Magento 1 end-of-life is approaching fast and agencies and consultants across the ecommerce space have been encouraging retailers to replatform and migrate for the past few years now (including us!). But there are many retailers who still don’t fully understand the risks of remaining on Magento 1.
There are six key reasons why it is crucial for retailers to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2.
1. Server attacks, site attacks, spam attacks and payment hacks
The most important reason you need to migrate away from Magento 1 is the lack of security support from Magento. Your site will easily become targets for server attacks, site attacks, spam attacks and payment hacks.
Whilst this has clear consequences for customer trust and confidence, you may also fall into legal battles and lawsuits depending on how severe the attack has been.
2. Bugs, issues and slow performance with your technology partners
Many of the technology partners that we work with have told us they will no longer be supporting Magento 1 in 2020. If you remain on the outdated platform, there is a risk that you will also see bugs, issues and slow performance from the technology you’re using to power your ecommerce site.
Whether this is your payments gateway, personalisation platform or email marketing tool, you may need to migrate to Magento 2 in order to keep your wider tech stack up to date too.
3. Slow site load speeds
Many retailers on Magento 1 will already be experiencing slow site load speeds, in comparison to other retailers on newer platforms. Magento significantly improved this for Magento 2 and so all brands who haven’t migrated will have to manage issues with slow performance.
This will have a severe impact on conversion rate, with many customers leaving slow sites before purchase.
4. Decreases in SEO performance
Similarly, Magento 1 retailers will also be experiencing issues with their technical SEO strategy due to the outdated code infrastructure on the platform. Alongside an improved code architecture on Magento 2 comes an improved platform for SEO.
Magento 2 has a strong base for search, with SEO-friendly URLS, comprehensive meta tags and page information, image optimisation and more.
Retailers remaining on Magento 1 will be missing out on these improvements and may suffer decreases in search visibility and worse performance in SERPs.
5. Lack of innovation
Magento 2 is feature-rich with Page Builder, Business Intelligence, scheduled updates, merchandising and promotional tools, cloud technology, and an easier to use admin.
Magento 2 also has built-in integrations with key technologies including Adyen, Klarna, PayPal, Yotpo and more.
The truth is that retailers remaining on Magento 1 are at risk of not innovating at the same rate as their competitors and will fall behind. Customers will always be drawn towards retailers with excellent customer experiences and if you’re on Magento 1, you won’t be able to meet their high expectations.
6. Lack of agency support
Our final risk is that your agency may no longer support your Magento 1 site in 2020. A lot of experienced Magento agencies are either no longer supporting Magento 1 or have plans to stop support in 2020.
Every retailer needs a trusted and experienced ecommerce agency to help them grow, and you may no longer be able to work with your preferred Magento developer if you remain on Magento 1 past the end of support deadline.
Migrate now to Magento 2
We definitely recommend Magento 2 for retailers who are looking to focus on scalability and growth. The truth is that Magento 2 is a completely new, evolved ecommerce platform from Magento 1 and has solved many of the issues that retailers had with the old platform.
Most of the flaws, issues and complications from Magento 1 have been fixed and streamlined for Magento 2, with a host of improvements and additional features to help you grow faster (including many more we haven’t managed to feature here).
Fancy a Magento 2 demo?
Contact us here and we can arrange a time to walk you through Magento 2 and discuss your requirements for a migration project.
