According to Builtwith.com, over 450,000 Magento store websites are running but only 4% of them use Magento 2. Magento 1 received support and updates till November 2018, but Magento 1 End of life is near. We have simplified the migration procedure to Magento 2 for store owners.
Let’s understand the transition from Magento 1 to Magento 2 for eCommerce websites.
Magento 1 End of Life
Many merchants all over the world are worrying about their Magento 1 End of life store as the company has announced an end of support for Magento in June 2020. Magento wants to ensure that users get enough time to upgrade to Magento 2. Along with a Facelift, Magento 2 rolled out new features to deliver a unique experience to the users. The new version resolved a lot of common frustrations and offered new features to online retailers.
For Magento Commerce 1 (formerly known as Enterprise Edition):
For Magento Commerce 1, software support would be provided by June 2020. The quality fixes and security patches may depend on the version you use. Please have a look at Magento Software Lifecycle Policy to find out how your version of Magento Commerce 1 is supported.
For Magento Open Source 1 (formerly known as Community Edition):
For this edition, support would be provided through June 2020. Kindly visit Legal Terms page to get a clear understanding of Magento 1 and how it will remain secure and compliant.
Since Magento 2.0 was launched in November 2015, end of support rumors was widespread. But as the saying goes, “When one door opens, another one closes.” What will happen to Magento 1 when a newer version is out? This update will affect more than 250,000 retailers worldwide who are still using the original platform.
Magento has revealed that the support will end in 2020, which is a great relief to the merchants as they have plenty of time for upgrading & migrating their website in Magento 2.x.
The introduction of Magento 2 created excitement and curiosity among the users. Developers and users who expected enhanced performance and scalability had shown a lot of interest in this new version of the eCommerce platform.
Magento 1 sites would be running on PHP 5.6 and support will end on 31st December 2018. Support for PHP 7.0 will end on 3rd December 2018. Merchants do not need to worry as Magento has released an original patch to make Magento 1 compatible with PHP 7.2.
How will Magento 1 End of Life affect my website?
In a nutshell, it won’t. If you keep your website updated with Magento’s security patches and choose a good hosting solution, then this will not affect your site. Website owners or developers should run security checks on the website and audit it on a regular basis.
Remember that Magento will continue to release the security patches till June 2020 but no new features would be released for Magento 1 open source.
What are the benefits of upgrading to Magento 2?
One of the major benefits of Magento 2 is that it improves the page loading speed. With Magento2, one can expect 30% to 50% faster page loads. Faster page loading means you can expect more orders on your website. More user interaction with your website means more and more users would add-to-cart and this would result in more sales.
Managing more products on your website becomes easier with Magento 2. Magento 1 was capable of handling up to around 10,000 to 25,000 products while Magento 2 can handle 10 times that amount. Management of the products becomes easier from the admin panel. The new modernized admin panel is loved by the merchants worldwide.
When is the best time to move?
If you ask different merchants about when to migrate the eCommerce website, no two merchants would have the same answer.
If your Magento 1 website has several issues, you can think of migrating it to Magento 2. If your store runs smoothly, you can still use Magento 1 and wait until Magento end of life. You should start preparing for Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration so that you do not have to run the last minute. It may take about 3 to 6 weeks for the transition. Early planning will make the migration easier and you’ll have plenty of time to test-drive your new website. Start looking for expert Magento 2 developers having a strong technical background to make the transition smoother. i-Verve has a team of certified Magento developers who are there to help you with Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration.
How to migrate Magento 1 to Magento 2?
Before you start the actual migration process, you should consider the following:
Try to think about this process as moving into a new house. As you know, there are a lot of valuables that you would want to keep at your new home while the need to discard a few items that are no longer required. The same rule applies to your eCommerce website also. While migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2, you get a chance to re-think whether you need the products, categories, and pages that are already there on your existing website.
Here’s what you should do before entering the migration process:
- Make a backup of the website that includes all the files, folders, and database. You should not be using the live store for the Magento migration process.
