Magento has reached an agreement to be acquired by eBay Inc. which previously had a 49 percent stake of shares, in a bid to build a broader commerce operating system that spans online, mobile, social and local. eBay will own 100 percent of the outstanding shares of Magento. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Magento believe this move will open incredible opportunities for the entire Magento ecosystem.

eBay is evolving to become a strategic commerce partner focused on delivering new ways for merchants of all sizes to drive innovation. It expects the acquisition and the open commerce X.Commerce group will allow it to provide services for merchants and retailers beyond payments and websites. Magento will be at the core of this new, open commerce platform, called “X.Commerce.”

X.Commerce, an open platform that can offer a wide array of end-to-end services to merchants, providing everything from local inventory data and discounts to historical information on pricing, transactions and browsing. It then offers tools for payment and helps close the loop on transactions so retailers know how it all came together. More details will be shared with developers during the X.Commerce Innovate conference on Oct. 12-13 in San Francisco.

From the eBay press release: “We believe the acquisition of Magento and creation of our X.Commerce group will enable us to meet developers’ needs and drive global commerce innovation for retailers and consumers.” It’s a necessary step and a sign of how the world of commerce, online and offline, is all coming together.

We make it easier to integrate Magento’s open source shopping solutions and design integration to online retailers. For further clarifications please click here to contact our sales team for further information.

Many new and great features has been introduced by the recent release of Magento Enterprise 1.10, Magento Professional 1.10 and Community edition 1.5 . Lets have a closer look about some of the major new features below:

• Major enhancements to the call center functionality
• Support for newly hosted and secure payment methods with PayPal and Authorize.Net
• Enhancements to Authorize.Net payment functionality
• Gift Options

Order Management – Major enhancements to call center functionality and order status : The call center module provides transparent control for the administrators and front end enhancements for customers. Product configuration changes for all types of products can be done on the admin side by the call center sale representative as well as by the customer during the complete shopping process. Custom product choices and configurations can be changed directly during order creation, in the wish list and the shopping cart. Products can be moved from the wish list to the shopping cart and vice versa. The order state is the high-level status of an order. Magento provides a list of predefined order states such as New, Pending Payment, Processing, Cancelled and Complete. Magento also provides predefined order statuses like Cancelled, Complete, Decline, Suspected Fraud, Waiting and Pending. According to their unique business flows the Administrators can now manage and customize the available status of orders.

Payment Methods – Support for hosted and secure payment methods with PayPal and Authorize.Net : A new payment gateway has been introduced by PayPal and Authorize.Net to allow merchants to quickly get their business online with customizable and secure payment methods. In both methods, the customers shop on the merchant’s site and complete the transaction process securely on merchant customized pages on the PayPal or Authorize.net website or from an integrated iFrame page. The consumer always feels as if he is on the merchant’s site throughout the checkout process.

Magento is built with these payment gateways and merchants can configure their API credentials to interact with them using the previously acquired credentials and keys from PayPal and Authorize.Net. Both systems enable merchants to customize the payment form or receipt page and support most major credit cards, debit cards, pre-paid and gift cards. Merchants should always have an SSL setup for overall management of their site and the solutions do not support partial authorization or multi-shipping checkout.

Enhancements to Authorize.Net payment functionality : Magento introduced three different features related to compliance with Authorize.Net payment functionality of debit, pre-paid and gift cards. The new functionality includes balance response transactions, partial authorization and authorization reversal.

• Balance response. This feature allows the card balance information available to the customer and administrator, during order confirmation on the invoice, shipping and credit memos.

• Partial authorization. The consumer are allowed to make a payment using up to five debit, pre-paid or gift cards within one order. The applicable funds are released back to the customer immediately if the transaction did not complete. Within one order ID, the customer and administrator can view multiple transaction authorizations. Flexibility to use multiple cards for payment extends to any order.

• Authorization reversal. This feature is useful when a customer decides to cancel an order and contacts the administrator. In this case, the administrator will be able to release the amounts on hold without the required waiting period.

Gift Options : Customers and merchants can use gift options to apply dedicated messages and gift wrapping to their orders and can be applied at the system level as well as product level for all product types. Administrators can add multiple gift wrapping designs and charge customers based on their selection. Applicable taxes for gift wrapping options can also be configured. Gift wrapping information is incorporated in orders, invoices, shipments and credit memos.

Magento has become the fastest growing eCommerce platform in the world. To implement these new features of the new Magento Enterprise 1.10 to your E-commerce website please click here to contact our sales team for further information.

eBay revealed at their latest analyst day that it owns a 49% stake in Magento and their invest $22.5 million one year ago. Magento announced back in March 2010 about the investment in a blog post without revealing the identity of the investor. eBay officially confirmed that they invested $22.5m in Magento in return for a 49 per cent stake in the four-year-old company on Thursday and caught many by surprise.

Magento’s accomplishments over a very short period of time are astonishing, but not surprising. Magento has become the fastest growing eCommerce platform in the world, and is poised to become the largest open source software company as well. Magento provides just that – a platform that we can leverage strategically to help our clients in the difficult process of continually moving that needle.

eBay’s commitment to Magento aim to be the premier marketplace and payment provider on the Internet, but it makes sense. “ We are fortunate to have a partner that supports our strong belief in open source, community and innovation, Magento controls the remaining 51% of the company, so Magento’s operations would remain mostly independent from eBay says, Magento co-founder and CEO Roy Rubin . By investing in Magento which is one of the premier ecommerce solutions available they are cementing their position in wider online retail than marketplace business. EBay Inc. chief technology officer Mark Carges said “Combined with the power of our platform innovations, we can offer retailers an unmatched advantage as an e-commerce partner, We view our platform assets as enablers, not just for our business but for other retailers.”

We make it easier to integrate Magento’s open source shopping solutions and design integration to online retailers. For further clarifications please click here to contact our sales team for further information.

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MercuryMinds, is an Ecommerce mentor with years of experience in development and online retailing. Magento in our minds is one of the best open source Ecommerce solutions available to date. From creating professional websites with good layout, upgrading your current website with Magento, integrating third party solutions, Custom Ecommerce Solutions to Magento Website Maintenance etc. MercuryMinds provide many Magento related services. Including Design & Customization, Integration, Module Development, Programming, Hosting, Server Setup & Migration, Upgrades, Support & Maintenance, Payment Gateway Integration, Database Importing & Exporting and Product input/Data Entry .We cover many services associated with Magento Shopping Cart.