Magento

Magento Solution Partners often play a pivotal role in helping merchants deploy great Magento sites. These companies pride themselves in being the go-to experts on Magento implementations. So it’s no surprise that some of our most forward-thinking Solution Partners have rushed to have their developers take the Magento Developer Certification exam.

Among the partners who are leading the way in terms of having their developers certified is Gorilla Commerce, a Chicago-based agency that already has 4 Magento Certified Developers on staff (including 2 developers certified at the “Developer Plus” level). We sat down with Justin Finnegan, COO of Gorilla, to talk about their business and the importance of Magento Developer Certification.

Magento: Justin, tell us a little about your company and why you get involved with Magento.

Gorilla: Gorilla is an award-winning full-service eCommerce solution provider, offering website design, development, digital strategy and post-launch support to web-only merchants, brand manufacturers and multi-channel retailers. We embraced Magento when it first came to market, because we saw it as an accessible enterprise-class eCommerce solution that is relevant to businesses across a range of sizes and industries.

Magento: What do you see as the keys to your success with Magento?

Gorilla: Once we became a Magento Solution Partner, we put resources in place to fully support that commitment. We created a dedicated Magento Practice that’s aligned along functional areas to oversee every phase of a Magento site build and deployment, including Project Management, Website Design, Frontend and Backend Development, QA, and, more recently, post-launch website support services.

Another factor behind our success is the fact that all of our Magento deployments are handled in-house by full-time Gorilla staff. By not sub-contracting, outsourcing or offshoring our client’s work, we are better able to manage and mitigate project risk and respond rapidly to changing project demands.

Magento: Why did you decide to have your developers take the Magento Developer Certification exam?

Gorilla: When the Magento Developer Certification was launched, we knew immediately that Gorilla would be an active participant in the program. We’ve amassed a wealth of Magento-specific knowledge in our years of working with the platform, and the Magento Developer Certification program is a great way for our developers to establish their Magento expertise in a manner that is both qualitative and quantitative.

Magento: How many Magento Certified Developers do you currently have onboard? How will having these certified developers help your business?

Gorilla: As of today, we have 4 Magento Certified Developers on staff; our goal is to have every Magento developer on staff become certified, so this number will grow in the weeks and months ahead. We feel this will help our business in a number of ways, including:

• Demonstrating to clients and prospects our unquestioned expertise in working with Magento
• Underscoring our long-term commitment to the Magento platform, and
• Attracting additional talented Magento developers to the Gorilla team

Magento: What else would you like our readers to know about Gorilla?

Gorilla: Partnering with Magento has allowed us to work with a variety of great clients and has gone a long way to establishing our expertise in specific areas of ecommerce, including apparel, B2B, luxury and outdoor brand manufacturers. This includes working with great brands like Behr, Movado, Outdoor Research, Frette, Bonobos, Medline Industries, J.C. Penney, Newell Rubbermaid and PrAna, to name a few.

Finally, we’re looking forward to serving as a sponsor of the Imagine Conference this April in Las Vegas.

For more information about Gorilla, visit their page on our Solution Partner portal. For information on how to become a Magento Certified Developer, visit our certification page.

Lax World is a company that sells gear and goods to lacrosse devotees nationwide. Originally a successful chain of brick-and-mortar stores, Lax World expanded into eCommerce a few years ago, with strong initial results.

In fact, it became clear to Lax World that their existing platform couldn’t keep up with their growth. That’s when their Solution Partner, Groove Commerce, recommended Magento Enterprise as the perfect platform for building a new online store that would reach the entire range of lacrosse enthusiasts.

Lax World was committed to delivering a unique shopping experience to each major customer segment. Groove Commerce embraced this challenge: taking advantage of Magento Enterprise’s flexibility, they built a site that presents different product options, recommendations, and branding based on player position, gender, and even purchasing power.

Now Lax World has a site that makes it easy for every lacrosse fan, athlete, or supporter to find (and buy) just what they’re looking for: since launching the new site, Lax World has experienced a 15% increase in sales and a 20% lift in average order value for first time users. That’s a winning game plan in any sport!

Have a Magento success story you’d like to share? Contact success@magento.com.

SumAll offers a new data analytics tool for Magento store owners to use their sales and revenue data to make better decisions and more money.

Stores easily sync up with SumAll's online tool, and within a matter of minutes, real-time information about company revenue history, customer groups, sales patterns, and trajectory can be accessed.

You can answer questions such as:

• Are new customers worth more than returning customers?
• Which day of the week is the best choice for running a promotional campaign?
• How would offering free shipping affect your bottom line?

You will never miss a major shift in your numbers again!

Best of all, SumAll presents all of your information in live, easy-to-read charts, which means no more messy Excel spreadsheets or reports.

Some of their key features include:

Actionable insights: Use your data as a roadmap for making better decisions about what to do next. Predict your future earnings, based on data patterns of your past.

