Why Upgrade to Magento 2?
Since being launched in 2008, Magento has built an enviable reputation as the most powerful and flexible eCommerce solution on the market, offering a compelling mix of developer-friendly features and unrivalled scalability.
In 2015, Magento 2 brought significant improvements to speed, stability and usability over its predecessor, as well as introducing a whole host of powerful new features. The latest version (Magento 2.3.3) has recently been released to the market and delivers further enhancements to security and performance.
Despite this, many stores are still running on Magento 1.x, which is now nearing end of life in June 2020. With the withdrawal of official support and updates coming in a matter of months, now is the time to make the switch to Magento 2.
Why Upgrade to Magento 2?
Making the switch from Magento 1 to Magento 2 can seem somewhat daunting. It is, after all, a significant upgrade and requires some careful planning to ensure a smooth transition.
With this in mind, you might be wondering why you can’t just stay on Magento 1.x. After all, your store still seems to be running just fine, so where’s the problem?
Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as simple as that. With no new updates or patches coming after June 2020, staying on Magento 1 may soon leave your site vulnerable to new security threats, and there is also a severe question mark over long-term stability.
Aside from that, making the transition to Magento 2 is important for your business. In an increasingly competitive eCommerce market, it has never been more important to ensure your site delivers the speed, responsiveness and user experience demanded by today’s consumers. Magento 2 can help you do just that, while also making it much easier to manage your store on the backend.
Security and stability
Security is of critical importance to any eCommerce store. At the end of the day, customers are trusting you with their sensitive personal and financial information, meaning you need to be doing everything you can to protect this data and ensure your site is as secure as possible. Imagine the damage a data breach would do to your reputation, let alone the potential fines and other compliance issues!
Always running the very latest version of Magento is the only way to get the latest security patches and keep your store as secure and stable as possible. You only have to glance at the news to gain an idea of the importance of protecting your online presence against hacking and cyber-attacks, so don’t risk becoming the next victim by having an out-of-date site.
What’s more, Magento 2 itself is inherently more secure than the previous version. For one thing, it runs on PHP 7.2, making it less vulnerable to server-side attacks.
Better performance
When it comes to eCommerce, speed matters. Multiple studies have shown that even a modest increase in page loading times can boost conversion rates by as much as 13%, and it’s also important for ranking higher in Google.
One of the biggest improvements in Magento 2 over its predecessor is faster performance. Thanks to full-page caching and minified code, Magento 2 is said to be around 20% faster than Magento 1, which translates to significantly faster loading times. This is great news for both your users and your bottom line!
Improved checkout process
It’s no secret that cart abandonment is a huge problem across the eCommerce industry, with the average store losing as many as 75% of all sales during the checkout stage. If you want to minimise cart abandonment, upgrading to Magento 2 should be a priority for your business as it brings many improvements that will help ensure more orders are actually completed.
Magento 2 delivers a totally reworked checkout process, with far fewer clicks required to make a purchase and a useful guest checkout feature as standard. Magento 2 also introduces the option of setting dynamic shipping rates, improved payment method integration, and a useful order summary that is presented at the end of the checkout process. All these things provide a vastly superior user experience and should help to bring down cart abandonment rates.
Easier admin and maintenance
As well as front-end improvements, Magento 2 also offers many new features that help to make daily administration of your store both simpler and more intuitive.
To begin with, the admin dashboard has been completely reworked and is now mobile responsive, making tasks like updating products and monitoring orders easy from any device. There have also been significant enhancements to help streamline common admin tasks, including improved filters and views, customisable data grids, and easier product creation. With Magento 2, your workflow will be quicker than ever.
Upgrading to Magento 2
In short, upgrading to Magento 2 is a logical decision for any serious eCommerce business. The security of receiving ongoing updates and official support is reason enough alone to make the upgrade, but they aren’t the only reasons. Ultimately, Magento 2 is a far superior platform that is truly fit to power the eCommerce world in 2020 and beyond.
Ready to make the upgrade? As certified Magento experts, we can help you make a seamless transition to Magento 2 for a cost-effective price. Get in touch to find out more.