Make the Move to Magento 2

Magento has announced that its landmark ecommerce platform, Magento 1, will reach its end of life next summer. With this news comes a strong recommendation to users of the outgoing edition to “Replatform” their ecommerce website on its succeeding edition, Magento 2. The process is effectively a rebuild project, as custom work on your site will need to be reproduced for the new store as opposed to just being migrated across. Although from the outset replatforming your ecommerce site may sound like a daunting prospect, the advantages and opportunities it presents can make this an extremely beneficial move for your organisation.

Magento 1 ‘end of life’ June 2020

If you are currently one of the hundreds of thousands of retailers globally using the Magento 1 platform, you will be affected by the announcement that it is set to reach its end of life in June 2020. Here’s what the announcement had to say about Magento Commerce 1:

““For Magento Commerce 1 (formerly known as Enterprise Edition): For Magento Commerce 1, we are providing software support through June 2020. Depending on your version, software support may include both quality fixes and security patches. Please review our Magento Software Lifecycle Policy to see how your version of Magento Commerce 1 is supported.””

What does ‘end of life’ mean?

Following June 2020 the entire Magento 1 platform will continue to function. However, support for the product by Magento will become very limited as their focus shifts to the new platform. Although this sounds less critical, it will inevitably introduce a number of issues for users.

What are the risks of staying on Magento 1?

The main risk relates to security. After June 2020, any M1 security vulnerabilities that are discovered are not expected to be addressed by the Magento team. This means that Magento 1 sites will become more susceptible to issues relating to:

• Hosting Software Deprecations.
• Lack of 2-Factor Authentication (2FA).
• Out of date extension market for Magento 1.
• Limited Support.
• Loss of PCI compliance.

What about moving to another platform?

Abandoning ship and moving to another ecommerce platform might seem like a straightforward solution, but it comes with its own set of challenges:

• Moving to another platform is a complex, time-consuming process.
• You risk losing site content as well as ranking and traffic.
• Internal links could be broken.
• Any cost saving may be negligible.
• Customisation may be limited.

Benefits of migrating to Magento 2

E-Commerce is one of the most rapidly evolving aspects of the online industry and Magento 1 has done an exceptional job of adapting to stay in sync with the changing habits of consumers and the needs of retailers. Put simply, Magento 2 is the product of the 12 years of industry experience, merchant feedback and global community input gained by the company in the process. The platform now boasts a foundation and functionality designed to support today’s requirements with the ability to build on this in the years ahead. Some of the key features include:

• Unmatched flexibility to enable enhanced shopping experiences.
• Enhanced SEO capabilities.
• B2B functionality.
• Accelerated response times.
• Optimised web pages.
• Superior database performance and high scalability.
• Enhanced admin panel with exceptional usability.
• Streamlined and shorter checkout process.
• Increased efficiency for backend operation.
• Content staging and preview environment.
• Improved security for better protection against hacking attacks.
• Simpler integration and better customisation capabilities.

Planning a migration

We recommend getting started as soon as possible to ensure your website is established on the new platform well ahead of Magento 1’s end of life. It makes sense, not only in order to minimise any risk of disruption, but also to take advantage of the numerous improvements in Magento 2 sooner.

Don’t get left behind

As one of Ireland's most experienced Magento agencies, we are excited about the opportunities the new Magento 2 platform looks set to create for our clients in the Ecommerce sector. Don’t get left behind with an out of date and vulnerable e-commerce engine. Contact us today to discuss your next move.