Is Your Magento Website Upgradable to 2.X?

Currently, there are tons of E-commerce stores which run on Magento 1.x with huge success and for them, upgrading is not a very pressing matter but a great opportunity still you might be wondering: is my website upgradable to 2.x?

As a matter of fact, there are among 250000 merchants who are actively using Magento and more than half of the merchants are still using 1.9 as their daily eCommerce store driver.

An upgrade to 2.x is virtually a rebuild of your existing store that involves the migration of following components to 2.x:

• Current theme
• Current Extensions
• Custom functionality
• Products
• Orders

Clearly upgradation is not like click and done process. It requires a lot of planning and you have to think about every component in detail you might be used to so far and hence, it involves a lot more time and investment.

If your current version does not support Magento’s latest version then the entire website will begin from the scratch.

Should you go for Magento 1 to Magento 2 upgrade?

Soon Magento 1.x support services will end in 2018 doing so it’s the perfect time for you to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2. Magento 2 is better than its previous versions as it ensures better performance, features and improved customer experience.

You should already start planning, however, if you’re thinking long term.

We recommend updating urgently if:

• your current e-commerce store has performance issues,
• you’re planning to start a new e-commerce business,
• you’re planning to implement bigger modifications,
• your current system is running smoothly but on an outdated version.

There are a lot of new features offered in Magento 2 as compared to previous versions:

• Significantly improved scalability.
• An HTML5 and CSS3 preprocessor.
• Better database performance.
• Built-in functionality to compress images.
• A complete redesign that makes it fast, secure and much more user-friendly
• A user-friendly setup to install upgrades
• 20% faster than Magento 1.x versions
• Improved caching with inbuilt full page cache and support
• Improved UI and UX
• Better security since Magento 2 supports steps to deal with server validation
• Allows developers to set up an automated test easily

In Nutshell…

In a long run, Magento 2 ensures stability, because one way or another, Magento 1.x versions will soon start to become dangerously outdated in coming years, due to the lack of official support, security patches, and updates.

Our advice to all the E-commerce store owners and for those who will soon start their own venture is that now is the time to begin with planning the migration by preparing a list of extensions, features and choose the theme that you would want in your new site to be, even if you are not opting for migration right away. If you will prepare migration well in time then this would also give you the time to explore the possibilities for your store prior to and post the upgrade to Magento 2. This would at least help you plan ahead so that you are ready for the big shift in the near future.

You will require a lot of development, thus, if your budget allows it then upgrading to Magento 2 is a must in the long run as Magento 2 versions are going to be the prominent ones for the upcoming 7-8 years.