Facebook Pixel

The end of Magento 1 maintenance is scheduled for June 30, 2020. What other options do you have?

The end of Magento 1 maintenance is scheduled for June 30, 2020. What other options do you have?

Adobe announced that the end of Magento 1 maintenance is on June 30, 2020. As such, all merchants using version 1 are advised to upgrade to the latest versions. The end of the support date, scheduled for June 2020, is approaching. What are the different options available to you? How to ensure a safe transition? The purpose of this article is to review all the options available to you. We will also explain what end of life means and all the implications.

Does the end of Magento 1 maintenance mean your store will stop working?

The answer to this question is “No.” In technical terms, the end of maintenance for Magento 1. x means that the application will no longer receive support from the community. In other words, you will no longer receive any new temporary security solutions or other updates from June 30, 2020. There are many risks associated with outdated and unsupported software. Migrating to Magento 2 will help you with future issues. Many websites that are not supported experience various bugs and security issues. Here are some of the problems you might encounter.

  • First, the end of Magento maintenance means that you are facing a lot of security vulnerabilities. In other words, a hacker can easily hack into your website with little effort. Furthermore, you might be unable to use some third-party software any longer. For example, most payment gateways require current system specifications, which you can find on outdated versions.
  • Second, some features of your website will stop working. As you probably already know, for your website to work well, it must use third-party resources. Therefore, most of these third-party providers will cease to maintain their extensions or services. Your website or part of your site will eventually be deactivated.
  • Third, Google, or some search engines, could penalize you for using an insecure website. If search engines detect that your website is a gateway for hackers, they will reduce your traffic. As a result, you will lose some of your visitors.
  • Finally, you may lose all your investments and valuable data if hackers attack you.

What are the alternatives to Magento 1 if Magento maintenance ends?

There are many options regarding your e-commerce store. Plenty of e-commerce solutions these days allow you to sell online quickly. If you take the time to do some research, you’ll find some great tools that will perfectly suit your business purpose. Here are some suggestions based on our development skills and experience in the e-commerce market.

Magento 2

Option 1 – Migrate to Magento 2

Magento’s maintenance will be effective on Magento 2. Magento 2 offers many advantages over version 1. Even though both versions have two entirely different frameworks and probably a different layouts, there are many features you will not find on Magento 1.

The main advantage of Magento 2

Many companies or developers working with Magento 1 felt it required too much technical skill. Therefore, when comparing e-commerce platforms, they also rely on these factors. So, before you decide to move on to other e-commerce tools, take the time to learn about these advantages – Magento 2 is much better than Magento 1 in terms of maintenance; of which here are some of the benefits:

There is a marked performance improvement, and Magento 2 is 20% faster than Magento 1.

I had the opportunity to work on many Magento 1 websites, and the loading time and performance were very high. I was amazed at how fast Magento 2 was. For an e-commerce store, the version plays a crucial role in SEO.

It’s easier to integrate and develop.

Unlike Magento 1, which requires a more significant share of manual or backend manipulations, Magento 2 offers an easier way for developers. You can easily use a command line interface or configuration functions to install features while validating if they are Magento-compliant.

The simplified ordering process.

The checkout process of Magento 2 is essential compared to Magento 1. In fact, for Magento 1, users must go through six steps to complete a transaction unless they get an extension. Whereas in Magento 2, there are only two steps. In other words, with Magento 2, you increase your chances of making more sales.

The administration interface is more straightforward and User-friendly

The Magento 2 admin interface is more user-friendly and well-designed. So, any non-technical user can easily understand and use it.

Managing the mobile aspect is more accessible.

Magento 2, by default, comes with Bootstrap features that improve the responsiveness of your store. As you probably already know, over 70% of internet users browse on mobile devices and tablets. That’s why integrating mobile-friendly features into an e-commerce tool is one way to improve the responsiveness of your website.

There is Drag & Drop functionality.

The latest version of Magento 2 started integrating the tool to generate the pages. This allows you to create pages more efficiently and have the design configured to your liking without needing a developer.

Other features of Magento 2

There are many other features of Magento 2 that you can use to improve your sales; some are:

  • You can easily connect to marketplaces like Amazon, Google Shopping.
  • Other features can help automate some of your processes—for example, email marketing software or the abandonment of shopping cart automation.

What are the main changes from Magento 1 to Magento 2

Some Magento 2 database tables are similar to those of Magento 1, but many adaptations must be considered. Migrating means moving your data from the other database to the new one, your theme (if you wish), your extension and other custom features. Here’s what you need to do to migrate correctly:

Take an inventory of all the parts you need to relocate.

For any website using a CMS, there are basic features and custom features. The essential functions are provided with the software without additional extension. Custom features, you add them yourself to improve your store. Magento offers an easy way to move core functionality using the Data Migration Tool. As for your custom features, you can see them either with your third-party vendors or with your developers. If your custom feature providers have no equivalent in Magento 2, you can either create new ones, must search for similar features in Magento Marketplace. Once you’ve done that, you can move on to the proper migration process.

The migration process from Magento 1 to Magento 2

  • You are building a new store using Magento 2. A new store involves installing Magento on your server (if you are looking for the open-source version) or creating an account on the Magento Commerce platform.
  • Install the Data Migration Tool and begin migrating your core functionality. As mentioned above, the Data Migration Tool can only help you migrate the basic features of Magento.
  • Migrate your theme from Magento 1 to Magento 2 and adjust UI changes.
  • Update your data accordingly. Here you can learn more about Magento 2.
  • Update your custom features. Once the migration is complete, you must update your custom features with the equivalent in Magento 2. You can also add additional features in Magento 2 to take full advantage of the new version.

