5 Reasons to Migrate to Magento 2 (Yesterday!)

Yes.

Magento will be sunsetting in June 2020. Here’s Magento’s official statement.

For those of you without a calendar handy, that means you’ve got less than a year to migrate to Magento 2.

But why wait?

Magento 2 is – in every regard – is a huge improvement on its predecessor. Yes, migrating to the new platform will take some legwork. But if you do migrate to Magento 2, your eCommerce business will see some serious benefits.

Need convincing?

Let’s look at 5 reasons to migrate to Magento 2.

1. Magento 2 eCommerce Sites are 62% Cheaper to Use 

This statistic comes directly from Magento, from a study commissioned that the company commissioned from Stax, a global strategy consultancy. The study consisted of a broad sample size of eCommerce business owners who had migrated to Magento 2, both from Magento 1 and other platforms.

One of the key findings of this study was that Magento 2 eCommerce sites, on average, were 62% cheaper when it came to deploying new content, including landing pages and new product launches.

The intuitive, powerful tools included in Magento 2, such as the all-new Page Builder, make it easy for marketers and product merchandisers to manage, edit, update, and create content. Instead of relying on paid developers to create new content, non-technical users can easily do it – which, in turn, frees up technical resources to work on more important projects.

For this reason alone, it’s definitely worth migrating to Magento 2 – particularly if you are having issues with updating your content on an older Magento 1 installation. 

2. Save Up to 91% with the Magento 2 Extension Marketplace 

The Magento 2 Extension Marketplace is home to an enormous variety of different extensions which can be used to add new functionality to your eCommerce store – and more are added every day.

The value of this is hard to over-emphasize. If you are running on an older Magento 1 installation or running your own custom eCommerce website, you may be spending quite a bit of money on custom tools and extensions.

The same survey referenced above found that, on average, customers saved 91% when they purchased and implemented a Magento 2 extension. In other words, it would cost an average of $11,000 to develop an extension which could be purchased “out-of-the-box” for just $1,000 on the Magento Extension 

Plus, many extensions on the Marketplace are free – making the savings even greater. 

By using Magento 2 and the Magento Marketplace rather than developing custom extensions and functionality for your website, you could save thousands of dollars – get the same (or better) results. 

3. Magento 2 is on Average 30-50% Faster Than Magento 1

According to research done by dev.to, Magento 2 websites are between 30-50% faster, on average, than Magento 1 sites. Not only that, but a simplified checkout process has reduced average checkout times by up to 38%.

These numbers are both incredibly impressive – and incredibly important. Long page loading times and difficult, complex checkout processes are two of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment. 

The longer it takes for your customers to view a product and check out, the less likely they are to buy it. Thanks to advanced features like full-page caching and support for CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), as well as more intuitive checkout design, Magento 2 can help you boost your conversion rates, and minimize cart abandonment. 

4. Magento 2 Can Handle 117% More Orders Per Hour Than Magento 1

If you are running a large eCommerce website and are worried that your website could be swamped by huge order volumes – during the holidays or special sales, for example – Magento 2 is a great choice.

In testing of the Magento 2 platform, it was shown to be able to handle in excess of 250,000 orders per hour. A comparable site running Magento Enterprise 1.14 was able to handle only 114,000 – meaning Magento 2 offers hugely increased performance when it comes to order processing.

Sure, most eCommerce stores are not handling this type of order volume. But for those that do, Magento 2 is definitely the right platform – and for smaller companies, this high capacity and scalability means that there is plenty of room to grow. 

5. Magento 2 Increases AOV, Mobile Order Revenue, and Minimizes Downtime

Okay, this is technically three statistics – not one – but a recent presentation at Imagine 2019 showed the true power of Magento 2 compared to Magento 1, and we think it’s best to present these three statistics together.

You can check out the full slideshow here – but our biggest takeaway was that Magento 2 proved to increase Average Order Value (AOV) and boost mobile order revenue while minimizing downtime for businesses of all sizes

SMBs, defined as having a Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of less than $10 million, had an AOV increase of 1.4%, a mobile revenue boost of 69%, and a reduction of downtime by 99.9%.

Larger organizations, defined by a GMV of $10M+, also benefited. AOV increased by 4.7%, mobile revenue increased by 15%, and downtime was reduced by 89%, compared to Magento 1.

Bigger average orders mean customers are responding to the modern design of Magento 2, native mobile themes allow for simple shopping even from mobile devices, and the enhanced system architecture of Magento 2 means it’s far more reliable. These three statistics all add up to one thing – more sales!

Don’t Wait. Start to Migrate to Magento 2 Today. 

As you can see, there’s no reason to wait until 2020 to start migrating to Magento 2 from Magento 1. Yes, the process may be intimidating – but if you do make the switch, you’ll enjoy all of the benefits listed above, and many more.

Need help?

We’re Magento migration experts and we’d be happy to help you. For more information or to set up a consultation, contact us.

We hope to hear from you soon!