It is announced by Magento to end support for Magento 1 by June 2020. That means that days left for Magento 1 are numbered. If you are running a Magento Commerce 1 business, it’s time to think about migration to Magento 2 today. And we’ve done some research to help you get going.
Overview
WHAT IS MAGENTO 2?
Released back in 2015, Magento 2 was welcomed with open arms from their dedicated fans thanks to its revamped user-friendly interface. There are three separate editions to Magento 2:
– Magento 2 Community Edition (CE) – later renamed into Magento 2 Open Source. This is the free version that is recommended for developing businesses, startups, and small stores as this edition can help you check the features and logic easily and with minimum expenses.
– Magento 2 Enterprise Edition (EE) – later renamed into Magento 2 Commerce. This is a premium version that is tailored towards medium- and large-sized businesses. It gives users rich out-of-the-box features, an unlimited ability to customize, and seamless third-party integrations. Quotes for using this edition starts from $22,000 a year, which is significantly higher than most SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platforms.
– Enterprise Cloud Edition – later renamed into Magento 2 Commerce Cloud. This edition combines all Magento 2 Commerce features and adds enhanced Cloud infrastructure hosting, which now includes Git integration and key environments for development, staging, and live production. It is more suitable for large companies with complex requirements as this edition is flexible enough to cover all of them and offers a powerful admin experience.Prices to utilize this service have also been quoted much higher than the Enterprise Edition.
Due to cost, many eCommerce brands tend to opt for the Open Source edition. Based on recent data taken from BuiltWith, only 9% of Magento 2 users are using the Commerce Edition
BENEFITS OF MAGENTO 2
Admittedly, the new Magento 2 platform does have some beneficial features which resolve all of the issues encountered in Magento 1. Some of these benefits are:
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– Superior performance capabilities: Compared to Magento 1, Magento 2 runs on average 20% faster. Highly performant sites have been proven to create more sales and help sites rank better on search engines.
– Streamlined Checkout Process: Magento 1 has a hefty six (6) steps, while Magento 2 offers a simple 2 step checkout process and a more special feature called Instant Purchase feature. With Instant Purchase, merchants can now offer returning customers a faster checkout experience by using previously-stored payment credentials and shipping information to skip checkout steps altogether, taking them to a confirmation purchase page. Sites with easier and quicker check-out will also improve customers’ shopping experience, therefore will increase sales.
– Better Admin Interface: Perhaps the most significant pain point of Magento 1 was their admin interface, which was often touted as confusing for business users. Non-technical users experienced a great deal of difficulty in navigating through the platform. Magento 2 introduced a cleaner user-friendly interface where users can easily and quickly find tools and add new product listings.
– Mobile Friendly: A Magento 1 site could not deliver optimum performance on mobile devices. With 62 percent of customers making purchases via their smartphone, Magento 2 recognized this trend and made mobile responsiveness a priority on their platform.
– Superior shopping experiences: Magento 2 allows users to create compelling digital commerce environments with the intuitive drag-and-drop Page Builder feature and the groundbreaking Progressive Web App Studio.
STUDY SHOWING MIGRATING TO MAGENTO 2 IMPROVES REVENUE
Earlier this year, Magento collaborated with Stax, a global strategy consultancy, to carry out a research on business value associated with migration to Magento 2. The research is conducted on various businesses of different sizes and geographies. Key findings revealed insights about the decision-making process, KPIs, cost, and other benefits associated with upgrading commerce solution. According to Gregg Silver, engagement manager at Stax, migration to Magento Commerce 2 enables users to “drive revenue growth, increase average order value, improve website conversion rates, and increase site traffic”.
Cost-saving is the first thing to talk about migration to Magento 2. Sampled users experience a cost saving of 62% when deploying new content such as landing pages or landing pages. The reason behind this benefit is Magento’s intuitive user experience, which makes it easier for marketers to create and manage content. Magento 2 also offers a lot of free technical resources that helps marketers focus on higher value needs and create more tailored content. Moreover, Magento 2 also helps to save an average of 91% when purchasing and implementing an average Magento Commerce 2 extension, compared to building out comparable functionality on their previous platform. For example, on a competitive solution, it would cost $11,000 to replicate the functionality of a Magento Commerce 2 extension that only cost $1,000. Magento 2 also offer some premium extensions which can considerably cut down the cost and time on key capabilities such as marketing automation, shipping & logistics, payment and fraud protection, and more.
The second thing about Magento 2 that appears attractive to users is its flexibility to welcome extensions or customization. Users can easily customize their solution to meet specific needs of their business operations or marketing focus. This helps users to increase the efficiency of their business and earn more money. The research also points out other benefits that can help to drive sales, such as its scalable architecture, multi-site capabilities, or the more comprehensive security standards.
MIGRATING TO MAGENTO 2: WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND
For those customers considering a migration from Magento 1, the study indicated that they should focus on selecting an experienced implementation partner, which can be instrumental in mapping out their current setup and desired performance, preparing migration of data and processes, documenting the critical functionality for implementation, and designing a roadmap for future functionality needs.
After the planning and analysis process, users need to choose a theme and select Magento 2 extensions. You need to review all extensions since some of Magento 1 extensions do not work on the environment of Magento 2. And the last, final and most crucial step: data migration. The data to be transferred is already decided in the planning phase. Data migration will cover every aspect including products, customers, orders, configurations, promotions, pages and much more. Start your migration with the Data Migration Tool to help this task easier.
Source:
- Magento Blog | Study shows migrating to Magento Commerce 2 drives revenue growth
- Magento Blog | Best Practices: Migrating Magento 2 – What to know