Magento 1 => 2 Upgrade

Time is running out to upgrade your Magento 1 store to Magento 2. With Magento 1 EOL officially announced as June 2020 back in September 2018, it is strongly recommended that all Magento 1 stores are upgraded to Magento 2 by this time.

From June 2020, Magento will cease supporting version 1 of their platform, this includes releasing any security patches or supporting any documentation. This applies to both Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE). With Magento being such a widely used platform, it will quickly become vulnerable and exposed to malicious attacks risking your customers confidential information and with no support from the official developers of Magento, it could prove a very costly task to manually patch the software yourself with your own development hire.

Benefits

Aside from the obvious support and security elements above, there are many other benefits in upgrading to Magento 2...

Magento 2 was built with a completely different architecture, designed with improved security, speed and performance at the forefront of it's benefits.

Heightened Security

• Password hashing algorithm strengthened (SHA-256).
• A more flexible file system ownership and permissions requirement.
• Prevention of cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
• Prevention of clickjacking exploits.
• Use of a non-default Magento admin URL minimising brute force attacks.
• Requires version 7 of PHP which is up-to-date and more secure.
• Supported, maintained, improved with regular security patch updates.

You can read more on Magento 2 security here.

Up to 50% Faster

• The entire structure of Magento 2 loads faster across the board.
• Improved coding techniques and flow structure for speed.
• Quicker queries to the database so can handle traffic spikes more efficiently.
• Faster checkout process reducing cart abandonment.

Better out-of-the-box Search Functionality

• Magento 2 uses Elasticsearch which is more powerful and scalable.
• Includes both suggestions and recommendations.
• Improved speed of finding and returning search results.
• No disruption to customer as results returned from last completed index.

More Mobile Search Engine Friendly

• The improved general speed of page loading will help pages rank in search engines.
• Designed for mobile first, coupled with speed means better rankings with AMP.
• Responsive for mobiles and tablets as well as dekstop devices.

Timescale

For a small sized, relatively basic Magento store, we'd usually be recommending at least a three month window to carry out the upgrade and ensuring all data is migrated cleanly and a well built theme is rebuilt in Magento 2 and that's a like for like transition. Of course, any additions or changes, whether in the design or functionality, could require additional time.

For any medium to large sized Magento store serious about eCommerce, we're recommending anywhere up to 12 months to allow for complete upgrade,especially for those stores incorporating any brand, theme, design or functionality changes in to the switch over to Magento 2. With now only 12 months until June 2020, now is a really good time to start thinking about your Magento upgrade so that there's no danger of you leaving it to late.

FAQ

Q: I'm currently using Magento 1, what should I do?

A: With only 12 months until Magento 1 EOL, try to start gathering some ball park quotations to upgrade your existing store to Magento 2. This will allow you to determine how much money you will need to make the switch or if you can even afford it (we've spoken to numerous businesses that went from Magento 1 to another eCommerce platform altogether, usually Shopify, instead of making the switch to Magento 2).

Q; Should I even stick with Magento or move to other software?

A: There's never a one size fits all kind of answer and only you can really establish whether Magento is right for you. Just the ongoing costs of hiring a specialist in Magento, design (theme) tweaks, minor changes, updating/patching and solid reliable hosting comes at a cost. Magento 2 is not simple for just anyone to pick up, in terms of development and working with the file architecture and structure, this will require an experienced professional developer.

Q: Do I really need to allow up to 12 months for the upgrade?

A: Realistically, possibly (probably) not. But, every store is different and based on our years worth of experience, we've picked up a lot of Magento 1 clients in the past with a website in a very bad shape due to previous developers messing things up because they haven't understood how to work with Magento. So of course, if your store is a mess, this could take some time to make possibly to upgrade to Magento 2 and migrate all of your data over. A seamless like for like upgrade could be carried out successfully within a week, albeit, that's very unlikely you'll find an agency equipped with the skillset and resource to solely work on this upgrade project and not encounter any problems along the way.

Q: Can I use my existing theme?

A: If you've purchased a premium off-the-shelf theme previously that your store is currently using, then chances are they've probably built the same theme for Magento 2 (you'd have to check with them directly). Whether you've purchased a pre-built theme or had one built for your brand bespoke though, the answer is no, you can't simply move your theme over to Magento 2, it has to be rebuilt for Magento 2 (which shouldn't take a competent frontend designer too long if it is like for like).

On another note though, if you do use an off-the-shelf theme, we'd highly advise against this without consulting an expert as many of them are bloated with tons of garbage that a) you don't need, b) shouldn't touch and c) just end up making your website slower. We'd only recommend a business works with a premium pre-made theme if their budget is very minimal.

Q: Will I lose any data?

A: No, a successful upgrade to Magento 2 will ensure your data (customer records, sales records, newsletter subscribers etc) will all be backed up and migrated into the Magento 2 database.

Got a question we've not answered here? Feel free to comment with your question below...

About

We are Clubnet Digital. A full service eCommerce agency with over ten years experience working with Magento. We've helped more than 350 Magento stores perform better online and have been providing a full range of digital services including (but not limited to) frontend theme design, backend development, bespoke features, extension development and extending, speed load optimisation, technical optimisation for SEO, ongoing marketing (organic and paid), conversion optimisation, optimal hosting.

Contact

If you need to upgrade your store to Magento 2 by June 2020, please get in touch with us for a completely free no-obligation chat, to make an enquiry or request a quotation.

You can reach out to us either via my LinkedIn profile or via our website.