10 Jul
Who Is This Magento Migration Article For?
This article is for store owners, and merchants running Magento version 1.x who want to know when it’s a good time to migrate their store to Magento 2. This document is also for Magento developers and consultants who wish to learn more about the right time, proper strategy, and planning to upgrade and migrate Magento 1 store to Magento 2.
According to some sources, more than 400 thousand United States-based store owners are running their stores on Magento 1.x platform. Imagine what the total figure will be if we include all the countries.
The new acquirer Adobe which has recently purchased Magento company is still planning to give support to Magento 1.x platform for the next 1.5 years. However, considering this period in terms of upgrading and migrating the store to 2.x, this seems less time-consuming as some big stores may take more than 6 months to upgrade properly based on the complex business setup they have in their existing stores.
Am I Going To Get Benefit After Upgrading To Magento 2?
If I get a chance to speak, I will speak the truth. Magento 2 is buggy, but it is promising. It is the future of Magento eCommerce, and it has ample scope to fulfill future requirements.
There Are Dozens Of Benefits After Upgrading Your Store To Magento 2
- Magento 2 is much faster compared to Magento 1. Almost 50% faster.
- Enhanced security through the best practice of the code architecture.
- Lots of new B2B and B2C features.
- Out of the box responsive themes which can fit any device.
- A more intuitive and UI-friendly administration.
- A better way to extend the features and create new extensions.
- Good support from the community and tons of development companies are available to help.
Disadvantages Of Moving Your Magento 1 To Magento 2
In the previous paragraph, I said that the Magento 2 is the future however, it involves lots of complexities and problems too while upgrading and migrating your Magento store.
- The more complex your Magento 1 store is, the more money you have to invest in upgrading this to Magento 2. Some good Magento development companies charge more than 50,000.00 USD to migrate and upgrade your current store from version 1 to the latest Magento version 2.x. This depends on how easy or complex your store is. Some development agencies also charge less than 10k to upgrade if your store is simple. It also depends on where you are getting your upgrade done. If your project is outsourced to a less expensive agency, you might pay less to upgrade it. However, take extra precautions in choosing the right agency.
- Theming – your existing design theme can not be moved to Magento 2 at all. It is not a good transition. So, you will either have to design your current theme from scratch or redesign your site completely on Magento 2 responsive theme architecture. I would suggest the latter part as you are spending money and putting the site on the latest trends and design is something you should look for.
- Many Magento 1.x extensions are not available on Magento 2. No doubt, there are some inbuilt features in Magento 2 that can help you not use some of your existing plugins; however, still many customized extensions are not available in Magento 2.
- Time-consuming process – this entire thing is very time-consuming. From planning to execution, everything needs proper research, a better plan, and then execution. It involves many important stages like existing data transfer, third party data transfer, third party extensions, customization in the store, development, retaining of SEO, theming, new customization, etc. It could be an affair of 3-6 months.
- There could be some SEO risk that affects your site ranking – proper study, planning, and implementation are needed by an experienced SEO auditor for your site.
- If you are an enterprise customer, now licensing is more expensive than your current licensing. However, I would say it’s worth the cost.
- Stability issues – Magento 2 is a powerful and extendible platform but it comes with existing bugs, missing elements, unavailability of extensions, etc. You require a good developer with you all the time to help you if anything affects your business. Keeping your store stable all the time should be the biggest goal of your Magento 2 developers.
What Are Your Risks If You Still Stay With Magento 1.X
After 18 months, when the support and security patches from Adobe Magento are stopped, all the websites still using this platform will be an easy target for hackers for server attacks, website hacking, spamming, and other theft of your data and customer details.
If there are any existing bugs, issues, etc., that come after 1.5 years, you will have to manage them on your own or hire someone to fix that.
When Is The Right Time To Migrate And Upgrade My Magento 2 Store?
All that means is you should go for migration when it is possible. I would suggest an off-season time to upgrade your Magento store when your sales are not at their peak.
Also, if you already have many issues, your design is outdated, and features are missing that you wanted in your store – go for the migration, upgrading, and redesigning of your Magento 1 as soon as possible.
How To Prepare For Magento 2 Migration?
There are a couple of important points that I will mention here that can help you do the planning and execution better.
Features and Functionalities– Make a document of all the existing features on your website, how they work on the frontend and how they work on the backend. Also, consult with a Magento 2 expert. He will help you to eliminate some of the features which are already part of Magento 2.
Choose the right time – Think about the offseason of your business and decide to start this project by that time and launch the new site in the same offseason. Neither starting the project nor launching the project in the peak season is good.
Create a migration plan– sit with your developer, and give as many details as possible. Have dozens of conversations about your business and ask them to prepare the proper upgrade and migration plan with a proper timeline for launching.
Also, go to our Magento migration service page and see how we can help you achieve this goal. Here is the link to our service: https://www.bizspicedev.wpenginepowered.com/magento-2-services/magento-2-migration-services.html