Current Magento customers have a big decision to make. At the end of this month, Magento 1 will officially reach the end of life (EOL). On June 30, 2020, Magento will cease deployment of quality fixes and security patches, forcing all Magento 1 customers to either migrate to Magento 2 or another platform. Yes, you read that right. As if 2020 hadn’t already thrown a big enough wrench in your business plans, you also have to contemplate a complete re-platform of your existing e-commerce website.
So what’s a Magento customer to do? You could migrate to Magento 2 by default, but the “upgrade” is just as labor-intensive as moving to an entirely new platform. So why not take the opportunity to re-evaluate whether or not Magento is still the best option for you? The world has changed dramatically in just a few short months, and it is likely your business needs have changed as well.
If you’re considering moving away from Magento entirely, Episerver is a great option. Here are the reasons we believe Episerver’s digital commerce platform can help you meet your business objectives faster.
Episerver Can Help You Provide an Enhanced E-Commerce Experience
According to Forbes, in mid-April, US retailers’ online year-over-year revenue growth was up 68%. The global pandemic has changed what, when, and how your buyers are purchasing. And the trend is expected to continue long after the pandemic ends. To effectively address this new buying behavior and stay competitive, you must offer customers a personalized, relevant, and frictionless e-commerce experience.
Offering valuable content on your website that educates and inspires is the easiest way to keep potential buyers engaged and on the path to conversion. If you’re using Magento, you know the platform has limited content management capabilities. It lacks content versioning and content staging among other core content management functionality. Episerver, on the other hand, began as a web content management provider and offers a best-in-class content and commerce experience.
Episerver also offers a suite of AI-powered personalization tools that allow you to enrich the customer experience via product recommendations, dynamic content, personalized search results, trigger emails, and marketing automation. The platform uses machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics to eliminate guesswork and dynamically present the most relevant content or experience for each visitor. To do the same with Magento requires the added cost and complexity of third-party tools.
Episerver Offers A More Robust Out-of-Box Solution for B2B Companies
While Episerver and Magento can both point to a number of referenceable B2B use cases, Episerver’s out-of-box commerce capabilities far surpass Magento’s. For instance, Episerver offers workflow management and the ability to customize content based on the buyer’s role - features only available to Magento customers via costly customization.
To further innovate for its growing number of B2B customers, Episerver recently acquired Insite, a leader in B2B commerce. According to Episerver, Insite caters to the “unique needs of an underserved market”, helping manufacturers and distributors “transform their business through its purpose-built solutions, deep domain expertise, and a strong emphasis on customer success and collaboration.” You can learn more about Episerver’s acquisition of Insite and how it helps B2B commerce customers double down on digital experience here.
If you’re one of the retailers that have seen a double or triple-digit surge in online sales during the COVID-19 crisis, I imagine you could benefit greatly from a cloud hosting service that supports auto-scaling. Auto-scaling monitors your website and automatically scales capacity up or down to maintain continuous, predictable performance at the lowest possible cost. While Episerver offers this feature, Magento does not.
Episerver also offers advanced search technology called Episerver Search & Navigation. Episerver Search & Navigation is an enterprise search solution that leverages autocomplete, related queries, and behavioral ranking to help your visitors find what they want on your website faster. And when your visitors can find what they want faster, they also convert to customers faster. While Magento 2 offers basic search functionality not available in Magento 1 (e.g. the ability to select popular search results and set the number of them to be cached), functionality is still very limited without the use of extensions.
Episerver is Easier. Period.
Ease of set-up, ease of use, ease of admin, ease of doing business with...Episerver outperforms Magento in each of these areas in a side-by-side comparison of Episerver and Magento on the G2 review site.
In reference to Magento, one respondent on G2’s site writes, “Unless you are a trained programmer, it is hard to customize and make use. It requires a certain programming skill.”
Meanwhile, an Episerver reviewer writes, “Out of the box, Episerver offers features that other platforms don’t offer by default such as unlimited CMS editors, plug and play e-commerce, content targeting, on-page editing, the unification of content and commerce and more.”
Built for marketers on Microsoft .NET, Episerver is inherently easier to use than Magento’s open-source technology. While Episerver prides itself on its robust out of box features, ability to easily integrate, and scalability, Magento requires the use of custom-built functionality and costly add-ons purchased in its marketplace to achieve the same advanced capabilities.
In conclusion
If you’re going to put in the time and effort to migrate your existing e-commerce website, shouldn’t it be to a platform that can solve for the existing and future demands of your business? Episerver empowers both B2B and B2C companies to create standout digital experiences that drive results.
Interested in learning more about Episerver and determining if it’s a fit for your business? Contact us to walk through your requirements today.