This article is mostly written for Magento 1.x merchants who have yet to make plans for migrating to 2.x; however those merchants who are already in the process will also benefit from some of the planning and process insights we provide.
It’s Not Too Late to Migrate from M1 to M2
There are obviously a number of reasons merchants who are still running Magento 1.x (CE or EE) should upgrade / migrate to 2. Even if the architecture of your site is very simple (single product / minimal SKUS etc) and you have no issues with performance and order throughput it’s very important to understand the key reasons why you should complete a migration off of 1.X prior to Summer 2020:
1. Security:
Magento will stop supporting 1.X including the most recent version of 1.9 in June 2020. This means there will be no security patches or fixes for hacks after that time. People looking to exploit weaknesses on e-commerce sites know this and will no doubt be looking to identify sites that are still on 1.x at the end of support. So, security vulnerability is a key primary reason.
2. Proven Upgrade For Old Tech:
2.X has a number of improvements and since it has now been out for a few years migrating now provides you the benefit of knowing that earlier versions of 2.X have been thoroughly tried and tested – you are upgrading to a proven platform – a market-tested version of the world’s most popular e-commerce software.
3. Enhanced Performance:
There are a number of performance enhancements in CE and EE/ Cloud 2.X. You can google this but most measures indicate somewhere around 20% speed improvement minimum. As developers, we have definitely noticed improvements in site speed for the merchants that we help migrate.
4. Enhanced Checkout / Improved Conversion Rate:
One of the most noticeable changes your customers will notice is a much faster checkout sequence – including the out-of-the-box single page checkout.
5. Mobile-Enhanced:
Magento 2 has a responsive front-end and it’s core theme (LUNA) looks great on Smartphones without much tinkering. Of course, every implementation that uses this theme has some level of customization, but overall this lends itself to fast performance and Google indexability. It’s no secret that Google has been “favoring†sites that are mobile-enabled for years now, meaning higher search rankings for very little additional effort.
6. Much-Improved Admin Dashboard:
We continue to hear from all of the merchants that we upgrade that the administrative dashboard in M2 is much, much easier to use; easier to add / modify products, categories, deal with extensions and create reports – all much easier in Magento 2!
7. Easier Testing:
The built-in testing framework in Magento 2 makes regression testing much easier and much more replicable than in Magento 1. The result is shorter pre-launch testing and re-testing periods.
8. Easier To Integrate:
Magento has always been praised for its ability to integrate with 3rd party systems and software. Now in EE Magento 2 comes with built-in RabbitMQ (Message Queue) framework that monitors the communication between Magento and other systems. So, Integration is even easier and comes with a built-in tool to facilitate management of integrations.
9. Elastic Search (EE):
Enhanced site search with Elastic search comes out of the box in Magento 2. Other popular site search services such as Algolia are also a lot easier to configure for M2 versus M1.
10. B2B Features (EE):
Magento 2 EE and Cloud comes with a number of new B2B features that allow a b2b merchant to manage companies, customers, separate prices for separate customers, purchase on credit and more right out of the box. Note that these B2B features require Enterprise / Cloud Edition. CE does have a number of B2B extensions available in the Magento marketplace.
Magento’s Sunset Schedule for Magento 1.X
If you are running a 1.x version of Community Edition Magento you need to plan on all security patches ending in June of 2020. This means you should seriously consider planning for completing a migration by that date.
If you are running 1.X version of Magento Enterprise you can plan on Magento support for those products ending according to the table in our helpful blog article. Read more to get up to speed.
What To Do Next
In the last two years, we have completed multiple M1 to M2 migrations. The time it takes is obviously impacted by a number of factors, including:
- Size of the catalog,
- complexity of the catalog,
- integrations,
- and amount of data that needs to be migrated.
However, even very large projects can be completed within a 6 month window and smaller or less complex projects can be completed in 90-120 days.
So, the good news is, you can still migrate to Magento 2 with time to spare, but it’s time to start talking about it – Now.
We’re a Certified Magento Solution Partner that can help. In fact, we have a number of incentives including low hourly rates on certified Magento Development and Integration Engineers.
It’s important to engage in this type of project by the end of Q3, 2019. That will allow for a timeline that gives you as a merchant plenty of buffer to get the work done and avoid the risks of operating M1 after Adobe has officially “sunset†the product next year.
Bottom Line
If you are still running Magento 1.X time is running out. Contact us for a quote on upgrading today! Click here to send us an inquiry and we will schedule an initial call at your convenience.
