5 Reasons Why Many Merchants Don’t Want Magento Migrations

disadvantages of magento migrations

It goes without saying that more and more Magento e-commerce store owners are implementing Magento Migrations, especially when Magento 1 “end-of-life” day is coming close. In addition, the main motivation for moving from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is getting a more modern website design and stable performance, faster website speed, and a much better user experience.

However, there is a noticeable number of merchants who are still hesitating to upgrade to Magento 2. Why?

This blog post will tell you the five most common reasons why those owners decline Magento migrations. Let’s figure it out now!

The 1st Reason: Don’t Want To Change The Current Magento Theme

Magento theme migration can be considered the first barrier for Magento online stores in their Magento migration “journey”.

As you might know, it’s impossible to migrate the theme from Magento 1 to 2 but create a new design from scratch or build a new one based on the existing theme.

magento theme migration


To deal with that, most small Magento e-commerce businesses decided to buy and apply a ready-made Magento 2 template for their new websites to save time and money.

It takes just 1 week to install and make some minor customization to a ready-to-use theme while you have to spend at least 1 month to achieve a similar design for Magento 2.

However, going for the theme deployment option means that the owners will get a new storefront and accept some possible risks.

For example, the customers are too familiar with the old website design and feel less interested when it’s changed, even when it’s better. That’s the reason why many people want to stay with their current design and delay Magento migrations.

The medium and large Magento firms might choose other solutions for maintaining the existing design (such as cloning the Magento 1 website). Nevertheless, that option might require a generous budget.

The 2nd Reason: Meet Difficulties When Migrating Magento Extensions

Similar to Magento theme migration, we can’t continue using Magento 1 modules after moving them to Magento 2. As a result, the store owners have to buy similar ones for Magento 2, which might trigger some issues.

Firstly, if your Magento 1 store is highly dependent on external extensions (more than 15 plugins, for example), you have to spend a lot of money to acquire the new ones. Secondly, not all of the Magento 1 extensions have a version for Magento 2.

In that case, you cannot buy but develop a custom module. Thirdly, it takes quite a lot of time to install and configure all of the modules from the beginning and solve conflicts among those extensions.

Last but not least, you have to accept that all of your current Magento 1 extensions (from free to expensive cost) would become useless.

magento 2 extension migration


If you want to implement Magento migration, here is our advice for the extension migration phase:

  • Review all of the existing Magento extensions carefully to decide which ones are essential for your store.
  • Just buy the important ones for Magento 2
  • Purchase multiple extensions from a certain module provider to get possible discounts
  • Stay with Magento 2 default on the first migration process instead of installing many plugins
  • Hire reliable Magento developers to help you install and configure new Magento 2 extensions

The 3rd Reason: Afraid Of Losing Data During The Magento Migrations Process

Data migration is one of the most fundamental phases in the Magento 2 upgrade process. We need to migrate a lot of things from products, categories, sale orders, customers to blog and CMS pages content, testimonials, product rating and reviews, URL rewrites, and so on.

magento 2 data migration


If you don’t have enough knowledge and experience in Magento 2 data migration, it might lead to serious data loss. Let’s imagine what would happen if you lose all of the customer information.

In that situation, all of your registered buyers will become “first-time visit” customers and have to create a new account again. If you were a shopper, are you willing to do that?

Therefore, instead of finding a way to migrate data safely from Magento 1 to Magento 2, many stores say “no” to Magento migrations.

Nonetheless, you can absolutely avoid this threat by having Magento experts transfer the database assets to the new site.

Besides data loss, there are more possible risks from Magento migration that you might need to know.

The 4th Reason: Don’t Have Enough Time For Migration To Magento 2

In general, it would take from one to three months to migrate Magento 1 to 2, depending on your current site’s complexity and expectations for the new site.

migration to magento 2


For instance, if you pick a ready-made Magento 2 store with minor customization, migrate a few extensions and major database assets, don’t develop any custom functions, apply Magento 2 default shipping and payment methods, your Magento migration process might finish after 1 month.

If you carry out the migration yourself, you have to temporarily cease other work to put all time and effort into the upgrade. On the other hand, in case you use Magento migration services, you also need to spend quite a lot of time following and controlling the developers’ work.

Consequently, many owners are too busy with the sales and marketing activities of the stores and don’t have enough time to conduct Magento migrations.

The 5th Reason: Can’t Afford The Cost Of Magento Migration Services

More than 80% of Magento store owners cannot convert Magento 1 to Magento 2, so they have to find reliable Magento migration services. Notwithstanding, the cost of Magento migration is not reasonable for everyone.

In the US, UK, or Canada, many Magento development companies charge at least $15,000 for a simple Magento 2 migration project, not including the cost of buying new extensions and themes.

Additionally, the average hourly cost is relatively high, from $60 to $150. For many small to medium e-commerce businesses, this investment goes far beyond their limited budget.

magento migration cost


Magento migration could easily become a financial burden if you work with Magento agencies in developed countries like the US and UK. Why don’t you consider outsourcing your project to an Asian firm with a much lower cost?

For example, you can easily find many reputable Magento agencies with migration services in Vietnam, Thailand, or India that offer just $20-50 per working hour. Owing to that, your Magento 2 migration cost would be in the range of $2,000-10,000.

Apart from that, many people are concerned about the quality of offshore Magento developers, but they shouldn’t be. In fact, the number of Magento development companies and Magento certified developers in Asia is even greater than in the US, UK, Canada, etc…

Final Words

As we have mentioned, there are five common reasons why Magento e-commerce store owners dither about Magento migrations. In short, those reasons are related to the theme and extension migration, the threat of data loss, and the lack of time and money.

In this blog post, we also suggest some solutions to handle those difficulties. In final words, you should consider both pros and cons of Magento migrations to make the decision.

If you want to get more useful advice or a quotation for your Magento 2 migration project, be free to contact us.

magento migration services

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6 Magento Disadvantages Every Business Owner Should Know

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