As video on the web becomes more popular, we have been implementing lots of web applications that leverage CDNs and their APIs. If hosting a video on YouTube is not an option, hosting it on a CDN is a definite must for any prominent web site. To see a prime example of how video should stream, visit Staccato Creative. All of their video content is hosted on a CDN.

The traditional and most basic method of offering a video on a website is to just upload the content to the web server and place the Flash embed tag in the HTML. Hosting video on a web server can drain your bandwidth resources and give your visitors the wrong impression.

Hosting proprietary video content on a CDN offers your visitors the most fluid video consumption experience while saving your web server resources for the dynamic number crunching and script rendering it was built for.

Different CDNs use different techniques to spreading out content across the Internet.  Typically, content is uploaded to the CDN and from there it is distributed to key points across the Internet and made available for quick download.

EyeMagine offers Content Delivery Network API integration services as well as hosting services.  Contact us for more details or complete our online Request for Proposal form.

We’ve been approached by many storeowners, small companies, mid-sized companies, and media agencies to help with a Magento storefront.  Sometimes it’s a fit and sometimes it’s not. EyeMagine has been able to identify a few important things to consider when shopping for a Magento Solution Partner.  We hope this discussion will shed some light on your own search for a Magento developer and we wish you the best!

Design

Consider an e-commerce site’s presentation.  How important is design?  Can you recall a poorly designed e-commerce site? Has the poor design affected your decision to purchase?  Can you imagine how a poorly designed e-commerce site would affect your customers’ decision to make a purchase?

Now let’s consider a beautifully designed e-commerce store. Has a clean, intuitive, inviting design ever influenced your decision to buy? How do you think an engaging store design will boost your sales?

We believe design and user experience is a critical element of a successful e-commerce store. See some of our work, for reference. Providing your customers with positive feelings of confidence, assurance, and well-being is a lubricant for any online shopping experience.

We work together to create the ideal design for your store. We ask for sites that inspire you and we research your industry and competitors to understand the difference between a successful e-commerce site and the average e-commerce site.

EyeMagine creates designs in PSD format. This is a standard file format that is converted to HTML files. The resulting HTML files will be used to create a custom Magento theme.

Custom Features

While design is quite critical, a store’s features and function are also very important.

As a Magento Solution Partner, we are versed in Magento’s native features.  It will be very important for you to know and understand the features that Magento provides, off the shelf. We are so familiar with the software that we can add new features.

What would be considered a custom feature? Here some examples of customizations to the Magento e-commerce platform:
- Invoiced sales report
- Blog
- Press Release content management system
- Product configurator

If your store needs features that are not included in the Magento Community Edition, each of those features will be evaluated and added to the scope of work.

Theme

Once we gather all of the feature requirements and create a design, we will proceed to create HTML that will be used to create a custom theme for your store.

Magento is a template-based e-commerce application, which means that it comes with a default theme. This default store can be seen at the Magento demo site. Custom theme templates are created that overload the default set of templates. When creating a new store, we create a new theme for the store that brings the design to life.

That theme will be unique to your store.

Payment Gateway

Magento supports online credit card transactions. Authorize.net is an online payment gateway that helps process online credit card transactions. Authorize.net is one of many payment options when offering credit card payment to your customers.

PayPal is another payment gateway that is included in Magento e-commerce platform.

Once a payment gateway is selected, the accounts department will open an account and configure bank account information to begin processing transactions.

Project Management

Who will you be speaking with while your Magento store is being produced?

On the surface, this may not sound like a matter of great concern. But, it is. A good project manager will bring your project to completion on time.

Our team understands how important deadlines are. We understand that marketing material is usually published prior to a site launch and we have experience with managing and delivering successful projects.

Web Hosting

Where will the site live? Who will be responsible for keeping the site accessible to the online shopping world?

Now that we have covered the visible aspects of a Magento e-commerce solution, we can’t forget about web hosting.

EyeMagine offers web hosting using our own web servers. We will install your Magento store on one of our development servers while your store is under construction.

Hosting fees vary depending on your business needs and/or anticipated store traffic. Basic hosting packages start at $75 per month.

In addition to the monthly hosting investment, all secure sites require an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate is a means by which secure information is encrypted between a customer’s computer and the e-commerce web server. Click here to learn more.

One thing to be mindful of is that SSL certificates must be renewed annually.

Budget

When considering a Magento Solution Partner, a very important factor in the project scope is the budget.  Just like shopping for a car, shopping for a Magento Solution Partner is going to be a lot more productive when you determine your budget.

When working with our clients, our approach is to gather all of their requirements and estimate the time involved in producing the project.

When working with new clients, we first learn the budget and confirm that there are enough resources for a successful engagement. Next, we gather all of the requirements and work together to create a scope of work that fits within the budget.

Conclusion

The above process has resulted in a long history of satisfied clients with successful e-commerce stores. We hope this will help you in your search for the perfect Magento Solution Partner. We would love to hear your response and your suggestions, so please tell us what’s on your mind.