Lot’s of merchants when hearing about Magento make the face like “Oh-No-It’s-Too-Complicated-For-Me!” and try to keep out of mischief. The thing is everybody is afraid to make mistakes, especially when it concerns their business. And with the complicated platform like Magento mistakes seem inevitable. This article is for Magento-haters and Magento-phobes. Learning about common Magento mistakes you can avoid or fix them and stop avoiding the most feature rich and powerful eCommerce platform.
Mistake 1. Magento installation via ftp
A lot of merchants make mistakes downloading full release of Magento and installing it via ftp. Magento offers downloader method which is much easier to use for installation and helps to preserve upgrade capability. Downloader functionality allows to reduce the size of files and get all the files of current stable Magento version. All you have to do is to ftp the downloader and run it on your server.
Mistake 2. Modifying the default theme
After having installed Magento you might get a desire to rush into theme modification. Please, don’t. If you want to make your storefront unique, it is better to go different way. Copy the files you need from /design/frontend/default/default/ directory to /design/frontend/default/your_theme directory. The same should be done with default skins (/skin/frontend/default/default/). Now, you have your own theme which can be modified according to your needs, When you are ready, go to System->Configuration->Design and apply the new theme to your Magento store.
Mistake 3. Disabling customer reviews
Customer reviews is the feature that allows customers to add feedback and rate your store products. Customer reviews proved to increase sales, as they increase trust of potential buyers. Thus, the feature is considered as good sales converter. Unfortunately, not all of the store owners use (or even know) about the option. To enjoy the benefits of customer reviews, enable it on your Magento store, follow Go to Catalogue -> Reviews & Ratings -> Customer Reviews.
Mistake 4. Forgetting to change default settings
The first you should change when establishing new Magento store after installation is the default name on home page. The default name home should be changed to your store name. Also don’t forget to change the default name of logo (which is Magento Commerce) to the appropriate name of your store. These changes are made to make your store get high search engine ranking and appear in search queries properly.
Mistake 4. Improper use of layered navigation
Magento offers advanced layered navigation however it depends on you whether it will work for your benefit or on the contrary. Beware of duplicate content which can be caused by the feature. Best way to avoid the issue is to close layered navigation from search engines and showing it only to the customers. You can close pages from indexing via cookie or AJAX request. The results can be checked using Google Webmaster tool.
Mistake 5. Ignoring top-notch Magento features
Learn about Magento advanced functionality before you set up a store. Otherwise you’ll deprive yourself from the benefits that Magento offers and will never feel the power of the platform. Most of negative feedback is caused by the ignorance of merchants in Magento functional opportunities. Don’t make the same mistake. Magento has a lot to offer. It supports different types of products, so you can set the cross sells, up sells and related products if necessary. Find out more about Secrets of Successful Magento Trading to know the difference between various types of products, supported by Magento. To enable the functionality open any product on your store and look for the tabs down the right for Cross Sells. Search your catalogue for suitable items and tick the box. They will be added as cross sells to your main entry.
Another powerful feature Magento can boast of is multi-store support. Magento helps to optimize your store management, allowing to manage several stores from one administrative panel. It’s convenient and time saving for the merchant who has to manage several store and has only two hands to do it. However, multi-store is also a complicated feature that should be set properly. The procedure doesn’t require much efforts but is definitely rewarding in terms of store development.
Now, you can be sure that at least 5 mistakes will be avoided in managing Magento shopping cart which makes you 5 steps closer to your perfect online store. Don’t hesitate and join thousands of Magento-fans!
November 18, 2024 