- Jot down a list of unwanted products, features, and pages. There are chances that you would have made mistakes while building your eCommerce store using Magento 1. You can fix those errors and transfer what you actually require and discard the features and functionality that you no longer need.
- Make a note of unwanted products, pages, and features. You’ve probably made a mistake or two when building your website using Magento 1. This is the time to fix those errors and transfer what you actually need.
- Think about the future while migrating the website. A transition like this can be used as an advantage too.
- Since you’ll need to optimize your website’s theme for Magento 2, this is an excellent reason to make some design tweaks. Try to make your website more user-friendly.
Theme Migration
Magento 2 comes up with new technologies and methodologies for delivering better store experience to the users as well as merchants. Developers can create new Magento 2 themes or modify the existing ones to make sure that they’re compatible with Magento 2 standards.
You need to understand that you cannot directly migrate your Magento 1 theme to Magento 2. Hence, install the best theme from Magento marketplace or other reliable sources and make it responsive to enhance the user experience.
There are 2 major options for theme integration:
- Custom theme
- Commercial theme
Custom theme
Developers design new themes from the scratch and set up the layout in the Magento 2 website. Some clients look for new designs for Magento 2 website, while a few others love to use the old design. Expert Magento developers can help you get custom theme as per your requirements.
Commercial theme
Some online markets provide commercial themes with different features. Choose the best commercial paid themes from https://themeforest.net/ or https://www.templatemonster.com/
Extension Migration
Extensions are important components of Magento store that add the desired features or functionality to your website. You can install Magento 2 extensions from Magento 2 marketplace.
Keep in mind that Magento 1 extensions won’t work on Magento 2 as both platforms support the different coding structure and also directory structure is a change in both platforms. You should install the desired extensions to add the required functionality to your website. Magento developers and community is working hard to help users port Magento 1 extensions to Magento 2.
If your client is using any third party extension in Magento 1 website, then the same vendor also provides the same extension compatible with Magento 2 with a price tag (if any). If the same vendor does not provide the extension in Magento 2 platform, you can search the same feature extension with different vendors.
Customization
As described above, both platforms have different coding standards and structure. If any custom module has been created in the Magento1 website, a developer needs to check the workflow, coding standards, and accordingly, he can create the same feature custom module in the Magento2.
Data Migration
This is the last action needed to migrate Magento 1 settings and data to Magento 2. Magento 2 Data Migration Tool has been released by Magento to make the process easier for developers and users. Developers can migrate the store data and settings by using CLI commands. One can make the migration process easier and hassle-free by doing this.
Data migration tool can help to migrate the data from Magento 1 to the database of Magento 2 according to the standard rules defined in the XML files.
Magento2 data migration tools:
- github.com
- ubertheme.com
- litextension.com
It may not be possible to migrate themes, extensions, and code customizations to Magento 2. You may have to contact the respective providers to get help for exporting the elements to the Magento 2 platform.
Payment gateways and Shipping Integration
Magento 2 is integrated with a few payment gateways such as PayPal, Authorize.net, and Braintree, while some shipping carriers like FedEx, DHL, and UPS are also configured. If you want to add external payment gateways or shipping carriers, you can find appropriate modules to be integrated with your Magento 2 store. If there’s no extension available for the shipping method you’re planning to add to your website, you can ask your Magento website developer to build an API.
Configure the new Magento 2 store
After the migration of the theme, extensions, and data is completed, you can configure the new store. Customize the CMS pages, set up tax and shipping methods and you’re good to go.
More code to the live website
Once the development task is completed, you can push the code from the development website to a live site.
Magento 2 Migration: Is it worth the efforts?
One important thing you need to know is that Magento will stop providing support for Magento 1. Though you’ll have to bear the costs of hiring developers for Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration, it’s worth investing to manage issues such as slow performance, security, and user-friendliness. You should start preparing for the big move.
What are the benefits of migrating to Magento 2?
