Why Migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2 and How?

End of 2015, Magento released their Magento 2, leaving many merchants with the decision of moving from Magento 1 to Magento 2. Magento 2 or another provider, such as BigCommerce or Shopify Plus, became the preferred replatforming alternative for some merchants. However, it has been a few years since that decision was made and many merchants are still considering a solution.

This article will explain to retailers why an upgrade to Magento 2 is a good idea as the end of support for Magento 1 rapidly approaches. If you are having trouble with your Magento Store or website you can visit Magento Development Services Oshawa.

The Risks of Staying on Magento Community and Enterprise

Several factors might be causing you to delay your decision to switch platforms from Magento  Community or Enterprise. Overall, Magento can be an expensive platform to operate on, so you might want to make sure you get the most value for your money. It is, however, necessary for merchants to consider the new End of Life dates that are fast approaching and may affect the performance of your site. Among the risks of using Magento 1, there are the following:

Security Breaches

In June 2020, Magento will no longer publish security patches for Community and Enterprise 1.x sites, leaving them open to hacks and cyberattacks. Before that, PHP 5.6 will be the end of life on December 31st, 2018, so there won’t be any security updates for servers that host Magento websites. By staying on Magento 1, you expose your site and customers to serious security and performance concerns.

Module Updates

The Magento 1.x platform will no longer be supported. Due to this, many of its modules will also become outdated, since developers will move focus to Magento 2 extensions. If you do not plan ahead for future fixes or updates to these modules, your site may stop functioning properly.

Number of Magento 1 and 2 Developers

There are approximately 92,000 sites running Magento in the US, with 107 certified solution partners listed on Magento’s site. Your chances of finding a partner to support your migration within your timeline will diminish the longer you wait to upgrade Magento 1.

The development of Magento 1 will also be less attractive to Magento 1 certified developers in the future. Magento 2 is likely to attract the attention, resources, and training of most agencies.

Timeline

The End of Life deadlines are approaching, so migrating now is very important. Depending on the complexity of the migration, it can take between 3 and 7 months. Can you give us a date by which you expect to re-platform?

Consider the complexity and size of your website, as well as the number of products you offer. Migrations that involve a substantial amount of custom-built functionality or thousands of SKUs can take a long time.

Why Replatform to Magento 2

How is Magento 2 holding you back from switching over? The performance of Magento 2 is almost always superior to that of Magento 1. Having a better-performing website will lead to an increased conversion rate and ultimately, more sales for your company.

You can interact with your customers directly due to some of the new features of Magento 2:

1. Loading pages 50% faster
2. Managing larger volumes of SKUs and daily orders
3. Designing mobile apps that work better
4. Content creation and management made easier
5. Search and SEO features have been improved
6. Reducing checkout steps can reduce abandoned cards

You can also make Magento 2 easier to manage on the backend because of features such as:

1. User interface that is more intuitive
2. Magento’s extension quality team vets Marketplace
3. Customers are deployed on separate servers
4. The PCI Solution Provider Level 1 certification
5. An easy way to build and deploy your Magento store in the cloud

Additionally, Magento 2’s ability to handle B2B eCommerce needs should be noted. 93% of business buyers prefer to buy online, so you need to make sure your online presence meets expectations now more than ever.

1. Distribute customized price lists and catalogs to clients
2. Specific customer segments can be targeted with content and promotions
3. Optimize delivery times and fulfillment costs by using automated business rules
4. Optimized experiences for mobile devices
5. Purchasing options include entering SKUs, uploading CSV files, or choosing items  from pre-set requisition lists

Planning to Migrate to Magento 2: Magento Migration Guide

As you currently know, staying on Magento 1 poses significant risks. What does migration to Magento 2 entail? In order to properly understand Magento 2, you should know that it is an entirely new platform from Magento 1. You will have to migrate your product catalog, customers, orders, and theme/design between the two platforms.

It is important to plan what your ideal time to launch migration is for a successful migration. Depending on your store’s complexity and volume of data, a migration can take anywhere from three to seven months. Think about your peak selling times and seasonality when planning your launch date to avoid disrupting your business too much.

You should also ask the following questions:

1. During the migration, what site updates should I make?
2. Where are the migrations taking place?
3. How should I prepare for migration?
4. Does Magento 2 support third-party integration?

We recommend checking out 121eCommerce’s comprehensive guide to Magento 2 migration for answers to these questions. To ensure your migration to Magento 2 is a success, this guide will help you understand the process.

How to Migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2

Magento 2 is now being used by growing numbers of online retailers who previously used  Magento 1. As Magento will cease to support its 1.x versions after 2020, functional advantages, as well as strategic considerations, drive this migration trend. This is why so many owners of online stores are upgrading their stores with the latest technology.

