Magento Features You Really Should Be Using

Are you getting the most out of your Magento Platform?

Like any smart Magento store owner you should be asking yourself the following question: Am I getting the most out of Magento?

Lesser known Magento features that can boost productivity and conversions.

The power of Magento lies in its full featured out of the box functionalities. Many of these features are well known and are commonly seen among Magento sites. This includes features like order management, customer accounts, management of multiple stores fronts in one place, international support – multiple currencies and languages – coupons, and promotions. Some of these out of the box features however are not commonly used. Not only are they not commonly used, but most store owners don’t even know they exist! Some of these lesser known features include:

• Tiered Pricing – Pricing that changes depending on quantity of products ordered.
• Product Alert Notifications – Price change, and in stock alerts for subscribed customers.
• Admin Session lifetime – The ability to edit the amount of time for a backend session. Never get timed out again!
• Create Admin Action Log – For enterprise users only. Track admin use!

The use cases for anyone of these specific features depends on your business model, but for some, the uses are immediately apparent. The best part about these features is that enabling them usually just takes editing a simple setting! You just need to know where look.

How to enable “Hidden” Magento features.

Don’t be afraid to edit your settings! Although Magento’s backend can seem slightly overwhelming, it’s an extremely powerful platform. If you want to get more out of Magento without web developer help, the backend settings are where you’re going to do it. There are plenty of settings for you to edit, for now let’s focus on the hidden features mentioned above.

Tiered Pricing: To enable tiered pricing in the backend of Magento navigate to:

Catalog > Manage Products

Select a product you would like to apply tiered pricing to.

Select “Prices” left side of the page

Select “Add Tier” in the product settings.

Add the pricing rule you would like to apply!

Product Alert Notifications: To enable product alert notifications in the backend of Magento navigate to:

System > Configuration

Scroll down the page.

Select “Catalog” under the “Catalog” header on the left side of the page

Select the “Product Alerts” accordion section in the center of the page.

Edit your product alert rules!

Admin Session Lifetime: To edit the admin session lifetime in the backend of Magento navigate to:

System > Configuration

Scroll down the page.

Select “Admin” under the “Advanced” header on left side of the page

Select the “Product Alerts” accordion section in the center of the page.

Edit the “Session Lifetime”!

Create Admin Actions Log (*Enterprise only): To enable the admin actions log in the backend of Magento navigate to:

System > Configuration

Select “Admin” under the “Advanced” header on the left side of the page

Select the “Admin Actions Logging” accordion section in the center of the page.

Enable logging on the modules you would like to track!

Moving forward to a new Magento Enhanced year!

We at 121ecommerce love Magento because it is an extremely powerful platform, but like all systems, has some features that are overlooked. As a business owner it’s important to understand the ecommerce solution you’re using, and its capabilities. Just because the functionality above isn’t commonly known, doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of it. Make the most of your Magento installation by using tiered pricing, product alert notifications, admin session lifetime, and admin actions logs today.

Have any questions? Contact us to see what other Magento features can improve your ecommerce site.