Although Magento maintenance of Magento will no longer be available under Magento 1, Magento 2 can be a suitable alternative.

Option 2 – Opt for Shopify

Shopify offers many benefits for increasing online. One of the great things about Shopify is that you don’t need any technical skills to run your store. Furthermore, Shopify’s business model seems to suit many e-commerce owners. Below are some benefits of Shopify.

  • Over 800,000 people around the world use Shopify for their e-commerce.
  • The average annual growth is more than 126%.
  • Over 427,676 websites use Shopify,
  • Five thousand four hundred businesses trust Shopify Plus.
  • Revenue for 2018 was $1.073 billion.
  • According to Shopify, they made over 1.5 billion sales during Black Friday 2018. In other words, customers earned up to $870,000 per minute.

Here are some differences between Magento and Shopify

Cost

The cost is an aspect that no company can ignore, especially in the beginning when you want to stabilize your business. Magento is based on an open-source platform so you can get the community edition for free. You must define your hosting and your domain name.

Marketing

Another feature you should look for in your e-commerce platform is how it aligns with your marketing strategies. Magento offers powerful SEO features with friendly URLs, site mapping, and Google Content API, but Magento does not give you built-in social media features. You can add applications to make your Magento site user-friendly. Regarding built-in promotion options, Magento wins with its countless features like up-selling, promotional pricing, flexible coupons, related products, free shipping, product bundling, and more. Shopify doesn’t offer much flexibility regarding SEO but gives you the essentials with the robots.txt and “sitemap.xml” files. It’s more famous for its social media capabilities that let you sell directly on Facebook and create sellable pins on Pinterest. Built-in promotions include coupons and discount codes. You can also find other solutions for upgrades in the app store.

Inventory

Shopify’s software helps manage the inventory of your physical store and the online store. The e-commerce platform can help you sell on major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. In addition, it also has a PoS (Point of Sale) solution for managing your in-store inventory. As a store owner, you can customize your Magento store. You can integrate multiple channels and online portals that you consider ideal for growing your business. Several extensions are available to help you customize your inventory database to your needs. The advantage of working with Magento is that it offers custom integrations. It’s useful when you’re looking to provide unique, personalized offers to your customers based on their purchase history.

Support

Shopify provides 24/7 customer support and also offers dedicated and community support. It offers advantages over Magento, especially for small businesses requiring constant support for updates and security patches. Conversely, Magento relies entirely on community support so that no service representative can answer your one-on-one questions. For any issues, post a question on the community forums or search for a previous answer to a similar question.

User interface

If you are a small business, your eCommerce store UI significantly reflects how you can run your store. If you are looking for a less complicated admin interface, Shopify is better for you. Daily functions like adding and editing products, managing categories, adding modules, etc., are easy to use in Shopify and can be done without much technical expertise. Although flexible, Magento is more complex, as many more functions are integrated into the administration section. You can embark on this adventure with a more extensive product portfolio and the resources to manage the technical part.

Third-party apps

Expanding your store using one of the extensions is more accessible than having a Shopify store. The Shopify app store works for you if you don’t need any additional integrations for your store, but it still falls far short of matching Magento in terms of the number of apps available and the variety of themes. Please read this article, Magento and Shopify, to learn more.

Option 3 – Switch to WooCommerce

WooCommerce is also another powerful eCommerce site powered by WordPress. As you probably know, WordPress is the most popular CMS for websites. Below are some benefits of WooCommerce.

  1. The specificity of WooCommerce is that it is an open-source platform whose code language is accessible to everyone. You may as well choose to subscribe to a monthly version. Thanks to its open sources, it offers an unlimited possibility of customization, which allows a significant margin of flexibility. You can use it to build your website according to your personality and aspirations. Customizing and using a Theme on WooCommerce is simple.
  2. Because WooCommerce uses the power of WordPress, it has a wide variety of themes for better web design.
  3. In addition, thanks to its integration with the structural systems of WordPress and its specificity to promote in-depth customization of your website, WooCommerce automatically improves your natural ranking on Google.

Other options to consider – are PrestaShop, BigCommerce, and OpenCart.

There are many other CMS that you can use for your online store. These include PrestaShop, BigCommerce and OpenCart. Note that each tool has its pros and cons. You can contact us if you need help choosing the right tool for your business.

Conclusion and final remarks

The end of maintenance of Magento 1 can have an impact on the progress of your online activities. To continue running your e-commerce business, you may need a robust tool that best suits your business purpose. Whatever your experience with Magento 1, you will certainly enjoy using Magento 2; however, if you want to switch to another software, you also have various tools at your disposal. The end of Magento 1 maintenance could lead many developers to lose interest in it. That said, many of your features will break down as other aspects of the site progress.

Gilblas Ngunte Possi

Gilblas Ngunte Possi

Founder and Full-Stack Developer at Prositeweb.

My proficiency with modern tools and a keen analytical sense regarding information technology enable me to provide superior guidance in the development and implementation of your web solutions.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Gilblas Ngunte Possi

Gilblas
Typically replies within an hour

Gilblas
Hi there👋

How can I help you?
1:40
Chat with Us