Magento 2 Migration: Top 7 Most Common Challenges to Consider

By the time this article gets published, we will all say official goodbyes to Magento 1. They were 12 beautiful years for many, who have built their businesses on this CMS. But what will happen after June 30, 2020? With more than 250,000 live Magento stores and only 11,000 of them on Magento 2 (according to Creative Minds), we enter the era of migration.

This article will be helpful for those who have already weighed all pros and contras of moving to Magento 2 and wish to focus on the most challenging and common issues of migration. Let’s dig deeper.

What are the Basic Challenges of Migration to Magento 2?

It’s no news that transferring a site to Magento 2 takes at least 3-6 months. It’s the process of multiple steps before and after the commercial launch. The way might be thorny if you do not consider all the challenges in advance. The most common ones include as follows:

Architecture 

Since the launch of Magento 1 in 2008, PHP has undergone significant changes in the language it’s built on. They include two major releases, new libraries, and technologies. All this replaced what Magento 1 has been using.

Magento 2 is nothing like its older sibling and is justly considered an absolutely different CMS as Magento 1 code was refactored unrecognizably.

More Learning

Amid the otherness of Magento 2, a new learning curve for store admins will be a must. It will also take time to get used to the new workspace.

Objectively, Magento 2 is known to be much more user-friendly and intuitive. But like store administration on any unknown to a user CMS, in the beginning, habitual processes will take longer than you are used to.

Compatibility

Often, the default functionality of a CMS is not enough to achieve business-specific needs. You would need an extension to deploy the functionality fast, easy, and often more inexpensively than developing such functionality from scratch. Many development companies opt for a ready-made solution from a trusted vendor to speed up the migration process and achieve the desired functionality.

Here, we see another complication. A Magento 1 extension you used to use won’t operate on Magento 2. Due to the difference in the architecture of the platforms, you will have to purchase an analogous Magento 2 extension or switch to a different one. This brings more complications:

• extra expenses (though many third-party solution vendors offer a discount for their Magento 1 extension buyers),
• compatibility issues, i.e., extensions from multiple vendors can be incompatible with one another. It leads to more testing, debugging, emailing, etc. The more extensions you are using, the more compatibility conflicts might appear.
• data transfer. While Magento 1 allows you to export any critical data, not all Magento 2 extensions have the functionality to let you import the necessary data as smoothly.

Distinguishably, MageWorx, one of the pioneers in Magento extensions development, has added ‘migration’ possibilities to their top solutions. The primary goal was to facilitate the lives of those who’ve decided to go ahead with the site migration. The company understands the challenges of data migration perfectly. With this regard and the desire to alleviate the complicated process, their solutions allow you to transfer from Magento 1 to Magento:

• shipping data,
• custom product options,
• prices-related data,
• gift card codes,
• reward points,
• locations (if you’ve got the ‘Buy online, pick-up in-store’ functionality enabled), and more. 

Thus, you not only get extra functionalities for your new e-store but a chance to conveniently transfer the critical data.

Selecting a Migration Team

As previously noted, Magento 1 and Magento 2 are two different platforms. It follows that no matter how experienced your Magento 1 developer is, they will have to learn to code on Magento 2 from scratch.

That’s where in-depth research of the reliable and experienced migration team would be required. Desirably, there must be both officially certified Magento 1 and Magento 2 developers in the migration team (or two-in-one experts). The full understanding of the differences and how the two platforms operate will help them perform the migration smoothly with the minimal aftereffects.

Performance

It is the #1 challenge multiple vendors face right after the migration. Slow admin areas, poor on-site search, unoptimized cache setup, etc. are some of the examples. An experienced migration team that knows how to improve Magento 2 performance will easily deal with it. Taking that no unexpected expenses on 3rd-party extension are required to make the necessary improvements, it’s just the question of dealing with the experts in the niche.

SEO

SEO is no less a significant challenge. It must be taken seriously during all the stages of a site’s migration. It will ensure your e-store does not lose positions in the SERPs drastically or even climbs higher.

Make sure to run a sprint planning meeting and have your SEO department and the dev collaborate on the following questions:

• URLs change that leads to a loss in page rank,
• no redirects to the new pages,
• localization issues,
• duplicate content,
• multi-store SEO issues.

Security

Magento 2 is famous for being one of the most secure CMS on the market. It is probably the main reason why merchants choose this platform as an alternative to Magento 1.

Whereas Magento 2 is secure by itself, the primary threat for the platform is low-quality 3rd-party extensions. Unfortunately, we see new unofficial marketplaces appear on the web consistently. They illegally offer out-dated extension versions/extension clones that might have had code changes and could potentially harm your brand-new e-store.

Consequently, it’s highly recommended to purchase Magento 2 modules from vendors with a proven history in software development. Do your research in advance, i.e.,

• learn more about a company,
• study the reviews, 
• explore their presence on Magento Marketplace (to have an extension published there, it must pass multiple review phases―malware checks, varnish tests, Magento 2 versions compatibility checks, etc.),
• consult the changelog to see how often a selected extension gets updates and bug fixes,
• reach out to the support team to understand their responsiveness,
• study the return, support, and updates policies.

It will help protect your eCommerce store from any security issues outside the Magento 2 core.

Final Thoughts

No official Magento 1 support, no new security patches, and no updates for 3rd-party integrations (except for security ones that given vendors offer) are just some of the reasons why migration from Magento 1 is inevitable. 

We did our best to highlight the most critical challenges you must consider when embarking on the path of migration to Magento 2. These challenges can differ depending on a project. Nevertheless, the game is certainly worth the candle considering all the advantages of moving to the more advanced CMS.

About the author

Ellie Yantsan is the Marketing Executive at MageWorx, Magento, and Shopify solutions development company. Valuable content has always been her weakness, either reading, and sharing, or producing such content on her own. Ellie is always happy to receive comments on her articles as ‘feedback makes perfect.’