Upgrade to Magento 2 | Questions and Solutions about the Magento 2 Upgrade

With the announcement on Magento 1 end of support by June 2020, users of Magento 1 are eager to know more about the Magento upgrade process. The curiosity is driven by many questions regarding the upgrade and we try to answer some of them here.

Some common questions our E-commerce consultants face these days are,

• What are the key features offered in Magento 2.X that are different from Magento 1.X?
• How seamless is the Magento upgrade process?
• And finally, is moving to Magento 2.0 worth all the effort?
• What if I own a website in an older version which is not supported by Magento?

Key Highlights of Magento 2.0 features:

Full page caching:

How valuable is your customer’s time to you? Well, Magento certainly values the end user’s time. Introducing full page caching has improved the page rendering speed drastically. Respect your customer’s time and you will be rewarded with a greater number of visits.

Optimized performance

Some high traffic Magento websites faced problems with load time transaction processing. With Magento 2.0, the processing time has been cut down with an improved table locking feature. 

Smoother Checkout process

By smoother, we really mean it! Magento was always well known for its streamlined checkout process. So, what’s new? Magento 2 has an overall improved checkout process to yield better customer experience. Magento 2 also comes with an all new improved process for guest checkout. You get to save your personal information even when you check out as a guest. 

How seamless is the Magento upgrade process?

The upgrade from 1.X to 2.X is not as straightforward as one might expect it to be and so it does take a Magento expert to make a smooth transition to 2.X.  

Magento 2 comes with a brand-new code base, a totally new architecture, and an all-new framework. With the new version, Magento has made getting future upgrades a lot easier and simpler too. The new code base is lean and has a more modern architecture which would cut back on those website maintenance costs. 

The new code base is lean and has a modern, modular architecture and hence the cost and complexity of maintaining the site will also be significantly reduced.

Finally, is it worth upgrading to Magento 2.0 at this moment?

Considering all the benefits of 2.0, a lot of B2B and B2C E-commerce website owners might be looking to upgrade right away but we would suggest not to jump on the bandwagon in a hurry especially if your website is on 1.8 or later. 

Schedule a consultation with an expert and get a complete audit of your website to plan your website upgrade. Get them to list all the extensions in your site and look for compatible extensions in the 2.X version. Do a similar check on your third-party software integrations with your website. You can take this as an opportunity to rework some of the functionalities, your content/messaging strategy to reap maximum benefits out of the upgrade.

What if I own a website in an older version which is not supported by Magento?

Well if all you have is a simple Magento store without much customization, we would recommend that you consult with a Magento expert to rebuild the website on the latest 2.X version. You would really benefit from the security, performance and other features.

With just a year remaining before you run out of official support, and complex integrations or functionalities might extend your upgrade timelines, hence we suggest you start ASAP. This will also help you with a cooling period in your latest version before June 2020.

If you are looking for a Magento upgrade consultation, we can help you! Reach us out here or give us a call