In recent years, Magento migration has gradually been considered an indispensable trend for Magento users. Probably no one doesn’t know about the tremendous benefits that Magento 2 brings for us, from more modern and eye-catching design (plenty of themes and templates), excellent performance (fast and stable), to great user experience (convenient checkout with multiple payment methods), and so on. However, the cost of Magento migrations might be a burden for small to medium e-commerce businesses. In the US, UK, it would take at least $15,000 to migrate Magento 1 to Magento 2 (for elementary projects). Understanding the financial difficulties of many Magento store owners, we made this special Magento migration plan, showing them how to migrate Magento 1 to 2 smoothly and effectively – within their limited budget. Let’s figure it out now!
Contents
First, Knowing Clearly About Magento 2 Migration Process
Before starting a Migration to Magento 2 project, the Magento store owners must fully understand the whole migration process, regardless of hiring external Magento migration services.
Many people misunderstand that moving from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is similar to updating Magento 1 versions (for example: from Magento 1.9.3.0 to 1.9.3.8). In fact, we need to build an absolutely new e-commerce website on Magento 2 based on what we have on Magento 1 store.
All of your existing Magento themes and extensions will be useless when moved to Magento 2 and replaced by the new (similar) ones. The things that can be migrated are your database assets and some custom code by using available toolkits of Magento.
Once the transfers of theme, extensions, data, and code are completed, we need to configure the new Magento 2 store (e.g., languages, email templates, shipping and payment methods,…). Finally, it’s compulsory to test your new store’s performance thoroughly to make sure that everything works as it should.
Overall, Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration is a complicated process, requiring strong technical expertise and experience to carry out. Otherwise, it can lead to some serious damages such as losing your customers and sale order information.
Second, Finding The Best Solutions For Each Step Of Magento 2 Migration
In the previous part, we have told you the overview of the Magento migration progress, including some facts as well as related issues. Actually, there are many ways to deal with these problems, but in this post, we only give some possible solutions for constrained budgets.
Magento 2 Theme Migration
As mentioned before, we can’t move the theme from Magento 1 to Magento 2 due to code conflicts. The most low-cost solution is finding a free theme for Magento 2 and applying it to the new store. There are various Magento 2 themes for free download here that you can take into consideration.
Another potential suggestion is buying a ready-to-use theme for Magento 2. By spending from $70-$150, you will have plenty of choices of more well-designed and well-coded Magento 2 templates compared to the free ones.
The reasons that we highly recommend using a ready-made Magento 2 theme are its cheap price, short time of implementation (including installation and small customization) – within 1-2 weeks, and low associated cost (to hire Magento developers).
On the other hand, some Magento stores choose website cloning (to create the same design as their Magento 1 website) or brand new website design creation (to achieve a unique design). Both of these methods would be time-consuming (at least 1 month to conduct), which significantly raises the cost paid for the Magento agency (The total cost = Magento developer’s hourly rate x Number of hours of the project).
From our experience, most of our clients, regardless of their business scales, prefer our recommended solution for theme migration. What about you? What will you do to migrate the theme in your Magento migration plan?
Magento 2 Extension Migration
A similar case happens to Magento extension migration when we have to discard all of the current modules and plugins. If your store is noticeably dependent on third-party integrations, it will definitely take a lot of effort, time, and money to acquire the new extensions for Magento 2.
On average, a high-quality Magento 2 module will cost more than $70, which means that if you have to buy 10 new plugins, you have to spend about $700. Moreover, you have to consider the fee of installation, configuration, and module conflict solving services ($50-100/extension).
In addition, not all Magento 1 modules have a version for Magento 2; in that case, you have to contact a Magento module developer to build a custom one for you, which almost comes at a high cost.
Here is our advice. First and foremost, you have to make a list of all extensions on your current site as well as update their status. Then, it’s important to evaluate and decide which ones are really necessary or unnecessary for your store.
In reality, we worked on many clients’ sites with more than 50 plugins, but just half of them are enabled and beneficial to website performance. At the same time, the remaining modules are disabled (without being removed) or hardly used. Besides, installing too many plugins might slow down your website’s speed and performance.
It’s also worth noting that there are some features that you must use the extensions to have on Magento 1 site, but they are Magento 2 defaults. Owing to that, you need to figure out Magento 2 functionality before looking for the plugins.
After “purifying” your list, it’s time to go shopping. Here, a useful tip is to buy the new Magento 2 extensions from just a few reputable providers. The reason is that you can get a discount if buy many modules from the same Magento developer.
The final advice regarding the extension migration is that the number of new modules should not go beyond 10.
Magento 2 Data Migration
When it comes to Magento data migration, many merchants think we need to migrate “everything” such as products, categories, ratings and reviews, testimonials, customers, wishlists, sale orders, reports, all CMS pages, blog content, banners, and so on.
Nevertheless, we think you should transfer only essential database assets, including products, customers, sale orders, several CMS pages, and the latest blog posts.
As a result, it would take less time and effort to conduct data migration as well as guarantee no data loss. In general, it takes 3 to 5 days to transfer data from Magento 1 to Magento 2, using the Magento Data Migration Toolkit.
Magento 2 Custom Module Migration
On the one hand, code migration should be easy since most Magento 1 code is compatible with Magento 2. However, from our experience, it’s a different story in reality. Therefore, you should restrain migrating code between the two platforms.
On the other hand, Magento 2 is a great platform for e-commerce businesses, providing a wide range of fundamental features to set up, run and manage a store effectively. For example, it offers useful tools for catalog management/ browsing, product browsing, order management, marketing and promotions, customer service management, analytics and reports, various payment methods, etc.
You have better learn to take advantage of all of those features rather than develop new custom ones.
Third, Selecting The Right Magento Migration Service
In a Magento migration plan, besides choosing the right theme and the right extensions, you have to choose the right partner who can offer quality but affordable Magento 2 migration services.
As we have mentioned, most of the Magento agencies in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, or other developed countries often charge very high prices for their Magento migration services.
If you can’t afford this rate, outsourcing your project to a reliable company in Asia might be a good idea. Actually, the number of Magento developers in Asian countries (e.g., Vietnam, Thailand, India, Singapore,…) is much greater than in the US, UK so you will have more choices. Moreover, they offer very competitive prices thanks to their cheap labor cost.
While you have to pay from $50-150/working hour to hire an agency in the UK, it takes you just a half or even less to have your Magento migration plan done by dedicated Magento developers in Vietnam.
The biggest barrier and concern when working with an offshore Magento development company is the different language. Nevertheless, most agencies nowadays have good English skills to communicate easily with their worldwide clients.
Tigren is one of the most prestigious Magento e-commerce development companies in Asia. With more than 9 years of experience in Magento, we are confident to give the best advice and help you upgrade to Magento 2 smoothly according to your amazing Magento migration plan. Contact us now to get a free and fast quotation for your migration project!
Finally, Making A Detailed Magento Migration Plan
Every wonderful upgrade project starts with a detailed and comprehensive Magento migration plan. If you take all of our advice in this post, you could be able to migrate to Magento effectively with a cost of less than $5,000.
This investment is precious since it would enhance your store design, performance, and especially your user experience and satisfaction. Wish your Magento migration plan success!
