Why should you move from Magento 1 to Magento 2?
Magento is starting to slowly move from the first version, Magento 1 to the new version Magento 2. They are giving users an opportunity to update their sites by 2020. Naturally, a few questions arise – Does staying on Magento 1 pose any risk to your brand or website? If so, what can be done?
Possible risks of staying on Magento 1:
The most obvious risk of staying on Magento 1 is security, the core of your Magento website.
Security is one of the most important aspects of any eCommerce website. You must protect your clients from phishing and other fraudulent activities that happen online every day. As such, we would highly recommend improving your website security by making use of the latest technology for your eCommerce development site.
Given the fact that Magento 1 will be abandoned in less than a year (in June 2020!), the attention will swiftly shift to Magento 2. But this isn’t all, security updates won’t be available for your Magento 1 website anymore! This would leave your website vulnerable to different types of cyber-attacks, such as hacking. This puts your website and its potential visitors (your clients!) at a high-security risk.
Any other risks of staying on Magento 1?
While security could be more than a good enough reason to migrate to Magento 2, there are even more factors to consider, such as updating modules. Sooner or later, developers will abandon the 1.0 platform. This means that updates will not be available and will cause the functionality of your website to deteriorate, which could affect how clients and visitors interact with your website. Eventually, your clients will leave for other, newer stores that offer a much improved customer experience.
Another reason to move as soon as possible to Magento 2 would be the time constraints. Migrating to Magento 2 can take a few months depending on the complexity of your business. This is why we wouldn’t recommend migrating to Magneto 2 in the last couple of minutes. This would mean that the migration would be rushed, things might be omitted, and your customer’s overall experience wouldn’t be optimal. This could lead to a loss of customers that might never end up returning.
And last but not least, the most obvious disadvantage would be the drastic reduction in the number of Magento 1 developers. This is normal, as technology advances and Magento will move to the new version, so will the developers. Very few, if any developers will take projects on Magento 1 starting from 2020. So if you don’t migrate now, you probably won’t be able to find anyone to work on your outdated website starting from next year. You also have to keep in mind that the payment gateways may no longer work due to missing security updates! This basically means that your customers won’t be able to pay for the products on your website!
What are the benefits of moving to Magento 2?
Before we get into the benefits of moving to Magento 2, let’s start with the benefits of staying with Magento 1 – and except for the low cost, there is no benefit of staying with Magento 1. Sure, you might end up saving a penny today, but what about next year, when your ecommerce store will be outdated and unusable? You’ll end up spending more money then. Other than waiting until the migration deadline to re-platform your website, what should you look forward to while switching platforms? Here are a few things to consider:
Increase in volume – Magento 2 is designed to handle more orders on a daily basis. It also accommodates a higher volume of SKUs. This means that you can serve more clients and manage the traffic during peak hours more easily.
Mobile responsive – The Magento 2 eCommerce development platform allows you to provide your clients with a better mobile experience. More people are making purchases and transactions through their mobile phones and you will be able to attract more clients with an attractive and user-friendly mobile design.
Faster loading speed – Magento 2 is designed to load up to 50% faster than Magento 1. This is great because visitors abandon slow sites. If your website isn’t loaded within 3-4 seconds, the customers bounce off the site. However, on the new platform, the speed will be greatly improved, which means that you keep all the clients who visit your site. This is great for SEO as well, since the bounce-rate will be much lower. This makes Magento 2 better for SEO as well.
Ease of use and management – The new interface will be much more intuitive and easier to use. It will make managing your Magento website a lot easier.
Easier checkout steps – There will be fewer steps in the checkout process, which translate to less abandoned carts, thus you get more sales in.
There are also benefits for admins!
Migrating to Magento 2 will also come with a multitude of improvements for website admins. These include:
A more intuitive admin interface – your administrator can perform more tasks on the new Magento 2 platform. This gives them more control over the appearance of the website and all transactions.
You also get benefits that include PCI certification and the ease of developing other solutions that are beyond Magento.
Having a professional team of developers taking care of your website is of utmost importance. Migrating to Magento 2 is not an easy task, as it involves effort, being an entirely new platform with substantial framework differences from Magento 1. The extensions and the custom code will need to be reviewed, rewritten, and made compatible with Magento 2 as well. Our team of dedicated and experienced developers at JustTemplateIT can help you bring your website up-to-date by migrating it to the newest version of Magento.
Don’t wait until the last moment to migrate to Magento 2. It will have to be done sooner or later, and sooner is always better (and cheaper). We have a number of approved Magento specialists ready to offer assistance and to professionally upgrade your older Magento 1.x stores to the latest Magento 2.x versions. Give us a call today!