Why You Should Migrate to Magento’s Latest Version

1. Why Why You Should You Should M Migrate Latest Version Latest Version igrate to to Magento Magento’ ’s s It has been 8 years since Magento was first announced to the e-commerce industry back in 2010 but its beta version was only made available to the merchants in 2015 with a couple of more recent editions till date. And the reaction of Magento community? Well, it kind of mixed where though most people are excited about these latest releases, there are many still contemplating whether migrating or upgrading to Magento’s latest version is worth all the hype. In this article, we will help them make the right decision. What about Magento 1? Initially, Magento was built as a flexible platform allowing its users to create multiple storefronts with the help of pre-made extensions or through coding chops. However, this defining feature of Magento 1 not only came with its own set of drawbacks that severely affected its user-friendliness but certain important tools were also missing right out of the box, tools such as mobile responsiveness, performance optimization, admin capabilities etc. Due to this, a great many complaints were registered for the sluggishness of Magento 1 version. Though changes were made, they weren’t enough to have any lasting effect on the underlying issue of core speed. As a result, the programming experts in Magento team worked hard for over 5 years to design this upgraded platform known as Magento 2. What changes can we expect in Magento 2?

2. Let’s begin with the fact that there’s no turning back for Magento. Sooner or later, the Magento community will learn to work with Magento 2 series up until the time Magento 3 is introduced into the market. Also, not upgrading to Magento 2 also means that after a certain time, you will stop receiving any security or functionality updates for your themes, plugins and the overall platform itself. So, instead of thinking about some vague benefits you might or might not get in the future, let’s talk about some of the certain changes we can expect the moment we migrate to Magento’s latest version. •Magento has introduced new admin user interface that can easily be rendered on mobile, other features of this admin panel include responsive design and customizable grids for better control on product filters. •Magento 2 offers a new code base that simplifies the customization of its various stores and makes deployment that much flexible. Also, the APIs used are much more efficient in allowing Magento developers to operate with any 3rd party solution. •Though product creation and rich content has always been one of Magento’s primary features, its latest version, with the help of integrations with YouTube and Vimeo and a newly guided product creation workflow has facilitated much more efficient response times, making the overall process less demanding in the backend. •Magento 2 has greatly enabled the efficiency of site owners to operate more freely, thus helping their businesses grow faster. Thanks to the by default indexers in Magento 2 that transform all the user data into index tables that help boost the query speed and improve the performance of your Magento store. •Earlier, creating content was strictly limited to the user’s ability to code (or required outsourcing) but with Magento acquisition of Bluefoot, improvements in creating new content along with page builder module are on its way and can be expected to integrate directly into Magento coding as an upgrade assistance in 2.3 version. •Another change in Magento 2 is the simplification of checkout process that requires much less information and completes the process in few steps. Also, customers can directly create their account on the order page. All this has greatly improved the conversion rates along with enhancing the customer’s shopping experience. How long will it take to migrate to Magento 2?

3. There are a number of factors that affect the amount of time it takes for the migration to complete such as the complexity of store, data migration requirements, number of customizations, extensions required etc. but typically, for an average size store with minimal 3rd party integrations, it normally takes from 3 to 6 months. What will this migration cost? Due to the varying nature of Magento projects, predicting the exact cost of migration is pretty hard. Your choice of Community or Enterprise edition will also have a considerable impact on pricing. You will get exact estimates only after the evaluation of your current Magento implementation by a reputable web design company. Will the migration be an inconvenience? I wish I could have sugarcoated this but the answer is yes, it will be inconvenient during the migration period and may require extra investments. Because of the vast difference in the internal structure of Magento 1 and 2, this upgrade will require a complete database migration. Unfortunately, even then you cannot transfer 3rd party extensions and code customizations. Also, your SEO may suffer too unless you take care of 301 redirects first. Bottom Line: It isn’t the question of, whether you should migrate or not but when you should do it because sooner or later, your only choices will come down to, either upgrade to the progressive Magento 2 and be a part of this ever-growing community or pack up and go home. So, choose wisely.