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Why Your Website Should Be Migrated to Magento 2

Security Risks

It is the 2020 deadline for Magento 1.x-based online stores that is the most pressing problem. However, there are several other factors that should encourage you to migrate. Firstly, security is the most fundamental consideration when it comes to eCommerce websites.

Stores built on Magento 1 version may become vulnerable to a variety of threats once the support is withdrawn. In other words, maintaining a Magento 1 website after 2020 might pose a risk because you won’t have an official solution to security problems.

Mobile Friendliness

Smartphones are being used by a staggering number of consumers worldwide to shop online. There will only be more growth in this trend. Conversion rates are higher on mobile sites that are optimized for mobile devices, as well as sales growth. Magento 2 gives your store features to become more mobile-friendly, enabling you to keep up with the competition. A Magento 2-based store offers a superior user experience than a Magento 1-based store.

Better UI & UX

The Magento 2 eCommerce platform comes with an improved user interface (UI) that addresses a number of minor concerns of its predecessor. A new version of the website is mobile-friendly, responsive, and renders seamless experiences. With Magento 2, for example, add-to-cart responses are up to 66% faster than those of Magento 1.

Things You Need to Consider Before Migrating to Magento 2

Let’s review what you need to do before migrating to Magento 2. We’ve discussed the benefits of adopting Magento 2.

Manage your data: 

Business data that is irrelevant to the new store founded on Magento 2 should not be transferred. Data should be filtered to remove obsolete and irrelevant information. This task can be performed using a variety of data management tools. 

Rigorously review your website: 

Be sure to review your online store carefully before beginning the development and upgrading process. The following steps will allow you to drastically improve efficiency by addressing potential snags and bugs. Based on the results of this review, you can develop specific requirements for developers and designers.

Replicate the existing site:

An upgrade or migration of a website is always associated with some risk of data loss. Before completely redesigning an old website, it is safer to create a replica. Migrating the site can be accomplished using this database.

Freeze admin activities:

It is possible to alter your database as a result of continuing admin activities during the migration process. Admin activities should be temporarily stopped, so you should be prepared for this scenario. Data migrations will be patchy if you don’t follow these steps.

Finalize the migration blueprint: 

It is important to carefully plan the migration process. You will achieve the desired results when you implement your plan effectively. Make sure you don’t lose sight of your original plan unless something critical occurs.

Migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2

Theme Migration

You will begin the migration process with theme migration once you are done with the preparation stage. Theme migration is not supported by Magento’s standard tools. Magento Marketplace offers a wide range of themes for purchase or you can develop your own.

Extension Migration

It is important to determine whether this is the case when migrating Magento 1 extensions to Magento 2. In Magento 2, it is unlikely that you can use the same plugins you used in Magento 1. Plugins for Magento 2 will need to be built from scratch. Plugins that are currently available can be fixed through this update.

Website Customization Using Code Migration

You can customize your online store with Magento 2 by using code migration tools. Code migration may be greatly reduced when tools like these are utilized. Even so, the tools don’t finish the job by themselves. Following your use of the tools, you might need to manually edit the codes and test them.

Data Migration

The migration of data from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is one of the most critical aspects of migration. The following steps should be followed when migrating data:

Step 1: 

Magento 2 platform excluding sample data can be downloaded here. Complete the installation process by following the setup instructions.

Step 2: 

Make sure that you migrate all of your data to the new website with the help of a data migration tool. Magento’s official website has a migration tool that you can download.

Step 3: 

From the Magento website, feed the authorization keys.

Step 4: 

The data migration tool needs to be configured. Depending on whether you’re using a Community Edition or an Enterprise Edition, you’ll have to configure the software differently.

Step 5: 

After setting up, you need to map between Magento 1 and Magento 2 databases.

Step 6:

Stop administrative activities and prepare for the right migration.

Step 7:

Last but not least, your site migrates from Magento 1 to Magento 2, along with features like shipping, shopping cart, and payment processing.

Monitoring your Magento application

Your eCommerce website is your showcase. Make sure your customers have a wonderful experience by captivating their journey and making the buying process as simple as possible. Troubleshooting your Magento application can be very difficult without the right tools. Implementing an application performance management tool in your area can help you easily find and optimize your Magento application. Stackify’s APM tool, Retrace, makes it easy to find slow web requests, slow database queries, app errors, and view your app’s log.

Author Bio:

This article is written by Muhammad Usman. He is a young SEO Expert with bog dreams and currently working in an organization named Yazlo.CA. He can be found on Social media platforms like Linkedin.