Magento storefront - what choices do you have?

Creating a storefront that is unique and stands out is crucial for your company’s success. The synergy between your Magento backend and frontend is crucial because the two must work together seamlessly to offer the best user experience and performance. So, what are your options if you run a #magento #onlinestore ?

??OPTIONS

When it comes to Magento storefronts, merchants can either go for a ready-made theme, or get a custom-developed and unique new storefront. The first option is cheaper, and it tends to go down well with small companies, while the second comes with higher costs, because it involves extensive development work. That’s why it is chosen by enterprises that fall in the medium to big category.?

?? Magento’s native theme

Out-of-the-box, Magento provides two design themes: Luma, as a demonstration theme, and Blank as a basis for custom theme creation. The Luma theme can be used for a live store as it is, but if the design needs to be changed, it is recommended to create a new theme, not to change the theme files, because the changes can be overwritten during Magento upgrades. Magento implemented a theme inheritance concept, which allows to change only certain theme files, and inherit other files from a parent theme.?

??Our tip:?

Although it was the go-to option for a long time before others appeared (and still is), Magento’s native theme has always been associated with lack of speed and performance, because of the use of extra JavaScript which tends to cause slower page load times. That’s why projects following this path need to have experienced frontend developers assigned to them to optimize the storefront in the best way possible.

?? Hyv?

Hyv? cleared out hundreds of JavaScript files and unnecessary CSS, and replaced each with one streamlined framework using TailwindCSS and AlpineJS. This allowed them to reduce complexity and improve performance and developer experience, with a very easy learning curve for the ones already accustomed with Magento’s native storefront.

??Our tip:?

Hyv? comes as a good alternative to headless PWAs, but you need to know that when using modules from third-party services, there might be additional development work needed to make everything work smoothly. It also works only with newer versions of Magento.

?? Going headless, option 1 - Magento PWA

PWA Studio for Magento 2 is a toolkit designed for helping developers build progressive web applications on the Magento 2 platform. The tool contains out-of-the-box solutions that can be used during app development. The app’s architecture and framework are out-of-the-box, the application builder is already configured, there is a great number of ready-made site elements that can be used during development. PWA Studio is not monolithic, it can be modified and customized according to the needs.?

??Our tip:?

Going the PWA route of course has lots of advantages but you need to be aware of the fact that the process is not smooth and easy. First of all, due to code excessiveness, developers need to spend a lot of time cutting out code that is not relevant to their app. Moreover, the code is known to be complicated, requiring in-depth knowledge.

?? Going headless, option 2 - Vue Storefront

Vue Strorefront is a headless eCommerce framework that creates online shops by connecting Magento with many 3rd party services like a CMS, payment systems, or search functions.?The framework comes with a ready-to-use e-commerce theme, which consists of components from the Storefront UI, an independent, Vue.js-based library of UI components for developers, designers, and agencies striving to build fabulous storefronts. StorefrontUI is 100% customizable, open-source, highly responsive, and answers all the requests for modern eCommerce.

??Our tip:?

Vue Storefront appeals to Magento novices or the ones who find it troublesome adapting to both Hyv? and Luma, but with a lot of experience with Vue. The learning curve is also short for experienced JavaScript developers.

If you want to always be up to date with what's new in?#onlineretail?,?please follow us on LinkedIn?and SUBSCRIBE ?? to this newsletter (find the button down below ??????)