Magento announced in 2018 the end of Magento 1.x maintenance for June 30, 2020. As such, all merchants using version 1 are advised to upgrade to the latest versions. The end of support date which is 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.
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 There are many risks associated with outdated and unsupported software.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 issues you might encounter.
There are many options regarding your e-commerce store. In fact, there are plenty of e-commerce solutions these days that allow you to quickly sell online. 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 maintenance will be effective on Magento 2. Magento 2 offers many advantages over version 1. Even though both versions have two completely different frameworks and probably a different layout, there are many features that you will not find on Magento 1.
Many companies or developers who work with Magento 1 felt that 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 advantages:
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, performance plays a crucial role in SEO.
Unlike Magento 1 which required a greater 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 checkout process of Magento 2 is quite simple compared to Magento 1. In fact, for Magento 1, unless getting an extension, users will have to go through six steps to complete a transaction. Whereas in Magento 2 there are only two steps. In other words, with Magento 2 you increase your chances of making more sales.
Magento 2 admin interface is more user friendly and well designed. So any non-technical user can easily understand and use it.
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.
The latest version of Magento 2 to start integrating the tool to generate the pages. This will allow you to create pages more easily and have the design configured to your liking without necessarily needing a developer.
There are many other features of Magento 2 that you can use to improve your sales; some are:
Some Magento 2 database tables are similar to those of Magento 1, but there are many changes to consider. Migrating then means moving your data from the other database to the new one, moving your theme (if you wish), your extension and other custom features. Here's what you need to do to migrate correctly:
For any website using a CMS, there are basic features and custom features. The basic functions are those which 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 now move on to the proper migration process.
Although Magento maintenance of Magento will no longer be available under Magento 1; Magento 2 can be a good alternative.
Shopify offers many benefits for growing quickly online. One of the great things about Shopify is that you don't need any technical skills to run your store. Also, Shopify's business model seems to suit a growing number of e-commerce owners. Below are some of the benefits of Shopify.
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.
Another feature you should look for in your e-commerce platform is how it aligns with your marketing strategies. Magento offers strong 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. When it comes to 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 when it comes to SEO, but gives you the essentials with the robots.txt and "sitemap.xml" files. It's more popular for its social media capabilities that let you sell directly on Facebook and create sellable pins on Pinterest. Built-in promotions include coupon and discount codes. You can also find other solutions for promotions in the app store.
Shopify software is useful for managing the inventory of your physical store as well as the online store. The e-commerce platform has capabilities to 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 as you wish. You can integrate multiple channels as well as online portals that you consider ideal for growing your business. There are several extensions available in the market 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.
Shopify provides 24/7 customer support and also offers dedicated and community support. It certainly has advantages over Magento, especially for small businesses that need constant support for updates and security patches. Magento, on the other hand, relies entirely on community support, so no service representative can answer your one-on-one questions. For any issues, you will need to post a question on the community forums or search for a previous answer to a similar question.
If you are a small business, your eCommerce store UI is a significant reflection of how you can manage 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. Magento, although flexible, is more complex, as there are many more functions integrated in the administration section. You can embark on this adventure if you have a larger product portfolio and the resources to manage the technical part.
It's easier to expand your store using one of the extensions than if you have 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.
WooCommerce is also another powerful eCommerce site powered by WordPress. As you probably know, WordPress is the most popular CMS for website. Below are some of the benefits of WooCommerce.
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. If you need help choosing the right tool for your business, you can contact us .
The end of maintenance of Magento 1.x 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 will best suit 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.x 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.
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