Editor’s note: Magento 1 has come to end of life (EOL) with Adobe no longer providing support and security patches. This means websites that haven’t migrated to Magento 2 are highly vulnerable to hacks and security breaches. Website owners considering moving over to Magento 2 should know that its architecture is different from Magento 1; hence, you’ll need to perform manual data migration. Partnering with a professional Magento development company can help migrate the entire products, customers, and sales data seamlessly and securely.
In November 2015, Magento 2.0 was finally released to the world. A lot of speculations were doing the rounds that 3 years after this release, Magento would cease to support all the previous versions of Magento 1.x.
This means that by the end of 2018, the websites running on version 1.x would stop receiving the security updates (essential for their site safety), and the on-going support from Magento completely.
Why Should You Upgrade to Magento 2?
Running a store on an unsafe and outdated platform will lead to site slowdown and performance issues, irreparable bugs, loss of PCI compliances as well as security breaches – that can negatively impact your business.
You would also be losing on the competitive advantage to the upgraded sites, since no new feature would be introduced in the obsolete version of Magento.
And even though a few independent developers might be willing to support version 1.x for a couple of years to keep you going; their focus too, would eventually shift to the latest versions.
The technology with the newer version will significantly impact the administrative back end and the customer-facing front end of your store. The fact necessitates either upgrading the ecommerce platform to Magento 2.0, or simply changing the platform entirely.
Is It a Smooth Migration ?
No, the migration to Magento 2.0 is not automated like most other upgrades. In fact, it is slightly complicated and a time consuming process – since a lot depends upon a store’s intricacies and the extensions used.
The data migration tools have to be ‘customized’ before they can be used to transfer data such as store settings, product catalog, categories, order and sales data, customer data, promo rules, wishlists etc. from M1 database to M2 database.
Media files can also be copied and pasted at appropriate places on M2 database.
However, the theme and code customizations of the store are non-transferable, since they may involve numerous third party extensions. This means you would have to invest extra time in installing and resetting it all over again on Magento 2.0.
The transition to M2 may sound intimidating today and while some would still prefer sticking to the older versions; it will be unavoidable in the coming years. With the new businesses adapting Magento 2 to optimize their operations in order to drive growth, you would be left with no choice but to upgrade.
Magento 2 Features
Make sure you do NOT use RAW and TIF file types for your images. Both are unusable for the web because of their large size and must be converted to JPEG, GIF or PNG before being uploaded.
- The new backend Admin panel has an intuitive drag-drop layout that will help in reducing the time to manage an online store. The user interface is optimized and friendly even for non-technical users.
- The responsive web design (more focus on mobile responsiveness) and faster performance due to full page caching will account for more sales and better SEO.
- Magento 2 easily integrates plenty of additional extensions, including the popular payment gateways and will also cater to video and theme integrations.
- Unlike the previous versions, the checkout process is more streamlined to increase the conversions and retain customers.
- It has easy installations, maintenance and updates, adding to its flexibilities.
Conclusion
Magento 2 is set to offer innovative opportunities to all businesses and developers across the world, to deliver an engaging omnichannel shopping experiences to their users.
The transition is a good opportunity for you to implement newer ideas. Discard what you don’t need and revamp your store for a more smoother and better functionality and enhanced customer experience.
Of course the sooner you move, the smoother the transition will be. You would have more time to catch up with the new technology, implement trial and error, and stay ahead of your competitors.
Not sure how to start ? Contact us for a free analysis of your Magento 2 upgrade.