Identify Patterns: Use filters to drill down deep into your sales data to uncover trends and patterns.

Note Campaigns and Effects: Directly associate marketing, advertising, press, or other relevant events to your metrics to help track what caused your revenue numbers to move up or down.

Revenue Comparisons: Use chart sliders to compare and contrast sales data from two periods of time.

Alerts: Stay on top of all important metrics with revenue alerts that keep you on top of key metrics, wherever you are.

SumAll is free for all Magento customers, and can be downloaded here.

February 22, 2012 I 10:30AM PST

Webinar: Learn The Fundamentals of SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is both an art and science. In today's market, it's also an essential part of any digital marketing mix. Digital Operative, a digital marketing agency, is here to take you through the ever-changing landscape of SEO as it pertains to your eCommerce website.You'll learn the basics from setting up your Magento Go store to onpage optimization to offpage SEO factors. Here are the details:

Date: February 22, 2012 10:30AM PST

Presenters: BJ Cook, CEO and Cofounder, Digital Operative, Inc., Adam Lundquist, Director of Marketing, Digital Operative, Inc. and Alyssa Gothelf, Online Marketing Manager, Magento

In this webinar, attendees will learn:

• What is search engine optimization (SEO) and why is it important?
• The difference between onpage and offpage optimization
• What your SEO checklist should be for your Magento Go store
• Practical SEO techniques you can get started on today

Register now

With all the buzz in the market (and on these pages) about Magento Developer Certification, you may be wondering: “Who are these Magento Certified Developers? What are they like? And how can I get a hold of one to help me?"

We decided to address those questions by profiling some certified developers in our blog. Today’s profile features one of the first developers to earn Magento Developer Certification: Matt Kammersell.

Matt put the code aside for a few moments to answer some of our questions:

Magento: When did you start working with Magento, and what attracted you to the platform?

Matt: I began working with Magento when the first beta was released. I was intrigued at the prospect of an eCommerce platform written in Zend Framework, because I had built a few enterprise applications on it.

Magento: What do you enjoy most about being a Magento developer?

Matt: I absolutely love how extensible this platform is. With the right knowledge there are literally very few limits of where you can take Magento or what you can do with it. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to work on some large scale projects for some of the biggest partners in the Magento “universe” and I look forward to a bright future at the helm of my own company.

Magento: How does it feel to be one of the first Magento Certified Developers?

Matt: I am elated! I believe I can go anywhere in the space now that I have this certification.

Magento: What else would you like our readers to know about you?

Matt: The types of projects I’m most interested in are the ones that are considered to be expressly difficult or challenging. The less people feel it can be done, the more I want to do it! As I said earlier, I’ve worked on some of the largest, most prominent Magento merchant sites. I’ve also built integrations for fulfillment, returns & exchanges, recurring billing, analytics, Facebook and more.

Magento: Thanks Matt. How can a partner or merchant contact you about a project?

Matt: Visit my site, www.intellectlabs.com, or email me at

Developers: Want to be like Matt? Visit our certification page and learn how you can become a Magento Certified Developer.

A great online store holds the promise of strengthening your brand, building your customer base, and increasing your overall revenue. Whether you are launching your first online store or updating an existing site, you may need advice on how best to approach a project of this size and scope:

• What strategic direction do you want to take your brand, and what role will eCommerce play?
• What features of an online store are essential vs. nice to have?
• Do you require extensive integration with existing business systems?
• Will you do your own photography and create your own product descriptions?

Implementing an amazing site involves many considerations. It takes creativity, eCommerce knowledge, and development expertise.

Magento Solution Partners are here to help you achieve excellence in eCommerce. These companies are design and eCommerce implementation experts, but just as important, they are Magento specialists.

We have hundreds of partners all over the world with a range of vertical industry and technical expertise. Find one that’s the perfect fit for your company.

Today marks another milestone in Magento’s brief but rich history: the 4 millionth download of our free, open-source, game-changing Magento Community software.

Our Community project is where the Magento story began. Starting with our beta release in late 2007, developers and merchants have embraced Magento Community, which set a new standard for what an eCommerce platform could be. We’ve continued to enhance the Community edition, making it an even richer tool for exploring the possibilities of eCommerce with Magento.

Our business has experienced phenomenal growth since that first beta release. We’ve introduced commercial solutions such as Magento Enterprise and Magento Go… we’ve nurtured a community of over 600,000 registered members…we’ve built an extension marketplace where 3rd party developers offer more than 5,000 extensions for our software…and we’ve become part of eBay, Inc.

But our roots are still firmly planted in the incredibly rich soil of open-source eCommerce. The Community edition is what fuels the passion of our growing ecosystem; this passion is what makes the Magento community so unique in the world of eCommerce.

To all the merchants, developers, users and fans who have embraced the Magento Community edition, we thank you for your ongoing passion and support. You have our commitment that we will continue investing in making the world’s best eCommerce software even better.