In this week’s episode, we’re going to share some simple Magento extensions that add pretty specific and non-essential functionality to your store. But at the same time, these little things are what makes your online business more usable, user-friendly and trustworthy. 

All of these have been added to Magento Connect this week and we encourage you to test them out by yourself. These extensions are new, so they might not function in accordance with your expectations.

Magento Connect Weekly

Google Translate Integration 

Price: free

This Magento extension is pretty straightforward - it applies Google’s translation functionality to your website. All you have to do is get your custom Google Translate code and apply it to the extension, along with any other settings. Yes, we all know that this translation option is not the best, as Google Translate isn’t smart enough at this point. 

However, this extension has a number of advantages:

 Instant translation

 Cost savings

 Easy setup

 Great for testing a multilingual approach to your customers

Keep in mind that this solution does not substitute a properly localized version of your website.

Search by Category 

Price: $59.00

This search extension offers a “down-the-rabbit-hole” approach to search functionality on your website. At every search step your visitors can narrow their search by slimming down the categories and subcategories that the search is performed through. You can also set this extension to work as a simple filter (‘search by’ function).

It is 100% open source, so you can customize it however you want. 

To be honest - the demo, offered by the developer is pretty limited. It doesn’t showcase the technology to the full extent. Given that this is a paid extension, they could have done a better job at showing its worth. If you consider purchasing it - contact them first and ask for a better/ personal demo.  

Our Team By Solwin 

Price: free

This extension seems like a simple and great addition to your marketing and reputational arsenal. It offers you the opportunity to easily add and customize the list of your employees and create a separate page. The standard set of customization options is also there:

 Add photos

 Add links to social profiles

 Easily manage from backend

This product should be useful for companies and businesses that employ a lot of people and want to be able to easily add info about them to the ‘About Us’ page or create a separate destination for it. 

The page, showcasing your employees, is a great addition to your PR portfolio. It makes your business look more personal and transparent. It also boosts the morale of your employees - think of it as an “employee of the month” picture that you can see at various local businesses. Only everyone gets to participate and their share of recognition. 

Again, this solution would make sense for companies, which are expanding or, due to certain circumstances, have a turnaround of employees and they need to make on the spot changes to the page. If you don’t plan to add more than 1-2 people to that page per year - then it’s probably easier to just make the page from scratch, without using any extensions. 

Have you tried any of these extensions? Share your experience in the comments below. Did we miss a great extension this week? Let us know!