traditional layout, Magento 2 leverages the best of HTML 5 and CSS 3 to create a responsive interface, which we're sure you'll find more enjoyable.
The primary navigation menu is located along the left side of the window. This placement gives more space to the content of whatever section you're working in. Each of the main menu items has a pop-out menu of choices within that group.
In the upper-right corner of the backend, there are three icons: search, notifications, and account:
Global search allows you to search for anything in the backend: products, customers, orders, and so on. It's a wonderful way to quickly search for whatever you need without having to first drill down through several menu levels.
The bell icon takes you to a list of notifications, if any. If a "badge" (a red circle with a number) appears, it means you have received notifications from Magento or extension developers alerting you to updates or other important information. Click this icon to view and process notifications.
The account drop-down menu gives you access to your Account Settings, where you can update your name and password. By clicking on Customer View, a new tab will open to display the frontend of your Magento store.
Configuration scopes
In Chapter 3, Catalogs and Stores, we'll go into more depth regarding multiple websites, stores, and store views. However, as we are going to discuss configurations now, it's important that we take a moment to explain the section following the title of the screen.
The Store View menu allows you to set the configuration scope for whatever you wish to do in the backend. Depending on the screen you're viewing, you can switch between All Store Views, a particular website, or store view within your Magento installation.
This is a very important concept, as your actions can impact everything in your store, a website, or store view. Likewise for reviewing information: you can view information for all the stores in your installation, or those of a single store.
Tip
As you work through the Magento backend, be sure to be aware of your configuration scope setting. Some configurations can be set at the Website and/or Store View level as well, giving you an incredible flexibility to have different configurations for different stores. See Chapter 3, Catalogs and Stores, to learn more about multiple stores.
Besides many configurations, you may see [GLOBAL], [WEBSITE], or [STORE VIEW]. This indicates the finest level at which this configuration can be set. In other words, if you see [WEBSITE] beside a configuration, you could set a different value if your configuration scope is set at a particular website within your configuration. A [STORE VIEW] label means you can set values particular to a Store View level.
When you are at any configuration scope other than the Global (or Default) level, you will see a checkbox selector:
With the box checked, the setting shown will be inherited from the higher scope level. In the preceding image—captured at a Store View configuration scope—the selected checkbox means that the associated setting will be the same as that of the Website configuration scope. If you uncheck this box, you can set a different value for the particular Store View configuration scope in which you're working.
Tip
Not all configuration settings are possible at all configuration scope levels. For example, the activation of a payment method (like Credit Card, PayPal, and so on) can only be set at the Website level, not at the Store View configuration scope level. If you're at a level in which a setting is not applicable, it will not appear. So, don't be alarmed if certain settings "disappear" as you change from one scope level to another.
As we go through the many configurations within Magento, we will be reviewing them at the Global level so we can discuss all possible choices. Note the configuration scope level shown to the right of each configuration to understand the maximum depth at which you can fine-tune your store or stores.
Key system configurations
Magento's real power comes from its ability to adapt and accommodate almost any type of online selling needs. We will go through the most important backend configurations that you need to review when setting up a new Magento store. As you'll see, there are many settings. However, the more you know about how they affect your store, the more productive your selling opportunities can be.
The various configurations we are going to discuss are contained within two main navigation menus: Stores and System. First, let's explore the Stores menu.
Tip
For now, we will approach configurations as if you have a single Magento store front. Setting up and configuring multiple stores in a single installation will be covered in Chapter 3, Catalogs and Stores.
Configuration
There are six side tabs under the Stores top-level menu on the Configuration screen: General, Catalog, Customers, Sales, Services, and Advanced. Let's discuss each configuration set.
To expand each side menu, click on the down arrow on the right, and click to select a sub-menu item. The main content area of your screen will then contain various configuration panels. To expand each panel, click the down arrow within a circle located to the far right of each panel title.
General panels
Under the General panel you would see the following options:
General settings
You will find the following options within the General settings of the General panel (yes, we know it's a bit confusing):
Country Options
Tip
When configuring multi-select fields (such as the list of Allowed Countries), scroll through the list to see what is already selected by default. If you wish to add to those selected, click while holding the Ctrl key (cmd for Macs). Likewise, use this to de-select the selected values. In this way, you don't change other already-selected values. If you make a selection error, simply refresh your web page and try again.
State Options
Locale Options
Store Information
The information here will be available to shoppers, and should reflect the information you wish to communicate for your store (which may be different from your actual business entity).
Single-Store Mode
If you're sure you will not use multiple stores in your Magento installation, you can set Enable Single-Store Mode to Yes. This will remove the configuration scope choices, and prevent you from making different configurations at the Website and/or Store View levels. When selected (and saved), the Configuration Scope menu at the top-left of your screen will be removed, as will the scope labels beside each configuration field.
Tip
Even if you plan to possibly use multiple stores later on, enabling the single-store mode can, for now, avoid any confusion when configuring your stores. Unless you're intent on immediately configuring multiple Websites or Stores, we recommend using this feature to reduce backend complexity. Once you add additional Websites or Stores, this selection becomes moot.
Note
When saving configurations, you may see a warning that you need to review your caching or indexing. We will discuss these important Magento features later in the chapter.
Web settings
The Web settings are settings that affect public access to your site.
Note
Be very careful when changing the settings in this section, as they can easily disable your site. A qualified Magento developer can help advise you on these settings, as they can also be affected by how your site is installed and configured on a server. If you don't understand a setting here, do not change it.
URL Options
Consult your Magento developer for these settings. We select add store codes to URLs when we build a store that will use a common SSL URL (for example, https://www.domain.com) across multiple stores with different domains. Otherwise, this is probably not needed.
Tip
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the full web address, such as http://www.domain.com or https://www.domain.com.
In most cases, you will want to select Auto-redirect to Base URL