- Improved performance
- Faster loading speed
- Streamlined checkout
- Better admin interface
- Mobile friendly
Architectural differences:
The major issue with Magento 1 is the store performance that is significantly improved in Magento 2. Various new technologies have been added – Apache, Symfony, Composer, Nginx 1.3 or greater.
Notable Architecture differences are:
- Magento 2 supports the latest PHP versions. These versions include security improvements that affect the store’s speed in a positive manner.
- Reduction in unnecessary browser’s operations on the client’s side due to bundled and minimized JavaScript.
- Better browser caching for static content.
Responsive and search engine friendly:
- Magento 2’s responsive front-end design makes it easy to browse the website on all the devices. This is a big advantage because Google’s algorithms have been officially favoring mobile-friendly websites in making them rank higher.
- This responsive design also enhances user experience.
Ajax add-to-cart:
- Every time a product is added to the cart in Magento 1, the system reloads the page, which has a negative impact on its performance.
- This can amount to seconds, having to wait even only a few seconds can cause customers to abandon their carts.
- If you’re selling products of smaller value or your customers usually add more products to their carts, this is an issue you can’t disregard.
- Thanks to Ajax add-to-cart, the new system doesn’t have to reload the entire page when a new item is added to cart, which also enhances user experience.
Full Page Caching:
With full-page caching, a fully-generated page can be read directly from the cache which is way faster compared to the default Magento setting. In Magento 2 full page cache is available out-of-the-box, thus you don’t need to bother about it.
Extensions:
- There are a lot of 3rd party extensions available in the market for Magento 1. However, the problem was the extension conflicts when two or more extensions try to rewrite the same functionality. This issue was resolved manually and it costs time and efforts.
- With Magento 2, plugins allow code to overlap core code rather than overwrite it.
Also Read: Magento Commerce 2.2 Ends: Time For Upgrading Ecommerce Store to Magento 2.3
Magento 2.3 New features
- Progressive Web apps: Progressive Web Apps, also known as PWA’s will be the future of eCommerce. They add a unique look and feel to the native apps. Magento is all set to launch its PWA studio with 2.3 version. It is a robust toolkit that includes all the required tools to help developers create the best Magento front end.
- Page Builder: Magento 2.3 will come with the enhancement of native CMS platform. Page builder comes with drag and drops layout management feature that offers an amazing option to non-technical users. Even a layman get to create a smooth UX for the Magento 2 website.
- Google ReCAPTCHA: Google reCAPTCHA ensures that only humans would access your online store. This latest version of Magento can use Google reCAPTCHA and help users access Command Line Interface and Composer support.
- Declarative Database Schema: Website owners can expect a declarative database system that allows Magento developers to restructure the part of modules with coding. It would bring a lot of performance improvements and reduce the bugs. It will ease and simplify the development process.
- Import/Export Improvements: The latest version of Magento would bring a new import/export feature that will offer a lot of improvements in the speed of the store. Users and developers would not have to rely on 3rd party extensions for the import/export feature of the website.
- Two-factor authentication: Magento 2.3 version will be coming with enhanced security. The end users would get stronger security with IT.
- Elastic Search: This 3rd party search engine runs on a dedicated and can be improved according to the in-store search results. eCommerce already features elastic search but we can expect some upgrades to the 2.3 version.
- Multi-Store Inventory: Multi-store inventory feature allows the store owners to manage the inventory in different sources rather than using 3rd party extensions. Shipping of orders from multiple warehouses and retail stores can also be tracked. It helps to improve the performance of the store.
To conclude:
It is recommended to upgrade your online store to more secure, fast and efficient Magento 2.3, adding performance and ease of maintaining. Always hire Magento Pros to migrate to Magento 2, it will save your time, efforts, money and avoid data loss while upgrading. At i-Verve we design, build, launch and maintain Magento stores from beginning to end. Magento development services providing company can help Small, Medium and Enterprise Businesses, contact us for Migration, Upgrades, Custom Extensions, and Managed Services.
